Drawings Rountable and Product Specialist Interview
Post by Chris McAndrew, official Internet Correspondent of Solidworks 2010. All content cross posted at https://www.3dEngr.com
First up on the schedule at SolidWorks World is a Round table
discussion titled “Magic Drawings”. These round tables were just recently
described to me by Jeff Mirisola (of Jeff ‘s Toolshed) as “A bunch of power
users sitting around bashing the product”.
Now this may be the case but when I heard that I just couldn’t help but
think, squeaky wheel. The sessions are held in one of the ballrooms at the
Marriott and are setup to accommodate about 20-25 folks and we’ve got about a
quarter of the seats filled.
Put on by two SolidWorks employees Marc Leizza and Melissa
Appel the session is used to gather information on what users need and where
industry is going. Mark led off with the question “ If you had a magic wand,
what would be the ultimate way to create a drawing. Would you even create a
drawing. SolidWorks aside, what is your ideal case?” Nothing like being open
ended to drive innovation.
One attendee wants to eliminate the time spent making a
drawing, adhering to standards and generally wasting time doing repetitive tasks.
“Let me just design the product. I want
it to automatically create drawings, I hate detailing, drawings are required but it’s a waste of my
time.” An hour later in the round table the
same user also commented that when doing these tedious tasks he routinely
catches mistakes or issues that require further clarification. It is this dichotomy that allows me to give the benefit of the doubt to software providers
when things inevitably do not work the way I expect or wish.
The discussion was lively with Marc driving by adding a few
questions. Can you go paperless, WOULD you go paperless. What can be done to
make drawing creation easier. The attendees generally seem knowledgeable and
all clearly have used the software for some time. Of course a few comments were
greeted with chuckles and admissions of using outdated (read 2008) software but
generally refereed to big picture items rather than nit picky bugs and errors in
the current builds.
The consensus here is that drawings are outdated but
required. They are required for certain situations where QA is required or a
computer can not go. I’m 24, my solution to everything is put it on a computer
screen. This is why I am *almost* for
the iPad, I think it will make a tablet more ubiquitous. It is a marriage of
the old school, which still dominates much of the manufacturing world, and the
new school (my group that says “Just give them a screen”). With CNC, rapid prototyping and 3D going
everywhere I no longer buy into the paper as king. Paper is too static. Paper
is a fire, one temperature hope it is the right temperature and I’ll guess at
the time. Screens, be it tablet or not, are ovens or maybe even microwaves.
Sure the learning curve is a little bit steeper but the result is a better
product. Now with this analogy of course there are still things that are better
over an open flame and it is not going away. A tablet allows a way to give
paper power. Forget a section view, let whoever is holding the paper create it.
Production floor confused about final geometry, let them spin the drawing iso
view around and zoom in.
So what is in store for drawings? Will SolidWorks one day
include a do my job button. Maybe some AI will allow it to see what is
happening day in and day out and learn how to do it alone. Roll into work in
the morning and have all the drawings for that day on the screen. Dimensioning
out of the way, GD&T standards all followed, coffee piping hot.
After listening to input on what the ideal software would be
like Marc and Melissa wrapped up by giving out some contact info and requesting
everyone to let them know directly if they had other issues. Then I got a chance
to sit down with Marc for a few moments and ask him about the session and his
time. For a man who spent all day Saturday helping aplha testers, is running 3
round tables today, and has a host of meetings on his schedule he seemed
generally happy to give me a minute of his time.