Connection Benefits of Cloud

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The fast paced nature of product design and engineering means that decisions and feedback need to be made promptly or the project grinds to a halt, resulting in increasing cost and delays in your product launch. A healthy product development process generates many Innovative ideas, but this means that the decision on which ones to move forward with for concept development need to be made quickly with feedback from all product  stakeholders inside and outside of your company.

Accelerating product development is something with which many companies struggle, particularly the time it takes to involve the right people in a decision or gain feedback from a wide array of people. This is not just an issue for globally distributed teams. In most businesses I have visited, there is always a somewhat distributed team with sales being on the road, employees working from home, workers at another satellite office and then there is more than often a need to get feedback from customers. Getting all of these people in the same room at the same time to discuss a new design idea is a herculean task in itself, which means this crucial task is usually left to email, causing delays that seriously affect productivity and time to market. There must be a better way.

The SOLIDWORKS 3DEXPERIENCE Solutions offer cloud-enabled collaboration tools that support the different workflows during product development.   SOLIDWORKS 3DEXPERIENCE Solutions can bring your team together no matter how dispersed they are, streamlining design exploration, speeding up decision making and enabling you to create more innovative designs by removing common barriers to collaborative design and keeping your team connected.

Connecting…Designer to data

As a designer you need to be connected to your data. In a typical situation, design files are kept on a local machine or central server to give access to multiple users at the same time. If you are out of the office and disconnected from the server, it becomes more difficult to access design data, and almost impossible to access live designs that are currently being worked on. This can result in wasted time, design errors and, in some cases, missed opportunities and sales.

SOLIDWORKS 3DEXPERIENCE products are cloud-enabled, saving all data to the cloud. The cloud becomes the centralized area for all design data to be stored and accessed, giving all users who are invited to collaborate access directly to the live design data. Automated saving, locking provides transparent data management, ensuring that your data is always safe and any design is accessible whenever you need it from wherever you are.

Designer to designer

When multiple designers are working on the same design or components that are related, it is vital that they are kept up to date with what the other user is doing. SOLIDWORKS

3DEXPERIENCE Products provide multiple tools and workflows to ensure that all designers are up to date and always working on the latest designs and aware of what the other users are working on.

Cloud data storage – Saving data on the cloud ensures that all users who have permission to access these files always see the latest designs. At a more basic level, the ability to move from one device to another and be able to see your data saves time and gives confidence that your design is always available.

3D Instant Messaging – Directly connecting designers together through instant messaging, model snapshots, on-screen annotations and co-review. 3D Instant Messaging allows users to chat about a design and visually share design models or give feedback on designs though annotations.

Update Session – If two or more users have the same model open or are working on assemblies with shared components, automated locking and update color coding ensure work is never overwritten and all users are kept up to date with any real-time changes that are being made.

Social Collaboration – With dispersed teams working together on projects, social collaboration tools enable all users to post, review and feedback on new ideas, designs and conversations that are happening throughout the design process.Time waiting for feedback is dramatically reduced as all users can access the information they need at anytime, anywhere.

Designer to extended team or customer

Unlimited communities let you engage with management, customers, suppliers, or any other stakeholders early in the product development process, helping you converge to the final design faster. A designer can invite their customer to a community and share design ideas and possible concepts, and from any device the customer can access the community, provide feedback and ask questions direct to the designer, improving customer relationships and optimizing the product development process. This relationship can be used as a competitive advantage when trying to win business and help your customers design better products.

Learn how actual customers such as Karl Schmidt & Associates are using SOLIDWORKS cloud-based solutions to shorten their design time by watching this recorded webinar: Exploring the Benefits of Cloud-Based CAD.

Convinced, but still worried about transitioning to the cloud? Read this whitepaper from the analyst firm IDC to get a breakdown of why cloud-based software should not be your company’s concern.

Justin Burton

Justin Burton

SOLIDWORKS Senior Product Portfolio Manager