Interview with Suchit Jain, Vice President of Analysis Products
I caught Suchit Jain in the press room at SolidWorks World long enough to throw a few questions at him. Suchit has been working with the COSMOSWorks product line for 12 years, and now works out of the SolidWorks office in Santa Monica, California.
Q. Where do you see the integration between COSMOSWorks and SolidWorks headed?
A. Our goal is to make analysis just like any other feature in SolidWorks. There are lots of facets to that integration, including user interface and philosophy. Whenever we add an analysis feature to SolidWorks, it has to be simple, totally seamless. If there are 10 things we want to add and it gets too complex, we’ll add nine.
The high level goal is to get more people to use analysis. When we started with the integration in 1995, only 2-3 percent of CAD users were using any type of analysis product. Now it’s up to 20 percent. Very few people were using analysis 12 years ago, so how were they making their designs? Some of them were doing hand calculation, some physical testing, which took a long time, and some weren’t doing anything. One benefit of integrated analysis is that it allows the designer to test his intuition.
Q. Why add COSMOSMotion to Office Premium?
A. When we offered Premium last year with COSMOSWorks Designer included, we wanted to make a new technology more available by lowering the cost of adoption. Now a lot of engineers are using analysis who otherwise would not. Motion is applicable across all industries. But if we sold it at $6,000, some aren’t willing to spend the money to see the benefits. Now more designers get a chance to try it, and understand its usefulness.
We feel that the design industry is on the cusp of mainstream design validation, but there are always barriers to adoption. COSMOSXpress is one feature that has helped us bring analysis to more people. And with our education package, we are helping young designers to accept analysis as just another part of the design process.
Q. Why are designers resistant to using analysis?
A. Because the designers and analysts were two groups. Analyst were the PhD experts and the designers thought it was not their job and that they were not qualified. Analysis was thought of as a rocket science. And that notion has carried over even though designers do have access to analysis today. Changing the behavior of people is one of the hardest things. At the end of the day, things are driven by market pressures. Some years back people had the luxury of designing products with extra material. Today costs are getting higher, the market is more competitive, and people need ways to cut costs.
Regards,
Amy Castor