CATI Technotes

Strategy 5: Focus on continuous quality improvement

Strategy 6: Leverage design data throughout the enterprise

Strategy 9: Communicate effectively with business personnel

Strategy 10: Demonstrate product development contributions

Download the Whitepaper - Ten Strategies for Becoming an Effective CAD Leader

*This article is an excerpt from the "Ten Strategies for Becoming an Effective CAD Leader White Paper", published by DS SolidWorks Corp.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

The Sophistication of the Manufacturing Technology Consumer

Now that we are well into 2013 and 2012 is behind us it is always useful to look at what has changed(evolved) over time and what is still the same.

As a technology provider to engineering and manufacturing organizations, we have seen a number of changes, to say the least, in our 20-plus years of operations. I like bullet points because I have a really short attention span so I will use those.

First, what has not changed in terms of what our clients expect:

High level of rapid response to support issues

An expectation that we are providing only the best solutions -That the solutions
actually work

So nothing very surprising in those elements. Now lets take a look at a top-level view of some things that have evolved.

Instead of throwing additional personnel at problems, companies are increasingly looking at maximizing their output via better processes or technologies

Clients are now competing globally in more and more situations -Differentiation is even more key than before. The ability to differentiate via technology solutions is very broad. From offering interactive 3d content for assembly manuals to proof of concept 3d models can be huge.

Instead of in-house resources, companies are using external,flexible partner personnel to complement their own teams

The availability of powerful yet mainstream tools allows every aspect of product
development to be streamlined for a wider range or organizations

Because of these trends, as a partner it is no longer acceptable to have generalists to support all technologies. A number of years ago, we decided to invest heavily in specialized resources and continue to do so. The manufacturing consumer will only continue to raise their expectations and level of sophistication as times goes on.

Rich Werneth
Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Ten Strategies for Becoming an Effective CAD Leader - Part 10

Strategy 10: Demonstrate product development contributions

Perhaps the most critical strategy for becoming an effective
CAD leader is to find ways to demonstrate the value of the contributions that
your product development team makes to your entire enterprise. By showing
management how your team’s performance contributes to your company’s bottom
line, you will be able to secure and maintain the support that you and your
group needs to grow, improve, and innovate.

As stated previously, capturing, documenting, and
communicating the productivity gains within your group—such as time savings
(shorter time-to-market), cost reductions, and quality improvements (reduced
returns/warranty claims)—is one way to communicate your design team’s
performance in business terms. In addition to tracking productivity internally,
you can take advantage of vendor-sponsored case studies and other publicity
opportunities to further promote your team’s success.

You can also establish how your team’s innovations impact
sales and revenue. Take a look at your sales numbers. Is there a new product,
product accessory, or product adaptation that is generating a sizable increase
in sales? Much of that growth is attributable to the hard work, efficiency, and
talent of your team. As an effective CAD leader, you should take advantage of
every opportunity to promote the combined results of your leadership and the
efforts of your design team in practical, business terms.

Product development represents the very genesis of your
company. Without innovative, reliable, and exciting products to manufacture,
market, and sell, your company wouldn’t even be in business. You work hard to
develop successful products—from initial R&D through commercialization and
production. As a CAD leader, you should not be shy or reserved about letting
others know about your accomplishments, particularly when you communicate them
in pragmatic terms that they can understand.

*This article is an excerpt from the "Ten Strategies for Becoming an Effective CAD Leader White Paper", published by DS SolidWorks Corp.

Monday, February 18, 2013

DriveWorks World 2013

DriveWorks World 2013 will be held at the Marriott Chicago O’Hare hotel. It will introduce you to the latest DriveWorks software release - DriveWorks 10 and include instructor-led training sessions on DriveWorks Solo and DriveWorks Pro.

Date and Registration:
March 4-8, 2013
>>Registration and Agenda Link

All attendees will have the opportunity to attain their DriveWorks Certifications.

Reasons to attend

Find out What's New in DriveWorks 10

Influence future releases

Network with other DriveWorks Users

Gain Tips and Tricks from the DriveWorks Team
(Developers, Technical Experts and Owners)

Become a DriveWorks Solo and/or DriveWorks Pro Certified Professional

DriveWorks World is for all DriveWorks Value Added Resellers and Customers with a valid Subscription Support contract. For more information, just log into:

The DriveWorks Reseller Community

The DriveWorks User Community

Check out these posts to see the great feedback from our last training and certification event held in June: DriveWorks World 2012

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Loss of SolidWorks' Functionality

Every so often I get a support call because a SolidWorks user is experiencing a loss of functionality. This behavior is mostly attributed to being in a mode that doesn't support those functions. For example a feature that was released in 2012 was the ability to create an exploded view in a multibody part file. However, when you are looking at the part exploded you can't edit sketches or create new features. To turn off an exploded view in this situation access the Configuration tab above the feature tree.

On the configuration tab you will see a line item underneath your configuration labeled ExplView1. Double click this to turn off exploded view and regain control of adding features and editing sketches.

Another example that is similar to this is adding a revision table or views to a drawing. If these options are grayed out you are most likely editing the sheet format. If you exit the sheet format you will regain the functionality you have lost. Look for the arrow in the upper right hand corner of the drawing to accept the sheet format. Another way to tell you are in this mode is you won't have any drawing views.

Thanks,

Jordan Nardick, CSWE
Technical Analyst
CATI

Thursday, February 14, 2013

How to Replace and Resequence Balloons in SolidWorks

A lot of projects will go through revisions. When revisions occur, it can be a task to change out balloons in drawings. In 2013, SolidWorks added a couple of buttons to make this easier.

When you add more components to your assembly, the drawing usually updates to show the new parts. You can use the Balloon feature to add more ballons. This will create them out of order. If you right click on the drawing view and go to Auto Balloon, you will get the window as shown above. The Resequence Existing Balloons button will rearrange the new balloons that you created in clockwise order.
This is great but it still requires you to create the balloons manually.

The next two pictures show the Replace Balloons option. This creates the new balloons automatically. Then you can use Order Sequentially to reorder the balloons appropriately.

Ketul

Ten Strategies for Becoming an Effective CAD Leader - Part 9

Strategy 9: Communicate effectively with business personnel

3D CAD technology represents a quantum leap in your ability
to communicate design information with important audiences outside of product
development. Extrapolating what an actual 3D physical product will look like
from a 2D engineering drawing can be challenging for many engineers, not to
mention how difficult this can be for those who don’t work with drawings on a
daily basis.

Effective CAD leaders appreciate how this obstacle can
impede innovation and limit the potential for valuable input from key
stakeholders outside of engineering, particularly when securing buy-in from
management, customers, and partners regarding new product ideas or innovative
concepts. They understand that a picture’s worth a thousand words and that a 3D
model—or better yet, a 3D animation—communicates more effectively than stacks
of 2D drawings.

Modern 3D CAD tools can dramatically enhance your ability to
demonstrate the aesthetics, performance, and fit and function of product
designs in formats that are easy for anyone to comprehend. You can use these
communication capabilities to create virtual animations and simulations that
show how a design will perform within the confines of its operating
environment. You can also illustrate the limitations of existing designs and
how new approaches can extend and improve performance. You can even create
photorealistic renderings of products that are difficult to distinguish from
actual photographs, which your sales and marketing colleagues can use instead
of incurring the costs of studio photography.

As a CAD leader, you should pay attention to the visual and
communication formats that your design systems can produce. Creating standard
file formats such as PDF, JPG, and AVI represents the minimum set of
capabilities. You should also consider tools that allow you to compactly
package a model—including transparency, cutaway, and model interrogation
tools—for email distribution.

Read past articles:

Strategy 1: Embrace best practices and new technologies

Strategy 5: Focus on continuous quality improvement

Strategy 6: Leverage design data throughout the enterprise

Strategy 9: Communicate effectively with business personnel

Strategy 10: Demonstrate product development contributions

Download the Whitepaper - Ten Strategies for Becoming an Effective CAD Leader

*This article is an excerpt from the "Ten Strategies for Becoming an Effective CAD Leader White Paper", published by DS SolidWorks Corp.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

You hungry for some pi.

The other day I was reading up on microcontrollers. Wikipedia calls them, a small computer on a single integrated circuit containing a processor core, memory, and programmable input/output peripherals. When I ran across this little gem called a raspberry pi. It is a complete computer that runs off a compiled linux kernel. This thing is pretty awesome. Check out the Stats below. If you want your kids to learn how fun and power programming can be, this is your low cost entry into it. For about 80 bucks you can get a great starter kit with lessons on programming for the kids.

A package example

	Model A	Model B
Target price:^[1]	US$25 Ext tax (GBP £16 Exc VAT)	US$35 Ext tax (GBP £22 Exc VAT)
System-on-a-chip (SoC):^[1]	Broadcom BCM2835 (CPU + GPU. SDRAM is a separate chip stacked on top)
CPU:	700 MHz ARM11 ARM1176JZF-S core
GPU:	Broadcom VideoCore IV,OpenGL ES 2.0,OpenVG 1080p30 H.264 high-profile encode/decode
Memory (SDRAM)iB	256 MiB (planned with 128 MiB, upgraded to 256 MiB on 29 Feb 2012)	256 MiB (until 15 Oct 2012); 512 MiB (since 15 Oct 2012)
USB 2.0 ports:	1 (provided by the BCM2835)	2 (via integrated USB hub)
Video outputs:^[1]	Composite video \| Composite RCA, HDMI (not at the same time)
Audio outputs:^[1]	TRS connector \| 3.5 mm jack, HDMI
Audio inputs:	none, but a USB mic or sound-card could be added
Onboard Storage:	Secure Digital\|SD / MMC / SDIO card slot
Onboard Network:^[1]	None	10/100 wired Ethernet RJ45
Low-level peripherals:	General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) pins, Serial Peripheral Interface Bus (SPI), I²C, I²S^[2], Universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART)
Real-time clock:^[1]	None
Power ratings (provisional, from alpha board):	500 mA, (2.5 W) ^[1]	700 mA, (3.5 W)
Power source:^[1]	5 V (DC) via Micro USB type B or GPIO header
Size:	85.0 x 56.0 mm (two different boards, measured with callipers)

Have fun coding. I'm going to pick one up this week.

Bob McGaughey, CSWE

SolidWorks Composer Product Manager.

CATI

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Ten Strategies for Becoming an Effective CAD Leader - Part 8

Strategy 8: Manage product design data efficiently

Using CAD tools to design innovative, error-free products
will get you only partway to your goal. An effective CAD leader realizes that
creating solid models is only the beginning. How well you manage, leverage, and
utilize product design data will determine the overall productivity of both
your development process and manufacturing enterprise.

In the past, product data management (PDM) was more product
document management. Engineering organizations managed documents—paper
drawings—within large cabinets using elaborate sign-off systems for approving
and releasing design revisions. In today’s 3D realm, the sheer number of links,
references, and associations between parts, assemblies, and configurations
precludes a manual approach to data management. Fortunately, you have access to
integrated PDM systems to manage data, control revisions, safeguard intellectual
property, and unleash the power of 3D to the extended enterprise.

PDM allows you to formalize and automate workflows inside
and outside of your department. Because modern PDM systems are easy to
administer, you can control the level of access to design-related information
that you grant to technical and non-technical personnel. Within product
engineering, you can set user rights for the players involved, including team
members, partners, vendors, and suppliers, so that contributors can access and
alter the only information related to their specific function. And they don’t
necessarily have to be on-site to access design data because some PDM systems
support web browser access.

You can also administer, manage, and control access by
colleagues outside of product development who can benefit from leveraging
design data but cannot edit or change it. With PDM, you can provide
nontechnical personnel such as managers, purchasing agents, marketing
professionals, and service technicians with access to product design
information—and control how they can use it. Moreover, they often don’t need a
CAD system for access.

Read past articles:

Strategy 1: Embrace best practices and new technologies

Strategy 5: Focus on continuous quality improvement

Strategy 6: Leverage design data throughout the enterprise

Strategy 9: Communicate effectively with business personnel

Strategy 10: Demonstrate product development contributions

Download the Whitepaper - Ten Strategies for Becoming an Effective CAD Leader

*This article is an excerpt from the "Ten Strategies for Becoming an Effective CAD Leader White Paper", published by DS SolidWorks Corp.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

How do I mate a round ball so it is resting on a smaller hole in SolidWorks?

We had this question submitted to us via CATI Chat Support: I have a round ball sitting above a hole with a mate lining up the axis so it is in position. How do I set the ball into the hole so it is just resting on the rim of the hole and not above it or below it in SolidWorks. The ball is bigger than the hole.

This reminds me of a cup and ball toy I once had. It was a wooden cup with a handle and a ball attached to the cup by a string. You had to try and catch the ball in the cup, but the cup was smaller than the ball. It could be done, but it was very difficult.

Our SolidWorks Support Technicians at CATI put their minds together and came up with various solutions. Try it yourself. How would you do this?

Scroll down for one answer…

Answer:
I found the easiest way was to create a point on the circle that you use to create the hole in the base part. Then you can just add a coincident mate between the point and the face of the ball.

There are several ways to do this. Another of our SolidWorks Support Technicians at CATI was able to place a 3d sketch point on the surface of the ball, and then mate it to the edge of the hole. Let us know how you were able to mate the ball to the top of the cup in SolidWorks.

Neil Bucalo

Certified SolidWorks Support Technician 2013
Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Multi-Line Custom Properties in SolidWorks

I have run into this quite often..How do you get a custom property
to display in more than 1 line?

As you will notice, you cannot just hit the enter key in the
custom property value to get a new line.

The next thought would be to put a line break character in…I
have not found a way for this to work either.

There is a way to get this accomplished…..

Open Notepad and type your lines

Select all, then copy (ctl+c)

Enter your Custom property and paste into the value…there is
no paste options so use (ctl+v)

You will notice that the evaluated value will only show the
first line. This is fine. If you select the value field once again, you will see
the last line in the value (however, this is not necessary)

Now you can use the Multi-Line custom property

This can also be used for other properties (not just text)

Hope this Helps.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Ten Strategies for Becoming an Effective CAD Leader - Part 7

Strategy 7: Document and analyze productivity

CAD leadership requires more than intuition and observation.
In order to make prudent, practical decisions about how to best deploy next-generation
CAD tools to achieve your quality and efficiency goals, you need access to
information about how CAD technology influences product development. The most
accurate way to assess the collective and individual impacts of CAD tools is to
establish baseline productivity statistics so you can document, evaluate, and
analyze departmental performance.

How long is your average design cycle? What are your typical
development costs? Do you track the number of design errors and engineering
change orders (ECOs) per development cycle, or the volume of scrap produced on
an annual basis? Are you monitoring the time and money that are spent on
physical prototyping? In order to assess whether a particular design solution
is having a positive effect on your bottom line—and generating a return on your
CAD investment—you need to document and analyze your group’s productivity.

In addition to providing valuable information on your
department’s overall performance, and the role CAD tools play in contributing
to increased efficiency, documenting productivity can help you standardize on
what works well, address areas that are problematic, and acknowledge success.

As a design manager, your performance, and ultimately, your
compensation, is tied to the success of every member of your team. Their
success relates to the tools, training, and processes that you put in place. As
a CAD leader, you need a scorecard for determining how well your team is doing,
so you can assess whether your CAD tools are helping your team members move
forward or holding them back. With this information, you can embrace processes
that are more efficient, rectify areas of weakness, and use objective, factual
information to recognize and reward achievement.

Read past articles:

Strategy 1: Embrace best practices and new technologies

Strategy 5: Focus on continuous quality improvement

Strategy 6: Leverage design data throughout the enterprise

Strategy 9: Communicate effectively with business personnel

Strategy 10: Demonstrate product development contributions

Download the Whitepaper - Ten Strategies for Becoming an Effective CAD Leader

*This article is an excerpt from the "Ten Strategies for Becoming an Effective CAD Leader White Paper", published by DS SolidWorks Corp.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

How do we find the volume of voids in SolidWorks?

Calculating volume of voids can be done fairly easily. In this example we will find the volume of the material removed during the shell.

I know this is pretty basic geometry but the principal is the same.

Create a sketch that fits the inside of the shell, you can convert entities or in this case just draw in a rectangle. Extrude this upto next, make sure to clear the merge result check box.

Now you can select a body to get just that solids information as seen below using the mass properties command to extract volume or mass.

I know now you thinking how would we get all of the voids if we needed the rest of them too? This is a slight modification to the sketch and edit the extrusion end condition to be upto surface and pick the back face of the model.

Now we use the combine feature, subtract. Where is it? Insert, features, combine.

Now we can use mass properties to get the sum of the remaining bodies.

What if it is an odd shape? In some cases you can use just a big box around the whole part, subtract like we did and then delete unnecessary bodies. Or you might have to get creative.

Here I used the body and an extruded surface to help me create a knit surface. Using the try to form solid option allowed me to have a body with the same shape as the original.

Then combine and subtract again.

John Van Engen
CATI Tech Support
CSWE

Ten Strategies for Becoming an Effective CAD Leader - Part 6

Strategy 6: Leverage design data throughout the enterprise

Today’s CAD leaders recognize that product development is no
longer the isolated, autonomous enclave of engineering that it was in the past.
With the adoption and advancement of 3D CAD technology, product design data has
become more accessible and usable for a variety of business operations outside
of engineering. functional areas that can benefit from 3D CAD models include
manufacturing, quoting/purchasing, documentation, sales and marketing, and
field service.

Manufacturing has long been a recipient of product design
data, and 2D engineering drawings remain a staple of many production
operations. Yet, with the availability of 3D CAD data and new CAD tools, you
can do so much more than simply refer to sheaves of paper documents on the shop
floor. In addition to using solid models to automatically generate tool paths,
develop molds, and program CAM-based operations with a high degree of precision
and control, engineers can now create 3D animated work instructions for use in
assembly operations.

The same approach applies to the creation of product
documentation. Why spend time recreating technical illustrations for user’s
manuals, when that information already exists within a solid model? With
today’s modern 3D CAD tools, creating an exploded view, step-by-step user
assembly instructions, or even a movie that shows how to put the product
together is just a limited number of mouse clicks away. Purchasing can use CAD and automatically
generated bill of materials (BOM) data to solicit quotes, place orders, and
support just-in-time ordering for manufacturing. Sales and marketing can use
design data to create preproduction visuals for seeding the market.

Service personnel can access detailed maintenance and repair
information—including complete movie animations of important procedures—online
while they are in the field. Effective CAD leaders recognize how valuable and
information-rich 3D CAD models can be and understand how they can leverage this
information in various ways to boost productivity outside of engineering.

Read past articles:

Strategy 1: Embrace best practices and new technologies

Strategy 5: Focus on continuous quality improvement

Strategy 6: Leverage design data throughout the enterprise