Tag Archives: 3d design

CAMWorks 4 Solid Edge Comments and Thoughts

Posted on August 16, 2013 | 6 comments

In a bit of a holding pattern for now until September for posts on actual CW4SE parts I will be working on. However there is a bit of news and a bit of reflection and comments upon CW4SE.

As of right now there is no forum for CW4SE. The official Geometric forum has a section for SW users only and this should be changing soon and will include a section for SE users. Even though the basic program is the same it has been Geometrics decision that SE users should not have access to the SW users forum. Since both are closed forums I guess that you must have a seat of one or the other to access them. I have no idea what will be there and it is a shame that years of experience as cam users on the SW side of things will be roped off to SE users but with the politics that could result I guess I can understand why the two will be kept separate.

I don’t think SE at the official BBS site has any intention of having a forum either and the one time I mentioned a need for one it was met with a rather curt reply from a Siemens guy that this was Geometrics job and not Siemens. Sometimes I wonder about who talks to who and who plans these things as I would have thought that a forum would have been planned and who was responsible for what would have been picked and resources dedicated. Support for CW4SE is important and unless the VAR’s are slated to fill this area I am not sure how smooth the initial support for CW4SE will be. I think this gets back to the Dart Board idea I promulgated some time back where planning is chaotic and meetings are had to decide what to talk about in the next meeting and then another one to determine if the first two meetings were effective and on and on they go. People, time passes and this is a roll-out of a new product and an important addition to SE’s ecosphere. It is important to get this right and we are months after SEU2013 and this forum is still not established. But beyond the forums there is another category and it is who does your potential VAR have as a trained support guy? CW4SE is a new integration with SE but it is not a new program. I am hoping all the major VAR’s intend to have a veteran of CAMWorks for SW on staff to answer questions on the CAM side. The program is the program and if your VAR is intending to provide support based on freshly trained guys who have not themselves cut chips with this program it could be a problem. Make sure you ask your VAR of choice what he intends to do in this area. I have no idea what Siemens official policy is towards mandatory minimum support required of VAR’s to sell CW4SE and so it is left up to the buyer to be aware of this. Make sure your VAR can support you before you buy would be my suggestion.

There is a book out there, “The CAMWorks Handbook 2013” that is for the SW integration that looks interesting. Obviously the CAD side of it is for “Brand X” and includes nothing for direct editing 😉 but from what I have read and seen with the CW4SE manual given out with the program (I assume it will be the same one I was given during beta testing) it may be a decent alternative learning method for the bits and pieces of CAM needed to decide what features are needed to do differing CAM plans. Disregard the constant references to the class B modeler and you should be alright. If I order the book I will report on what I find.

There have been webinars from various VAR’s out there. I don’t know what all of them are doing but I do know that Saratech has a veteran CW user running theirs. Now is the time by the way to tell your VAR’s that you expect at least one guy in the organization that has actually cut chips with CW4SE to be there for support for CW4SE. Remember that the only time you have to get your wishes across to these guys is going in so push for all you can before signing with one.

On the program front as planned and announced some time ago September is rapidly approaching and working with assemblies will be an additional function to be released then. I don’t know what else is coming out and as I have reminded people if they want it talked about they have to release information. Hopefully this will happen soon.

In any case I expect to have my seat soon and then it will be on to some real parts. One thing I will be interested in is how CW4SE will work for a small shop like mine where automation and the Tech Data Base setup is not so beneficial. I want to just recognize features I want to pick and go from there and also avoid populating the TDB with my own tools so I can just pick them as I go. For instance, the TDB has a lot of tools in it but not one three flute endmill. This is the preferred endmill for cutting aluminum and as it is recommended by Volumill for just this I am surprised that Geometric did not have any of these in the tools for milling section. The TDB is an area where there could be improvements made and from what I gather in talking to some SW users of CAMWorks they agree. Now the TDB is a powerful tool for automation and I think is particularly beneficial for larger shops with a system set up for tool and machine management but this is a little complicated for those who just want to pick a tool, or input the cutter data individually for each tool path and go from there. In My old program for instance I can scroll through a list of tools and just pick it and edit it right there if I need to and save the new tool to the library. Far easier than this TDB thing is. Of course I am quite familiar with the old program and not CW4SE yet so my opinions here could change as get used to using it. It would be nice if Geometric would allow for the importing of tool libraries into their TDB from manufacturers but as of right now you have a tedious excel like chart to fiddle with and you have to add these things in one by one. It would also be nice to be able to do away with having a tool library required to create a cam plan and just pick and assign tools to the cam plan and have it be remembered as tool whatever in spot whatever and then just save it. Automation is really cool for those shops that want or need it but some greater consideration for those shops that don’t want this would be nice.

One of the things I really liked during beta testing was the constant step-over tool path. I was over at the HSMWorks forum the other day and they were complaining about how tough it is to get a constant scallop heighth there. Kind of like I use to have to do with ZW3D you have to create different tool path stepovers at differing places in the part to get a really consistent finish on the part. So you end up with four or more toolpaths to do almost as good as the single toolpath in CW4SE will get you quickly and easily. Just a word here by the way. I find some of the CW4SE GUI to be clunky and some of the nomenclature to be worded in such a fashion that it is hard to remember what it means. So welcome to the real world where no program is perfect and they all expect you to learn according to the idiosyncracies of each different set of programmers. Many of which I believe don’t really grasp what actual users want because they have never cut chips and don’t understand our work flows and the reason for how we choose our work flows. The programmer liked it and it made sense to him so it must be right, right? But don’t mistake my grumbling about these things to be really serious objections to the program as a whole. I know enough about it to state that the improvements to my bottom line for cutting efficiencies will be large over time compared to programs I have used in the past. And of course the fact we now have true integration between CAD and CAM.

The insanity of allowing programmers who have not cut chips to be the final determiners of how a program is set up to work for users is a topic for another day and I am of the opinion far greater heed to user wishes should be made. I am afraid that with Geometric, like most other software authoring companies, once the program gets out the door the silliness is programmed in and it will take an act of God to get programmers to understand that just because what they did can be made to work does not make it the right way or the best way to work and to then fix it. Kind of like how dumb is it that SE still after all these years does not yield accurate manufacturing data for threads but someone in Programville decided it was OK so every user subsequently has to struggle with this. I bet this comes back to haunt them as how can they recognize accurate manufacturing data on holes imported from say SW if they can’t do it for their own program? You use software to design or cut I am sure you have pet peeves based on programmers choices too and this problem is everywhere.

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We will TELL them what to Like

Posted on August 1, 2013 | 2 comments

Well this time off did not last long did it. I received an email from Autodesk that fired me up and so here we go.

This is another true O’Charley’s restaurants story that has a direct bearing in what is happening with Marketing, PR and the community website. This is sadly another true story I watched in person as a company self destructed from really dumb things. This particular event materialy contributed to the downfall of the whole chain.

Some years ago the vice president of the commissary operations for O’Charleys discovered that his division could make more money by reducing the quality of the ingredients but not the price in the products they made for the restaurants. So he sallies forth one day with his revised Honey Mustard dressing and arrives in the lunchroom to ask employee opinions on his latest creation. What he did was take almost all the Honey out leaving it to be just around 5% of content with the rest now being corn syrup. Up to this point in time Honey was the sweetener. As most employees are known to do when their boss asks them for an opinion they give him what they think he wants to hear. Especially if the boss has a propensity to be irate with those who would doubt his divine guidance in all things. Sonny was one of these and so everyone told him how wonderful his sorely degraded product was. Up until he ran into Gerald.

Gerald is a friend of mine and I was up there later that day only to see him with a strange look upon his face. “So, what’s up Gerald”? He then tells me the following story. As noted above every other employee who was asked about Sonny’s brainstorm all told him how good it was. Gerald however no matter what the risks of truth were with this megalomaniacal boss would give him an honest answer. So he tells Sonny that it stinks compared to what it was. Sonny’s response was what floored Gerald. Sonny stated to Gerald that basically customers were ignorant and that they would be educated as to what they would like. Gerald could not believe the disconnect from reality with this and thus the look of bemusement on his face that day. This began the deterioration of all the products produced by the commissary until it got so bad that the commissary was sold off when the chain ran into severe financial problems. It all happened because one individual decided on his own that he knew better than anyone and did not need to ask anyone, most particularly ignorant customers, about the validity and consequences of his actions and decisions. So when the food went downhill the customer counts went downhill and so did profits at the stores. But Sonny could stand in front of a mirror and argue with the best of them about why his decisions were good ones.

This brings me to the Siemens publicity in general and SE Community websites in particular as this story resonates in my mind’s eye. I don’t know who is asked to provide input and feedback for these things. Maybe it has happened but did you have to be there for that 24 hour window of opportunity to give feedback? I don’t remember being asked about any of this stuff so I have a vision of the same people who only talk to each other talking to each other about web site layout and content and agreeing with each other how good it all is. They are really smart people you know and much better at this than viewers would ever be. In the mean time I bet the viewers are staying away.

You know here is the bad thing about metrics and how do you determine if you are succeeding or not. Remember the https://solidedging.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/the-parable-of-ocharleys-restaurants-and-solid-edge/ post recently here? The numbers looked OK to this guy but he failed to see the truth of it all until remedial action was taken. So here we have a website that may actually have an increase in numbers of views but can these PR wonks bask in the glory of this? Or is the truth of it all that they have no way of comparing what they are doing to what a well done website designed around customer inputs and asked for content would do. I choose to believe that somewhere Sonny or Sonny’s equivalents in Siemens/SE exist that have no desire to do the legwork necessary to find out the truth of it all and use the ask the guy in the mirror method of management and decision-making.

What started me thinking about all this was an invitation recently from Autodesk to go to one of their websites. http://www.autodesk.com/products/autodesk-inventor-family/overview is a link to it. I go there and shortly after arriving this pops up.
Autodesk

Can you imagine actually asking what a reader wants to see and thinks about the site? Well if I was interested in getting more customers and viewers I sure can. But then I like things to grow and thrive and I care what potential users think about SE and Siemens. Apparently customer desires, inputs and requests are things that frequent only the technical side of Siemens SE.

Oh, and by the way, did you notice how Autodesk did not take up the top right half of the initial page with corporate Bios and gobs and gobs of just blank nothing? Which one of you marketing PR paragons figured this was something that should be there anyway is what I want to know. Every time I see this my eyes roll back in my head. Remember the admonishment for parents some years ago that said “It’s 9:00, do you know where your children are?”. Well I think a byline to my posts from now on just might be “It’s 8:00 AM, do you know where your PR and marketing staff is?”

There is even a book that I think Sonny would have endorsed before he went bankrupt that sounds like it might be tailor made for these guys 🙂

marketing

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Wasting Away in PRitaville

Posted on July 19, 2013 | 9 comments

My mind works in funny ways sometimes and one thing can lead to another. I was and still am completely disgusted with how the powers that be took Matt’s “On The Edge” blog and basically killed it. It should have been left exactly as is with cross links to the official site. It was probably one of the leading sources of reads to the Petri Dish culture site and they have no viable replacement for this. Sorry guys, it is not the same when the pseudopods  of corporate sterility pull it in.

Then I have this guy from Faro show up who does not know anything about SE. Now I kid you not this is how it went with him. I asked him about direct editing and he was not sure what that was. He is an SW CAD user only. We continue to speak and when he mentions Space Claim that’s when I can finally make a bit of headway with him by saying SE has direct editing  like Space Claim does  but actually better. He knew about Space Claim. Now you PR types don’t have to put up with the things I do. You hide in your little offices and talk to each other. I have to stand here and suffer under things like this Faro guy looking at me like I am a little strange. Just like the Mastercam and Surfcam VAR’s I speak to I am reduced to saying “Oh yes, SE has direct editing just like Space Claim does”. Last time I checked Space Claim was a little bitty company compared to SE and just how is it that they are known with these dealers and people and SE is not? Hint for those of you in Rio Lindo, no worthwhile cohesive aggressive marketing or PR plans or execution might be the reason hmmmm?

Let me put this in perspective for you. We also talked about workstations. I mentioned that even though Dell was all I ever see for workstations I remember reading stuff about what a big percentage of the market HP had in this area. He and I both agreed that all we ever see is Dell and could not figure out how these claims could be substantiated based upon our personal observations. So here I am trying to convince this guy that there are many hundreds of SE users in TN  and that SE has the best direct editing and is better than SW or Space Claim. I can see in his face and comments he is thinking another HP.  And based upon his personal experience why shouldn’t he?  This is also what I get from the Surfcam and Mastercam officials I speak to because some companies make a point of promoting their well planned and executed  messages to markets they actually have plans to and then do  target. So now Space Claim is being pushed by Faro, Mastercam and Surfcam dealers in my area but not “SE who?”.

I believe there is an entrenched almost government like bureaucracy with SE that is the legacy of years gone by that has as of yet not been fixed. I figure these people band together to protect the way it has been over they way it should be.  Void of creativity they plod on  spending time with safe things they have done year after year and not one of them ever stops to think of the idea that doing things the same way does not bring about growth. It is a damning indictment of these individuals who are stifling the growth of SE to protect their paychecks. That they have so little vision for the future that they would be willing to sacrifice the future of the company to remain on familiar and comfortable ground. Technically brilliant the guys in Huntsville who code SE  must wonder what is in the water over in PR and Marketing. I hope they never step over there to drink any of this.

I believe that if this problem is not fixed the fate of SE to be also ran will be sealed because these people will prevent SE from ever knocking SW off their throne if things are not changed. Again I say that expecting different results from  the same tired failed methods and people is not the paradigm a hungry for success company would employ. If I was in charge when these sorry Petri Dish guys come in offering the same old tired excuses for why they can’t do things right or won’t do things right and not providing good results it would result in severe discomfort. These people forget that their sole reason to be employed is to deliver results and they are supposed to FIX the problems stopping dynamic growth not offer reasons why this can’t be done. I don’t care what the problems are. You guys have had how many years now to figure this out and plan for growth and you can’t do this?  I don’t get it. Rather than being excited about being with a company that is experiencing  tremendous growth these clowns want to stay where they have been turf protecting themselves and their paychecks and relegate SE in the mean time to also ran status.

So as I stewed over this for the next few days thinking about how I personally had over three lost income and unpaid weeks of my time in hurry up last-minute beta training, testing and parts cutting for SEU13 and time spent blogging to promote it all plus money out-of-pocket to attend because I care and want things to work out right inspiration strikes. Don’t know how wasting time morphed into wasting away in Margaritaville but then inspiration needs no logical explanation does it.  So for the marketing and PR sides of Siemens/SE a theme song.

Hats off  to the PR and marketing guys at Solid Works who prove it can be done and dedicated to those with SE who prove how it can’t be done.
Wasting Away in PRitaville

Been here for five years
Watching the things here
It is the best soft ware never seen
Rarely been heard of
Nary a sight of
Some things don’t change sad as that seems

Refrain
Wasting away again in PRitaville
Searching hard for something to find
Some people claim that it’s still the same
But I know, it’s not PR’s fault

I don’t know the reason
I searched for all season
Not much to show but this internet bill
But it’s a real beauty
A big monthly cutie
Why I still search it I haven’t a clue

Refrain

I blew out my Laptop
Cleaned out my desktop
plugged the cable back in at home
but no website contenders
the drought never ends here
It’s just blind hope that keeps me around

Final refrain
Wasting away again in PRitaville
Searching hard for something to find
Some people claim that it’s still the same
But I know it’s not PR’s fault
Yes some people claim that it’s still the same
And I know it’s not PR’s fault

 

UPDATE

OK folks I go to the    http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge-Community-Blog/SEU13-Presentations-Available-for-Download/ba-p/2351    web site today and we have a perfect case in point. I want you to go there. The first half of this long scroll down page is one third content and the rest is just stuff. Who really cares about company officials taking up one half of one third of the whole page and being placed at the top right section of this page? Top right is one of the two most important placement areas when you wish to convey a message and these marketing PR whizbangs fill it with company rosters. 😦 😦 😦 Right where we should have relevant community and user information or links or articles or SOMETHING of value we have instead space just filled to be filled. Scroll down and tell me how much more of this is the same. Can you believe this is what PR and Marketing think is an attractive selling and information tool for SE? It is a perfect example of crank a mindless cookie cutter fill in the blanks page out like we always have and get a paycheck stuff. They do these things and think they are of worth in PRitaville.

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The Parable of “O’Charleys” Restaurants and Solid Edge

Posted on July 10, 2013 | 4 comments

O’Charleys is a restaurant chain based out of Nashville TN that I used to do a lot of work for. In years gone by they had franchise holders and one of them owned a store on University Drive in Huntsville not far from SE’s headquarters. And it is this store where this story began.

My wife had been a server at O’C’s for a while and I had worked on probably over a hundred of their stores by then. We were very familiar with the standards that were supposed  to be in place for service and hygiene. At that time they had the best Prime Rib you could buy and so we decided to go to this store for a meal.

Well we get in there and sit and wait. For quite a long time actually before the waitress could be bothered to approach us. In the mean time I go to the restroom and come back out with a bit of disgust as I tell my wife what a foul smelly cheap bar place it was. Still no yeast rolls and these were supposed to be quickly presented according to corporate policy. None was ready it seems and so the waitress could not bring them out until after we had our salads. Big no-no and the server attitude was lackadaisical at best as she was more interested in talking to friends than customers.

I came back to the Commissary operations for O’Charleys which was in Nashville and my biggest customer at that time and told some of the people there how awful the meal was. Their comments to me were “did you tell Wayne (franchise holder who also had an office there) about this? I was a little hesitant to do so but they prevailed upon me and I did so. Talked to Wayne about it and described from beginning to end what I saw and experienced there. Wayne did not have much of a response and I left his office.

A few weeks later I ran across him and asked him about the store and this is what he said. He went down there and walked in unannounced for a surprise little visit and it was every bit as bad as I said it was. He spent some days there getting things fixed up again and firing the managers that had allowed this to happen. I asked him how this situation had occured when the store was just a two-hour drive away from the offices in Nashville and easily checked on.

Wayne went on to tell me that the numbers from the store were decent and based solely upon this there was no reason for him to go there. He had six other stores  so I guess he would concentrate on the worst one only. I don’t remember asking him about this so I can only conjecture.

Some time  later I asked Wayne about that stores numbers  and he said that after his surprise visit and  ensuing cleanup and management purge there was a pronounced uptick in sales.

The moral to this story is that numbers only do not tell the complete story. Here we have Solid Edge whose numbers are decent and sales are going up in spite of how the help is presenting the “food”. They should be and could be much better is my belief.

It is not just the basic quality of the food you sell but it’s appearance and presentation too. You can have great food and spend lots of time sending out select aged prime rib from the commissary but if the people “selling” it in the store don’t do their job it will never matter how good the commissary’s beef is.

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Does A Solid Edge Publicity Department Really Exist?

Posted on July 9, 2013 | 8 comments

I have been thinking about this at great length and I conclude that in spite of what I was told about publicity and my commitment not to talk about it for a while I have to now comment. The reason for the original decision is I think still valid but there is another problem that is systemic with UGS/SE and now Siemens and it is a different one.  It is a publicity department that does not have a clue about the passing of time and what to do. 3D has asked me questions for instance about the rent SE by the month announced at SEU2013. And here we are a week after and just nothing.

Lets look at this particular problem. I believe this was one of the major vehicles being offered to entice potential full-time new customers. So here we are heading into SEU2013 and we know it exists. Karsten talks about it and speaks of it in the keynote address. So you publicity wonks, I now have a few questions for you. Why was there not a cohesive plan to promote this with details worked out and on the shelf ready to go on day one in Cincy? Why do I have to sit here two weeks later and tell people I don’t know because you either don’t know or can’t make a decision to tell the public about it? I thought the days of Bruce Boes advertising paralysis were over but by golly I find myself wanting to look behind closed doors to see if he is still here. Do you people understand that you only have one major event/product release a year and you have to utilize it to benefit from it? The buzz never burst upon the scene in my opinion because it is the same old same old long time employee total lack of vision and do it the way we have always done it because my head might hurt if I do something radical. And apparently profuse timely publicity and the free flow of information is a radical concept to these publicity people.

Here is another one. There is to be some sort of ST only version of SE that  I believe was created for two reasons at around $2,000.00 I think if I remember this right. My belief is that it was meant to be a competitor to things like SpaceClaim as a direct editing reduced function program for CAM users to use and also as a cheap way of getting the power of ST into more hands. I don’t hear anything about this and I thought this was a big deal. Evidently the PR department thought it was not as they can’t be bothered to talk much about it or provide many details about it that I have seen.

Where are the ready to go videos showing the power of ST in assemblies this year? Why were these not done well in advance of SEU2013 and posted on YouTube on 6-25-13? Now that I think about it why were there not videos on every important aspect of ST6 posted on YouTube no later than the first day of SEU2013? You knew what you had to work with six months ahead of time and I just have this vision of people standing in a room with a dart board in front of them. It has various PR categories around the bullseye and after the darts are thrown the arguments ensue and the whole process starts over again and again. I can just see it. A dart misses the board and now we have to debate if this means there was a category that should have been on there but wasn’t and nothing is ever decided or done.

I was forbidden to talk about some of the things I knew about CAMWorks because, well because someone somewhere decided that the perfect and anointed time to do so had not arrived. A totally farcical situation considering the fact that this whole integration and the company it was to be done with had been publicly announced A YEAR AGO! Do you people understand that if you talk about it and have a vendor there showing it in SEU2012 it is not secret to be hidden knowledge? Alright let me see if I can put it in terms you all might understand. When PT Barnum comes to town they make a big deal out of it and they have (shocking I know, the very thought scares me) a PARADE to entice the public to be their customers. So as I remember, you PR guys can help out here if you wish, the only mention for the next ten months about this came from a blogger that does not reach all that many people. But for months I did more to promote CAMWorks for SE than Siemens did and I just don’t get this disconnect. Is there something wrong here or am I just an idiot for thinking that if you want people to buy your product your better promote the bejeebers out of it?

Which leads me to my next topic. Where the heck is all the info, the Powerpoints and videos from SEU2013? Do you ever intend to release these? You do know the time to have done so was 6-25-13 don’t you? It should have been canned and upped on the site of choice and ready to go with links active the night before SEU started. You do want to create buzz don’t you? You do want to compel people to consider SE don’t you? Then here is a suggestion from Remedial Marketing 101. I say remedial for a reason because evidently some individuals have to be taught first that marketing has value before they are taught how to do it. Tell you what. I don’t have to sit in a room and argue with people or worry about perfect timing or whatever you guys do that stops worthwhile plans and efforts dead in its tracks. I was given a flash drive as were HUNDREDS of other attendees and it has the SEU2013 Powerpoints on it. (You know, the ones you have not released yet. But they are public and this is what bothers me so much. WHY oh WHY is this stuff not out there yet that I can find) I am going to help you guys get off the dime and give you a week to stop prevaricating. Then I will figure out how to post the whole thing to my blog.  Who do I send the bill to by the way for doing your job for you?

Heaven help me and I know JB will have a field day with this but the day Jon Banquer makes more advertising sense than what I am seeing from the PR wonks at Siemens or SE or whoever it is responsible for this mess I just cringe. Can you imagine that even he is getting this right but none of the paid advertising people are? I have to admit that I find defending inaction is not a task I am up to and so I am not going to. I guess the idea of “The Best Software You’ve Never Heard Of” has legitimacy as advertising genius to “The Best Publicity Department We Never Hear From”.

I think hands down SE in its combination with CAMWorks is the single most powerful mid range MCAD program for manufacturing out there. I believe in it enough to spend my own time promoting it and I don’t get compensated to do so. As a matter of fact it costs me some money and time out of my life I can’t replace because I do believe in it. It makes me furious to watch this neglect from those who are paid to promote SE not do so and not do so for year after year. I can’t conceive that once again we are heading down the path of anonymity and the opportunity provided for PR with SEU2013 is being squandered for reasons I don’t know and can’t begin to fathom.

Why don’t you people get off of your dead rear ends and start earning your money? I am at the point where I don’t care if people in the PR department are offended because I darned sure am offended. What do you people do with your time? What can you possibly be thinking to let this precious time go by? Dassault and Autodesk are doing everything they can to destroy their businesses and all the plans that Karsten and his team come up with for the future are just shot down by your incompetence. This is your last year to get it right. I don’t believe this hiatus of coherent planning at Autodesk or Dassault will last more than another year. When they get whipsawed by declining on-maintenance and new customers they will reconsider their ways and your free ride will be OVER. These guys know what they are doing in PR and they will eat your lunch.

The question is do you even care?

Update 7-9-13

Had a Faroarm rep here today at the shop. While talking I of course mention SE. I mention SE because he was talking about Faroarms being integrated through Dezignworks to work with Solid Works, ProE and Inventor. We continue talking and he is familiar with SpaceClaim because some of the machine shops that have Faroarms are using it with the new Spark program. He has heard of SE just a few times over the last five years.  WAY TO GO MARKETING AND PR!! I know very well there are a number of SE users in Tennessee which is this guys district but he does not and this is the result of a total failure to effectively communicate the SE message here.  I hate it when people look at me like I am delusional when I say this software they have rarely or never heard of is better than SW. I just wish I could send these people straight to the publicity/marketing departments of SE so they could see what dismal failures they have been at getting the word out.

The primary reason he had not dealt with SE is because nothing has been set up with Faro to work natively inside of SE. And of course the lack of any publicity for SE reaching him through the internet or other media.

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CAMWorks For Solid Edge

Posted on June 25, 2013 | 6 comments

Yes folks it is finally time to talk about this program and not have to hold anything back. Formally announced today CAMWorks For Solid Edge will be the first truly integrated CAM program for Solid Edge. The question has been posed many times why NX Cam Express  (NX CE) could not be ported to Solid Edge. Quite simply NX CE is design to work inside of NX and to accomplish that has to be capable of opening legacy files from way back in NX and work on them.   Solid Edge files could be imported into NX CE but they had to then be translated into a version of NX Cad to work right.  There was and is no way to take and make Solid Edge directly and truly integrated under these conditions so the search began for an integration partner.  Siemens owns it all by the way so the idea that NX did not want to port NX CE to Solid Edge because it would cost “them” profit is not valid. It was for technical reasons only.

A truly  integrated CAD and CAM program  brings efficiencies to the manufacturing world that can’t be accomplished any other way. One mouse click to get to Solid Edge and one mouse click to get back to CAMWorks For Solid Edge. Right there in the same environment and on the same “page”.  It is the only way to go if you can. I am pretty sure every reader of this post understands the power here so I am not going to dwell on this.

The criteria to be met once NX CE was ruled out was to find a company that had solid knowledge of CAM with proven products and a track record of success with integration.  Along the way it became more complicated when HSMWorks was bought out. Now it became imperative that the partner company not only be qualified but also not  be in danger of being bought out from under Siemens feet as HSMWorks was with Solid Works.  Siemens works in ten-year planning periods and they had to be sure that their partner choice was also committed to this ten-year planning period too. Not only do they want to know where they will be in ten years they want their customers to know. Stable rational management planning capabilities both in Siemens and with their customers is predicated on knowing what your tools will be so you can make plans accordingly.

There is something like fifty or so differing CAM programs I have been told and when the search began it was a little daunting for the Siemens SE integration guys who had no idea the CAM market was this populated. They were used to CAD and that market is nowhere near as fragmented. However when you start tire kicking a bunch of them fall to the side quickly for a variety of reasons.

Geometric’s CAMWorks was the final pick and became the integration partner. I have had the privilege (Such as being a beat tester is as those of you who have been there know!) of being a beta tester for CWFSE (CAMWorks for Solid Edge). Now understand that we did not have the Beta to play with until three weeks ago and I did not actually cut parts with it until Wednesday through Saturday last week. As a result it is hard for me to sit here and try to answer questions other than in generalities. I do feel qualified to do that however.

CWFSE is not a simple CAM program and there is not a simple one out there however that can do all the things CWFSE does. This is the price to pay for having a powerful program at your fingertips.  Automatic Feature Recognition like that found in CWFSE  is a very powerful tool that is in many ways the CAM equivalent to the Synchronous Tech capabilities in Solid Edge. To make it work right you have to properly set up your tool crib. Once this is done AFR is quite powerful and in many cases will automatically yield tool paths that will need little tweaking to completely cut a part. For those of us like myself who still like to work off of features I pick Individual Feature Recognition is a great tool. Plus you can get  Volumill with CWFSE and the metal removal capabilities there are nothing less than phenomenal. We were looking up recommended speeds and feeds from the Volumill Milling Advisor and were a little timid to take their word for things at first. Cutting 4142 with a .5″ five flute end mill at 1″ depth with a 7% step over at 287 IPM is not something I have done before.  I am counting dollar signs for the future as I contemplate the increased efficiencies CWFSE and Volumill will be bringing to this shop.

In any case there will be a far more about CWFSE in the near future as this new program is put through  its paces.  I am just VERY pleased to be sitting here at SEU2013 today and see the culmination of CAM integration finally happen for Solid Edge. This is extremely important to Solid Edge considering the fact that  design software has no reason to exist without a product being produced somewhere at some time from it.

Solid Edge is now a complete manufacturing environment. I prefer to think it is the best midrange MCAD/CAM  manufacturing environment out there. There is a synergism that exists here with Solid Edge’s direct editing capabilities with Synchronous Tech and the Automatic Feature Recognition when set up with CWFSE and run in conjunction with Volumill.  OK, I admit I am biased and opinionated here about this. But I have good reason to be and I don’t see anyone else out there with this power to deliver productivity to shops that actually make things. And as a big bonus feature I know where Siemens is taking us in the future and it is to better productivity tools and no cloud type junk.  Their feet are firmly planted on the same ground I have to walk on and their manufacturing considerations are the same as mine because they are using it in their own manufacturing ecosystem.  Practical solutions and planning for real problems we all encounter and I can’t ask for anything better.

Now all you guys over at the Siemens  BBS SE Misc category know what “Quiffsee” is 🙂

CAMWorks For Solid Edge open window

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Assimilative Synchronous Directus Editoidosis Warning

Posted on June 17, 2013 | 7 comments

The CDC  (Centers for Dassault Control and Prevention)  are on high alert the next two weeks for a predicted outbreak  of the  highly contagious disease known as Assimilative Synchronous Directus Editoidosis.

This highly infectious disease has crossed traditional vectors of transmission pathways into new areas of contagious transmissible behaviors and therefore the CDC issues a critical warning for all SolidWorks users.

In addition to contact with prior infected individuals contact with any keyboard or PC or viewing a monitor attached that contains the ASDE (Assimilative Synchronous Directus Editoidosis) virus must also be avoided at all costs to remain disease free. The CDC also recommend that videos in diverse places such as YouTube which may have also been exposed to ASDE should be avoided.  The CDC maintains that YouTube type exposures can lead to lessened awareness on the part of SolidWorks users  increasing the potential for risky behavior resulting in increased rates of contamination from primary computing vectors.

The CDC maintains that this is not treatable at this time. They are working towards a cure in the future with something called CGM (Concentrated Geometric Masochism) but conflicting reports on results are all that is known about this. It’s efficacy has not been proven by the CDC and while they say that they are aware of the need at this time they are experiencing few concrete results to comment on. They are hopeful however for the future and with years of experience behind them they are certain the answers are at hand.

In the mean time the unaffiliated Solid Edge Research Labs in Huntsville, Alabama have produced  a remarkable technological breakthrough outside of the auspices of the CDC.  SERL (Solid Edge Research Labs) has produced a complete cure for this with a 100% success rate of fighting the infection through a revolutionary inoculation they have developed. Proven with years of rigorous field testing their clinics will begin serious distribution of this product next week and the first major treatment center will open its doors next Tuesday, 6-25-13.

It is not to late to get in the initial queue to be inoculated and here is the contact info for the clinic.

http://www.siemens.com/plm/solidedgeu

For those of you interested in the science behind the inoculation procedures I recommend the following two links.

Click to access seu2013agenda_handout.pdf

http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge/ct-p/solid-edge

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Solid Edge for Manufacturing, Guitar Die Corner Rounds

Posted on June 14, 2013 | Leave a comment

Here is the first actual part in this series. But before I go on there are some important comments I need to make.

First off I do not represent myself as an expert and what I show is how this user with his knowledge does things. There may be better ways to do this and if so and you know this better way I encourage you to share it here.  One of the things I want to promote here is the exchange of knowledge in the hopes that by the end of the day each of us will be a bit better at what we do. I know how ZW3D and Solid Edge work but don’t really know how other CAD programs work in depth as an actual user and so I am not going to try to make point by point comparisons with them. You guys know how your stuff works and you can watch how I work and draw your own conclusions about what is more efficient.

There are other CAD and CAM integrated programs out there so this idea is nothing new. What IS new with this integration of SE and “Camworks” (HEY, I saw it by name on Novedge today from a Solid Edge guy so I can say it too right?!) is the power of the synergism of Synchronous Tech direct editing and Camworks with its own class leading time-saving capabilities. The combination of the two is going to create I believe the most powerful and efficient mid-range MCAD and CAM integration in the market place.  I have played with it and I have seen the tool paths and later this week and next week I will be cutting parts with it. And yes for those of you who wonder how I can tell what cutting will be like the tool path generation gives you a very concise prediction tool here and it all looks really good. In addition to this we have proven capabilities where this program of Camworks is integrated with another CAD program and these carry over in full plus some to Solid Edge. By the way, one of the interesting things I have heard is that integration between Solid Edge and Camworks is better than that of Camworks and Solid Works. This is because per someone who told me and who is in a position to know that the Solid Edge guys have made every effort to support integration and have fully opened up the API to Geometric to work with whereas Solid Works has not. In a short period of time the Geometric Cam integration will be best done for Camworks inside of Solid Edge.

I am tremendously excited about this whole thing and just wish I could invite all of you over to watch. After the SEU2013 convention (you are signed up aren’t you? http://www.siemens.com/plm/solidedgeu ) I will be able to share as time permits video of how it all works out on YouTube.

For the next month I am really busy between beta testing and SEU2013 and work orders that had to arrive in the middle of all this so I won’t get as much out there as I want to. Of course during SEU2013 I will have some updates if they are not covered already at length elsewhere and my impressions about the new goodies and future direction in any case.

In the mean time here we have a common problem. This one I made myself with a .125 radius inside corner in various places in the part I applied without thinking because I was in a hurry. After cutting the first one I discover that both a .25″ ball end mill and a .25″ x .03R bull nose end mill have the same issue of chatter because of loading up the end mill as it dives into a same diameter corner. Now you can do things like slow the feed rate down as it goes into the corner but high-speed machining was meant to give you quick times to produce parts. Having to significantly slow things down in corners partially defeats this. Substituting a smaller end mill can work sometimes but it too brings it’s own set of problems especially when you have to reach this deep into a part cavity.  We all know this type of design problem is one of the favorite things engineers or designers who don’t cut love to do. Even if you are an experienced machinist and CAD guy these things happen so quick and easy on the spot remediation with part editing is a wonderful solution. Oh, did I forget to mention that I don’t have to worry about where the part came from?

Now you don’t get to see the CAM stuff here but you can see how I address this corner round problem with this part.  There are relationships in the .25″ corners that make editing difficult or impossible if you just grab the corner round and try.  So the first steps are those that involve isolating the features we wish to change. Remember that deleting features to get at what you want is one of the nice things about ST. What you can remove swiftly you can re-apply just as swiftly so the mind set you history only based guys have about what to do here is old hat. This will work just as well on imported parts by the way. As you will see in the video once the rounds are isolated it is easy to change to .13″ radius, re-apply removed features and go from there.  Of course as you may imagine since we now have integration I bet we also might have associative tool path regeneration. Ain’t life grand 🙂

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Solid Edge ST6 Auto-Align Dimensions Teaser

Posted on June 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

I am not crazy about beta testing as it obligates you to spending time you can spend in other ways. I kind of think that the companies that write the stuff look for volunteers to help them do their job and there is no reward for the testers that I can see other than perhaps getting better software. This is why I have never wanted to beta test Solid Edge.

With CAM though I found myself in a different mindset and I have to say that I have reconsidered my position and have participated in this case. There has been free training and tech support so this alone is worth something to get up to speed with a new program. Plus I am excited to see CAM on the way.

However back to the design side of things. I don’t get a whole lot from Siemens about ST6 even though Solid Edge University 2013 is just three weeks away. I did get a little teaser this morning though and it is one I am glad to see. I have never liked how cumbersome it is to drag around and arrange dimensions in SE in part mode. It even seems to work different from day to day and workstation to workstation.

Drawings have been easier though but this new little enhancement should make a big difference. What I am hoping is that there will be help to for dimensioning in parts and sketches. Like you guys though I have to wait and see just what is in the box when I get the box. ( Well not really, I get to see it just not play with it at Solid Edge University 2013. By the way have you signed up to go? http://www.siemens.com/plm/solidedgeu  ) I was hoping that I would get to see ST6 when we were beta training for Brand X Cam, you know, that CAM program we can’t talk about yet. But the stinkers had us use ST5.

Anyway here is the teaser as information slowly dribbles out.

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Solid Edge University 2013 Update, CAM Woo-Hoo!!

Posted on May 28, 2013 | 12 comments

Looking forward with great anticipation to the end of June and SEU2013. Spent some time last week working with some goodies I am prohibited from discussing much so I will have to just hint and make vague generalities and be grudgingly accepting of this for a few more weeks. Detail WILL be forthcoming soon though.

In the mean time though      http://www.solidedgeu.com/assets/doc…da_handout.pdf  will take you to the latest posted agenda for SEU2013 and in particular I would direct your attention to TADA  !!

ScreenHunter_01 May. 26 04.15

That’s right, Wednesday morning 9:00 to 10:00 brings us the first ever CAM section for Solid Edge. And I mean JUST for Solid Edge and none of this NX Cam Express or all the other not truly integrated CAM stuff SE users have had to limp along with up until this point in time.

Now CAM might be old hat for other programs but not here. And while other programs might have a great ecosphere of apps they have other serious problems like forced migration to the cloud or a new kernal or both and soon to be uncontrollable related miscellaneous costs and data hostage taking. HEY all you doubters prove me wrong. Is this not exactly what Carl Bass of Autodesk and Bernard with Dassault have been saying now for some time? These are words of intent out of their own mouths and you better start taking them seriously. The funny thing about Autodesk and Dassault that can’t be said enough is that while they won’t put their source code on the cloud they expect you to do so with your equivalent-in-value CAD and design data. I am amazed at the number of CAD users that just drift along oblivious to these disruptive and damaging and more expensive to boot paradigms heading their way.

What we are going to see in SEU2013 is the maturing of the most powerful mid-range MCAD program which will include for all those who have been complaining about lacks in surfacing the end to complaints in this area.  SE has a plan and it is consistent and it does not include the cloud or kernal switches. And it has of course the most powerful single new tool for CAD and that is direct editing Synchronous Tech built on the Parasolid kernal they just happen to own and control. I can’t begin to state the power of this and those that don’t have it are quickly falling behind in overall efficiency of design. Plus it belongs to Siemens which bought it to improve their own manufacturing efficiencies.

This can’t be  stressed enough and it should be a pivotal consideration for any CAD user or CAD using company. What is the underlying philosophy of the company whose design software you have bought into?

……. If it does not have as it’s reason for existence providing great tools  for your bottom line and manufacturing efficiency.

……. If it is not used by the author for the very same things you intend to use it for and who then prove it out in their own manufacturing ecosystem should you or can you afford to be there?

There is only one major CAD author in this world who operates on a ten year plan and owns design software PRIMARILY to control and develop for it’s own manufacturing enhancement around the world. We who buy into this buy into real world tools void of all the fantasies that seem to currently be emanating from Dassault and most certainly the cloud coming from both Dassault and Autodesk.

Rather than being in the cross hairs of  companies that desire me as chattel with no regard for my future or bottom line I am with a company that worries about what I need and provides it. I recommend for anyone interested that they attend http://www.siemens.com/plm/solidedgeu

The conference is $550.00 after June 7Th for one and three can go for $1,100.00.  Local hotels are available for roughly $65.00 a night for decent rooms if you want to save additional money. This is by far the most economical conference by a major CAD company in the USA. Come and see what the next reigning king of the MCAD world is all about and be there where it all really and finally begins. Can you tell I am excited? If you knew what I knew you just might be too.

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