Tag Archives: direct editing

The Builders Philosophy

Posted on December 16, 2014 | 2 comments

I have considered for some time that there is a philosophy that directs how programs are focused and who determines or how this is determined. You have people who are convinced that the design of something is paramount and all that happens around after and before is just what follows this most singularly important event. Then there are the guys on the shop floor who know that if it does not work well there it can impact the bottom line of a company far more than the design ever did. Then there are the PLM types that figure it all hinges on them and rather than making the collator organizer type thing PLM is supposed to be they make it the chief entity and all other programs have to be shoehorned into it. Then you have the customer who judges the end result and finds themselves wondering on occasion what genius came up with this mess. Most of the people contacted through my business fall primarily into one category with perhaps another as ancillary to the primary. They may design for instance and they may walk out onto the shop floor and look at parts being cut or talk to the machinist so they have some knowledge of what goes on there but no real knowledge like they have for designing.

I remember about four years ago starting an argument with the SE guys about thread data that would go with a part file. My complaint was the only reason for SE to exist was so someone could manufacture something from it and in order to do this efficiently the right manufacturing data had to be in there. It was not until last year that SE began to fix this so that manufacturing data would be reflected in the actual dimensions on the CAD file. Prior to this point in time for instance none of your surface data could be used in the part. For instance a 1/4 20 thread would not show a .2010 drill hole size but rather a silly .25 hole size. Decisions made by programmers who just could not understand why this was a big deal. Had they been made to deal with the problems this created on a shop floor or CAM program they might have had a better appreciation for the thought that no software meant for any part of the manufacturing process truly is an island by itself. By the way ST7 finally has this fixed right for the first time ever in the history of SE. Why did this take so long? I wonder if it was because they finally decided to consider manufacturing or whether it was the fact that the US military will soon require all correct and actual part conditions and tolerances to be incorporated in the actual part files in design software used for things they consume. But this is a perfect example to me of the divide perpetuated by management and coders that see themselves as the primary entity and not as a part of an integrated system which as an aggregate is in reality the primary entity.

I find very few individuals who have the knowledge that I have and an appreciation for the how it all must work together. When something is done here I design the part, go and program the CAM paths and cut the part, weld the sanitary tubing or sheet metal assemblies. Assemble the product to the degree required and then deliver this and make sure the customer is happy. Every single aspect of the complete manufacturing process I have hands on experience with. I go to the SE Universities and am in awe of the skill level there with some of these guys. They are so far ahead of me in design abilities and I never expect to be their equal in that area. But I am an expert in shop floor procedures and I am good enough at design to create all I produce. I actually create the idea build it and guarantee it and so I have to deal with every aspect of the part. Very few people do. This leads me to the idea of what philosophy determines the content and capabilities of the software that you use.

I have a builders philosophy. I just want what I use to work well and competently with all the other aspects of building real things so I can, well uhh so, well so I can build real things and my living depends on ALL of it working together. This is one of the things that really excited me about Karsten Newbury being in charge of SE. He had an industrial degree and he grokked the importance of how it all must work together. Miss you Karsten and hope you come back some day and they give you the free rein you and the SE customers deserve. It is this world view of software I find missing so often from people who work with software programming who have a tunnel vision and everything else is below them in the “real” world they live in. So these types of people build little compartments where each thing is separate and the manufacturing ecosystem has to go from room to room to work with dividing walls everywhere hindering efficiencies. And heaven forbid the upper management of these companies getting this in most cases.

Last February Autodesk ran an ad during the Superbowl. Well yes it really was an ad but so cleverly done. The dynamics of air flow around a football and showing how it was done. I was floored with the originality of this presentation and it started the wheels spinning. For some time Autodesk was #2 bad boy after Dassault in my view based on my utter loathing, which I still have by the way, for being forced to work on the cloud. Carl Bass had been accumulating essential and best in class components for A to Z manufacturing for a while by then and it dawned on me what he was doing. He was assembling a comprehensive integrated manufacturing ecosystem. He was also laying the foundation to create interest in design/building/engineering amongst the future and existing workforce. Those who just might be inspired by this and end up using Autodesk products while learning in schools and universities and expect to afterwards to when they were in the private sector as employees. So here I was as an SE user watching Siemens cut SE off at the knees and looking over the fence at Autodesk who had a plan and was implementing it. I wondered then and still do wonder if the companies that compete against Autodesk have any idea of the peril they are in with small to medium or perhaps even larger manufacturing ecosystems? I just have this idea of a juggernaut that was being assembled as people watched in shock apparently incapable of reacting in any meaningful way. The really good CAM bits left on the market get snapped up by Autodesk as part of a plan while others who could have done something elected to relegate the idea of complete manufacturing ecospheres as secondary. I was in admiration of Carl Basses plan at that time and said so. Still not convinced though that the cloud was unavoidable with them. But he and they had my attention and I ask questions.

One of the remarkable things I have since found out is that unlike any other CEO or major corporate officer of any other design software company I know of Carl Bass personally owns CNC machinery himself. He makes things and he writes the programs to do this and I have concluded that out of all the corporate executives out there in design software land he is the only one with a builders philosophy. I am completely fascinated with this and regard Autodesk today as the most singularly exciting place there is because the builders concept is being put into place there by a builder.

So far unlike some past acquisitions by Autodesk things are now being handled in exemplary fashion. The fears the HSM users had have never come to pass and they were treated with respect and courtesy and I don’t know anyone who has left. Not that I know many but of those none complain or leave. Delcam is being integrated but not subsumed and don’t hear squat for complaints on the web from Delcam users about all this now. What I am saying is that by all the information I can dig up there have been no stumbles and no duplicitous garbage forthcoming from all this. I was for some time quite angry over the cloud issue and the lack of information about how the future was to be shaped regarding it but this fear has left for me now and I am today a customer. I am seeing a company that is the most transparent about what they are doing amongst their peers and making prices right to be a player with small to medium-sized and above companies who make or design things.

For me with a builders philosophy I am certain you can find singular programs outside of Autodesk that are much better like SE is compared to Inventor. But for the driving philosophy behind what is being implemented and the future roadmap being planned there is nothing else that touches the potential of what I see unfolding today at Autodesk.

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Solid Edge, Siemens/UGS and the Inevitable Consequences

Posted on October 20, 2014 | 6 comments

So today I read that Karsten Newbury has left Siemens.

Well first off I want to say that there are two people who I hold most responsible for the brief renaissance of SE and a period of time for hope for bigger and better things. Now Dan Staples is high on my list too but for technical reasons and not as a spark plug for serious growth in numbers and community for Solid Edge. Dan is perhaps more than anyone else the reason Don and Karsten had something truly great to sell to the world. But with Don and Karsten was hope for better things personified and moving forward in tangible ways that could be seen and touched.

I remember getting a call from Don about five years ago when I was expressing frustration in public with Siemens who seemed dead set on hiding SE under a rock and keeping it there. He told me he had a guy who was going to call me that I would find of interest. Karsten called shortly after and told me what his plans and goals were and we basically wanted the same thing. SE to take its place as its capabilities deserved as the company that would overtake SW. This began a five-year journey where at times it was kind of surreal. I mean just how in the world a single man shop ends up helping to influence the outcome of the software he uses is still something that surprises me. I guess I was a pretty good litmus test for how users felt about things and so off we went.

I can say as a guy that had a peek way behind the scenes of SE that neither Don or Karsten ever said they would do something and then not do it. They had a vision and goals and were steadfast to both SE and it’s customers as tireless advocates for the product and it’s users. They were serious about SE and us.

While I have fallen out of the “inner circle” so to speak of SE and Siemens and don’t have much contact with anyone there any more I do wish to say this. I have nothing but admiration for Dan and Karsten both as corporate figures and personally. They both had correct visions of how things should be and could be and eminently qualified plans on how to get there. Over the last year and a half though it became clear to me that they were being hampered in their efforts by Siemens.

I knew these guys and their goals and it was clear people above and around them did not share the same vision. Primarily North American UGS guys who had convinced Siemens that SE was a threat to NX. I think they were becoming quite alarmed at how good SE was becoming and the true potential that SE under Don and Karsten represented in possible sales. I consider Siemens to be quite anal and navel gazers to boot who sadly are stupid enough to believe these UGS guys, some of who have had a real hatred of SE that surpasses mere protection of NX sales. They have deliberately starved SE of funds and permission to market themselves adequately and the really sad thing is that this was with the very money SE had earned for itself. It is so pathetic that the public face of SE through the website had an $80,000.00 a YEAR budget and thought control police who hated SE making sure nothing right or wonderful could ever happen there.   Matt Lombard with a following that was staggering at one time was brought in by Don and Karsten as part of a master plan to eat up SW. Right off the bat Matt was shoved of to the side and deliberately throttled and his value to SE killed.

So in my opinion to protect a few lousy seats of their precious NX they sacrifice tens of thousands of SW conversions and increased overall profit for Siemens. And sadly really talented guys like Don and Karsten who are not going to work for people like this forever. Can you imagine being in charge of something as wonderful as SE and then have board room politics by simple-minded venal corporate turf protecting back stabbers shooting you down? Would you stay under those conditions? So the Siemens quality filter works and good people leave and the bad ones stay and now the whole future of SE looks bleak. Yeah, SE is not going away but until there is a shakeup of upper level management SE is doomed. It going to become like one of those little orange and black spotted Salamanders. They are around but you have to turn over rocks to find them. We have now gone full circle and the bad guys have run off the good guys and SE will once again take its rightful place as the best software you won’t hear about. It is clear to me the Siemens/UGS people who hold SE in contempt have won and will win for some time to come.

I would say that it is Don and Karstens gain and Siemens loss but that presumes Siemens even has the corporate mental capabilities to understand that losing a right hand is not a good thing. They can have a bunch of meetings and talk about all this while they try to figure out if losing body parts is good or bad. I guess the old adage about body parts and who really runs things at Siemens is true. The brain says it is in charge of things and other body parts chime in with why they are the most important. But the winning body part of this debate is the North American UGS a– hole that says if I close myself off none of the rest of you are going to work.

Guys, best of luck in your new jobs and I sincerely hope you both prosper at whatever you do. Your abilities and dedication deserve to be rewarded by someone who judges on merits and not short-sighted little boardroom weasels with axes to grind.

An additional comment.

Sometimes the sublime humor in life comes from strange places. Perhaps there is also more than a little bit of truth to saying like what goes around comes around. Just for the heck of it this evening I went to read the spam posts that accumulate with the filter WordPress provides. The post most frequently generating spam mail is, are you ready for this, “The Destructive Siemens Corporate Mindset”.  Uhh well lets see. Brilliant minds think alike,  birds of a feather flock together. Just some amusing thoughts going through my mind right now. Feel free to post any witticisms you might have in regards to this to dear readers.

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The Leveling of the Playing Field for USERS

Posted on September 30, 2014 | Leave a comment

First go here http://www.upfrontezine.com/2014/upf-833.htm and read the theory of CAD commoditization Ralph brings forth. I have to admit to having similar thoughts for some time now and think the handwriting is on the wall for over priced CAD and CAM.

The exception to this will be those who have been sucked into the PLM world and the psuedopods of the Hydra so firmly wrapped around their stuff that there is no escape. At a certain level of manufacturing complexity this is necessary and an evil inflicted upon using companies by vendors that make it so difficult to use that not only do you have to buy the product you have to buy gobs of very expensive tech support. Mainly from people like Dassault and Siemens who are the chief culprits of complexity for their own benefit but others like PTC fit the bill to.

But for the rest of us who use midrange MCAD there is a revolution coming. Remember what the prices for rudimentary CAD was when it all got started? I read of things like $150,000.00+ for one seat along with the custom computer for crude stuff by today’s standards. With the exception of Synchronous Tech which I believe sets Solid Edge above the rest the similarities of all cad programs and their capabilities are sufficient for what you need to make. How easy it is to get there differs which is why all mid range CAD programs will end up having Direct editing if they want to survive with decent market share.

Let us use what I currently employ as an example of a business model which will be under serious attack by the end of this year. CAMWorks for Solid Edge with 3 axis milling, Volumill 3 axis, 2 axis turning and adding 4th axis milling adds up to over $15,000.00 and right at $3,000.00 per year for what ever they decide to put in there and tech support which most use rarely after the first year or so with most programs. Then we have Solid Edge Classic at around $6.900.00 and $1,500.00 per year. Grand total of $21,900.00 up front and add to that another $4,500.00 and your first years expenditure is $26,400.00 and $4,500.00 per year after that. Similar costs abound with most combinations out there for SW and SE with the exception of HSMWorks and SW which can as a package be significantly cheaper than others.

Yes, HSMWorks which brings me to the company that is going to break the back of overpriced CAD CAM. http://cam.autodesk.com/inventor-hsm is the current page for Inventor and HSMWorks. Look at these prices!! Yes I know that Inventor is clunky compared to SE and SW but they are working on it. Seriously working on it. Now how quickly they fix things remains to be seen but for most of us out there based upon the work I see being done with Inventor it is more than capable. I have used HSMWorks and while CAMWorks has some powerful things HSM does not CAMWorks is also far more complex to use and set up. The reality is that if you are a job shop with gobs of differing parts and small runs at the end of the year I think CW and HSM both will consume about the same amount of time to generate plans with ease of use to implement going to HSM as the hands down winner. Unless there is a significant improvement for SE in a revolutionary way and not just the incremental way the last two years have been I will more than likely not ever renew again. I can use SE as it is for the next six or seven years and all the capabilities I need are there. CAMWorks is just overpriced like Featurecam and Mastercam and Surfcam and many others with price tags way up there.

See here is the thing I am looking at. What have YOU MR CAD CAM company done for me lately? Just what is it you think I should spend MY money on? Remember, it IS my money. This thing you are supposed to compete to get not collude to fix prices at an artificially high level. You want me to keep forking out the dough when I rarely need tech support you have to offer genuine improvements that rate buyer loyalty. It is a thing that works both ways you know and what have you done for me that I should reward you with loyalty and money each year is a question most developers would rather you never ask yourself. Now if you don’t already own SE it is worth looking into to buy for at least a year just to get the Synchronous goodies. Like many SW users are discovering as their Dassault sells them down the river you can work many years without being current. Money in your pocket where it needs to be.

I expect that I will soon be buying into the Autodesk HSM Inventor world where I can replace most of what I need for $7,500.00 and $1,250.00 per year after that. For just the cost of two years maintenance with SE and CW4SE I have a new program that will save me at least $3,000.00 per year afterwards. Heck if I need only 2.5 axis HSM is FREE. That is like $4,500.00+ at CW4SE and Surfcam and Mastercam etal. It has been free for some time now and I expect it will be for some time to come. THIS is the commoditization that is going to happen and Autodesk is going to kick the prices down across the board and eat their competitors alive.

The next generation of pricing is right around the corner. HEY you UGS/Siemens SE haters don’t worry about losing sales of NX to SE but rather maybe you ought to think about will SE even keep most of its market share in the coming onslaught. If you care of course. So Nero fiddles for SE at Siemens and the lunatics run the assylum at Dassault and PTC Who is over there while a guy who is really hungry and commited with a vision and the will and power to make it happen plans your demise. I never used to think much about Carl Bass but this is certainly changing for the better as I watch what is happening under his direction.

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Update for CAMWorks for SE and SE ST7

Posted on September 17, 2014 | 4 comments

Pleased to say that progress is being made for CW4SE behind the scenes. The beta for integration with ST7 will be out this week and if typical patterns are followed the official release will be within a month. Also the work continues on the new Tech Data Base that will allow for real world tools and I presume in time the importing of tool libraries from manufacturers. Of course along with this rework the out of the box tool path strategies will be improved so look for great things in the next year.

I know, next year? Why so long? While Geometric is a pretty decent sized software developer there is a limit to how much manpower they have to delegate to stuff like this and sadly real life things like trade shows and work for others like SW has to be done to. Lets face it here, while the population of CW4SE users is growing it is nothing at all like other specific programs in the size of the user base and they can’t drop everything just to make the new kid on the block happy. This is real life here but I can say with confidence that, and this includes the SW users of CAMWorks to, there is continued development of the new way and as far as I can tell they are quite serious and do not intend to stop. They are aware of how dated some aspects of the program are. Indeed with the work and super competitive pricing Autodesk is bringing to the world with the combination of HSMWorks and Inventor and others are also doing with integrating tool management and libraries and cutting strategies they know things have to advance. I find myself going back to ZW3D on occasion for really simple 2D tool paths. Is it not strange that of all cutting that simple 2D seems to be fraught with more problems than 3D? Strange but true and it is so with most CAM programs out there. ZD does these pretty well or I just happen to know it well enough to make it seem easy. But NOTHING beats the combination of Volumill and Constant Stepover with CW4SE as far as I am concerned. Cut some more dough extrusion dies this week and I just love it when customers call up and marvel over how nice the work is. Keep in mind I did not have to do ANY polishing after the fact to get these up to food grade.

Now we have ST7 to play with also and it is a very good release. Nothing remarkable that I have seen but improvements in how easy it is to do daily clicks and picks. Sometimes I would far rather see these things happen. Dimensioning and picking reference points for example are far easier and how many times a day does this kind of stuff affect you? I have not played with 3D points nor have I made much headway with Keyshot in the brief time I have given to it. Really not all that interested in things outside of my little work world and what is specific to my products. I can say without reservation though that if you are a developer or manufacturer of machinery for food products manufacturing this is where you need to be.

The caveat to this and it is a serious one is that there sadly dwells withing the Siemens Ecosystem a particular individual who will remain un-named who has considerable authority to compromise the future of SE. He is an old time UGS guy and he despises SE. Quite frankly he sees SE as a threat to the giant cash cow NX etal represents to Siemens/UGS and while SE was good enough to develop Synchronous Tech which NX had no clue about it is not good enough to be fairly represented and promoted by Siemens in this mans eyes. For years I had heard this was the case but until I was informed by those who truly know I did not believe it. So SE is once again and still the red headed bastard step child that just wont go away and leave the UGS guys alone. Bet that dude and his friends in high places just hate it.

I know it takes just one rotten apple in the right place to destroy more than you can imagine and the efforts of top flight people like Dan Staples and Karsten Newbury. These guys are the best in the industry and are over the best mid range MCAD program in the industry that has not lived up to it’s potential as far as I can find out solely because Siemens has been convinced it is a threat to NX sales. Heaven forbid that! I guess these people figure that losing all the sales they were virtually guaranteed by Dassault idiocies was not worth losing a few NX sales. Penny wise and pound foolish and all to satisfy the ego of Mr NX who just happens to be an SE hater.

I will say this too. I see these NX camp guys pushing CAM Express for SE like it was a fully integrated program. I am telling anyone who wants to listen this is misrepresentation by them and yes there is a nice CE icon on your SE toolbar but then you have to bring it into NX cad and THEN you get to use CE with it. With CW4SE you have true integration and it works inside of SE with native files and updates and you NEVER leave the SE environment. I get so tired of NX people claiming true integration when it is not. But I expect this from that side of the aisle and from the Siemens SE killers.

Apparently all the user summits and roll-outs that usually accompany new SE releases regionally will not happen this year. I suppose this falls under the don’t want to sell too many SE seats category and I would imagine it has been starved deliberately for funds like so many other things that would have ably promoted dramatic sales increases for SE.

Folks, buy SE and CW4SE because they work well. Don’t buy them because you expect Siemens to aggressively acquire market share you can benefit from with the increased work it would represent. Under the current regime there is no interest in this. It is why the crap publicity and promotion happens year after year. And until this is changed at levels above Newbury and Staples where the real power to determine outcomes resides this is SE’s fate in life. It is indeed “The Best Software Siemens Does Not Want You To Hear Of” and not as folklore has it “The Best Software You’ve Never heard Of”.

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Siemens and the Power of One

Posted on July 7, 2014 | 16 comments

Today I go to Novedge as part of my day and I have to admit that it gave me pause to consider a long time situation. How is it that a major international corporation can’t do something as simple as a web page or blog? Is it because they hire such incompetents or is it because they starve good employees for budgets because what is important to the world is not to Siemens Muckymucks? Or is it because they starve incompetent employees of funds but funding would not matter anyway because incompetents would produce nothing of value in any case. So who hires these people anyway? Why even have a Marketing and PR department if they are not going to do anything? And then you have to wonder who supervises the playground and why errant children are never disciplined and made to do what they were supposedly told to do. Of course that opens up another whole realm of conjecture about who manages those who run the asylum if the inmates are the ones selecting what is done.

Or do they despise SE and just wish the problem would go away?

Matt Lombard has a blog “On The Edge” that he produces and is responsible for. He had to fight to get this and indeed it is the first time an independent guy produced his own blog outside of official Siemens Muckymuck auspices. This by the way is the only reason his sight works. So today as I peruse various sites with Firefox once again I am reminded of just how anal Siemens is and how impossible it is to get anything done there. Poor Matt is stuck with yet another rerun of SEU2014 because there is nothing new to talk about I expect and Summits I figure may or may not happen this year. I am thinking that they are still having meetings on the Summits and so there is nothing to talk about in this area yet. So just what can someone talk about without getting in trouble when there is corporate paralysis? Why the past of course. Now you Siemens nutjobs leave Matt alone about all this. I don’t talk to him anymore and he is not telling me this. I make these statements based upon what I see online and what I have personally experienced over the last five years. From the mouths of Solid Edge leadership comes confirmation of Siemens idiocy this year as they admit to Ralph Grabowski onstage at SEU 2014 that Siemens corporate CHOOSES to hamper SE. You don’t like what I post here talk to the idiots in Germany and not Matt.

But anyway to the topic at hand which is what do I see today. Here is Matt’s blog page.

Matt's

Just for giggles here is Dave Ault’s $100.00 per year “SolidEdging” page which includes two domains and spam filters from WordPress. And yes my $100.00 per year page works with all browsers in common use. Shocking isn’t it?

SolidEdging's $100.00 blog

Here we have the top flight professionally done Siemens corporate page produced I assume under the auspices of social media expert Chris Kelley and per Siemens corporate standards for Marketing and PR. Kelley and Siemens are of course part of a major international corporation with unlimited funds and abilities for those things which they find important. So let us go to the Siemens site today and have a look. Still the same mess it was weeks ago.

Siemens

Chock full of information and all links work and the visuals are an integrated cohesive sight to behold. It is easy to see the professional standards that Siemens demands be present with their public face at all times is world class and without fail is ever present.

Do you people in Siemens Germany Muckymuck land realize how stupid you look here? Do you care? Do you ever do anything but have meetings where nothing is decided and no one is accountable for anything? Have you forbidden tie up shoes yet? I think if I were you I would because it is unseemly according to professional Siemens standards to fall on your face all the time while tripping over your own shoelaces.

Please please would you sell off this red headed step child SE to someone who cares? May I suggest you sell to Autodesk? They apparently have management that can put their acquisitions to productive uses and their meetings apparently also produce results and not just another meeting date. Why not get some cash for this thing you don’t want or care about and be done with it eh?

Say, would it help if I posted a screen capture of an Autodesk site? http://cam.autodesk.com/inventor-hsm/ It works with Firefox by the way. And check those prices out while you are there. Autodesk regards new customers as something desirable to have would be my guess.

ScreenHunter_05 Jul. 07 10.31

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Celebrate Fireworks Free July 4TH with Siemens SE Sales Supression Team

Posted on July 4, 2014 | 4 comments

I had a young lad from my church stop by Thursday. Like many he has graduated from a two-year community college with an Autodesk oriented study mainly Revit and architectural stuff. He also claimed to have six months of Inventor and some SW under his belt. He was curious to see SE though and I always make time to show anyone who is interested. He has been working sweating copper for an HVAC company doing installs for Walmarts. He decided that he did not like the boss though and quit. Now in this retarded Obama economy he is finding out that work is hard to come by and he stopped in to see what I am doing and to see SE.

So I run through some SE stuff for a while and listen to the oohs and aahs that you hear from Inventor types and SW types when you start in on the direct editing goodies. And I get to sit there and grin when he says how long it would take to do these things in SW or Inventor. But then we get into the serious life questions that revolve around this kid getting work and a future. And we get into the serious questions of a potential employer not being able to find the skills he needs in potential employees.

Of course the local college is teaching Autodesk and SW. They all do don’t they? Now this did not happen by accident it was by design with companies that have the ability to be forward-looking and to plan a market conquest based upon creating a need and a labor resource to fill the need. It is called smart business and planning and laying a foundation for the future. Of course this is something the overlords of SE have never done from Integraph until today where Siemens with huge financial power continues this legacy of ignoring the best mid range MCAD program out there. So I sit here with this young lad and ponder this situation that bugs the heck out of me. Namely the idea that Siemens SHOULD be seeking larger market share for the benefit of all involved with SE. But oblivious to things that would benefit their customers and drive more sales for them we see nothing. Again and still and apparently forever.

I look at yet another prospective employee that has no skills I can use unless I am willing to teach him SE. And I would have to be the one to do it because it is not taught by any school I know of closer than a 75 mile drive for him each way to UAH in Huntsville. And even then the instructors in Huntsville are stuck on lazy and do not teach anything about SE ST SIX YEARS AFTER IT’S RELEASE. I figure it is because they might have to be bothered to learn something new before they can teach it. Yes you heard this right, they only can be bothered to teach ordered. And yes Siemens does not police what is done with contributions here so these students never see the most powerful part of SE. It’s no wonder why the adoption rate of ST is so darned low. How are people supposed to know about and be inspired about ST if Siemens can’t be bothered to get behind SE and push this technology? Osmosis? Siemens is truly anal and retarded about this and it just furthers the idea in my mind that they bought SE by design for internal use only. Buy SE because it works for you not because Siemens will work for you. If you are looking to buy SE you better think hard about this. This kid CAN however go five miles each way to Columbia Community College and be taught SW and Autodesk stuff. By design and by plan there is work out there for people trained in virtually everything but SE.

I find myself in a sad position with people and SE nowadays because what I say can influence life changing decisions. I do not try to talk people into buying or using SE anymore because there is just no work out there for them anywhere close to where I live and after five years I have given up on Siemens trying to change this situation for the better. I do highly recommend SE under these two following narrow sets of circumstances. If you are like me and you do design build under your own roof and are basically a closed complete manufacturing entity you absolutely can not beat the power of SE. Bring in your customers files or do your own and then make the designs become reality better and faster than any other way. The second is that I recommend for those shops that have multiples of seats to get at least one seat of SE to deal with imported files and editing quickly internal files that would otherwise consume whole days to fix with SW or Inventor. But your primary customers will in all likely hood be using SW or Inventor and they will expect you to do the same. Refer back to the shrewd planning idea that the masters of SE have been bereft of since the very beginning.

My advice to this kid was I will teach you how to tig weld. There are ads in the paper for welders. I was not going to waste his time and mine teaching him SE when I know he can’t find any work with it. Once again I come face to face with eventually having to train someone how to use SE if I ever hire a designer. Or buying a seat of Inventor or SW and bypassing the training hassle. I hate to say it but my up front costs as an employer will be far cheaper with software I can get trained users for. This is the reality of the world that has been inflicted upon SE by idiots like Siemens German Management Experts. At least they do meetings well and the meetings to plan further meetings bit to.

I am getting really soured on the SE ecosystem. It seems like every time I turn around there are roadblocks placed before the usefulness of SE to me as a company if I step outside of the narrow range of design build under my own roof with just myself. SE does not get me a single bit of work because I have customers that use it. At this time not one does. SE does not provide me with a potential trained work force because students choose to learn SE based upon the idea they will be employed using it. Students just 75 miles north of the SE headquarters have never even heard of SE and when they and the colleges look at help wanted boards SE is absent there to. So just why should the colleges and students be interested in something that will gain them no work? Answer, they aren’t. So we have these inflicted wounds upon the body of SE that have no relationship to the outright capabilities of SE but have as its sole source owners of SE stabbing SE in the back. Time and time again and year after year they inflict these wounds upon SE.

For five years now I have fought to change this and I have just given up. These Siemens people are truly terminal adding to the long list of idiot owners where SE is concerned and who do not care. I have nothing but the highest regard for Karsten Newbury and I know he gets all the right things and wants the right things to happen. Siemens shoots him down all the time. I am only going to say this one time but I mean it. Karsten, if this is the way Siemens is going to do you why stay? Why not join the others who are leaving because Siemens is NOT going to ever get behind SE as far as I can see and you can do far better than this for yourself. Siemens is not going to give you the support required to make SE #1 and in truth they could care less about that whole idea anyway. So where does that leave you? I don’t know how much time you might spend thinking about this but I do and I wonder where it leaves me as a small business owner. Artificially crippled by idiots in Siemens Germany Muckymuck land is what I am thinking. The dead and utter silence since SEU 2014 does nothing but confirm this to me. Not a word about the Summits this year and just space-filling SEU2014 junk on the official blogs. The CADCAM blogosphere seemingly could care less and has nothing much to say about the best software no one has ever heard of. Every day I can read a lot of stuff from individuals and companies about Autodesk and SW but not SE. I don’t have to be there to know that Siemens has cut the purse strings to SE and that they do not care what happens to SE nor do they care what their existing customers think of all this. I can look around me and see what is being done and make this most accurate judgement based upon what I see in the real world. Quite frankly I doubt entirely the idea that SE is #2 in midrange MCAD and I figure it is another thing pulled out of some marketing guys rear end. No provable numbers and no corporate office that cares and you can’t be #2 under this kind of environment. But you can however put a smiley face on this mess because smiley faces are free and within the Siemens authorized budget for SE.

The only hope for SE as far as I can tell are right minded VAR’s and they are the only ones doing good work and trying to get the word out there. They appear to be the only ones who really care about the future of SE. I think of my VAR which is Ally PLM. They do a superb job of support for SE as a product and me as a customer. They care in all the important ways that the Siemens Overlords do not. Heaven help SE if these VAR’s ever get tired of all this.

So Happy Fireworks Free 4Th to you all at Siemens and may you enjoy contemplating the environment of externally imposed failure you have created for SE.

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Siemens Marketing and Publicity Update 5-27-14

Posted on May 27, 2014 | 6 comments

You can blame Ralph for this post as my jaw dropped when I read the following in his latest ezine. But before we start in here is a picture from a secret spy camera somewhere in a Siemens parking lot as a Marketing or PR guy is driving in. It is kind of hard to tell which department he belonged to as they all look the same.

marketing guy arriving at work

Here is Ralph’s latest. A great read all the time on many topics and you should subscribe.
http://www.upfrontezine.com/2014/upf-820.htm.

“Re: What I Learned at Solid Edge University 2014
Thanks for attending Solid Edge University and publishing your article in upfront.eZine #819. I work in marketing for Solid Edge and just a couple of comments from me that may be of interest to your readers:

The Solid Edge Apps web page that you refer to is a new resource to help our customers find the most commonly used Apps by category (Analysis, Manufacturing, Standard Parts etc.). We are adding the most popular apps into this area right now and you are correct that there are just 30 or so listed here right now. At the bottom of the page is a link to “All Solid Edge Partners” and it is here that you can search on the 500+ technology partners whose software works with Solid Edge.

Great that you were impressed by the Create Sheet Metal from 3D Part capability, and we would agree we should have featured this more prominently in our marketing materials for Solid Edge ST7. It is featured in the “Fast and Flexible Part Modeling” video on our Solid Edge ST7 web page.
– David Chadwick, mainstream eng global product marketing
Siemens Industry Software Limited”

SO Dave, this Dave the user and not the marketing whiz-bang, what did you learn today reading the above quote from the esteemed Mr Chadwick? What I learn is that once again these people can’t be bothered to do their jobs. There are a number of reasons for this which I know but will not go into at this time. Any one of these, or all of these or maybe even some new monumentally idiotic reasons I may not be aware of apply here.

Suffice it to say that once again with a known convention date that presents a once a year opportunity better than any other by far to promote SE these guys fail to fix yet another website problem. LOOK HERE at all of our partners, 500+ of them!! Don’t you love it when you go there as Ralph did and see 30 some listed right now? And of course right now is heading into two weeks after what should have been a hard must make it deadline. I wonder how many of these are here from last year first off and secondly if they were at all worried about this there would have been more than 30+ even if they could not get them all in there. AND that number would grow rapidly each week until they were all there. Of course I digress because that happens elsewhere and not here in the land of never-ending meetings to decide web page colors. Clearly Mr Chadwick was not worried enough about this to do it in a timely fashion so the year’s best opportunity squandered again. For crying out loud my church just finished a web site and the links work and it is populated quite well and one person did it with a part-time effort in a few weeks. How is it that when Siemens M&PR get ahold of these simple things they never see the light of day?

You guys better wake up and realize that the brand you are making for yourself in the public eye is one of superior product and bungling navel gazing M&PR. Also known as the best software you’ve never heard of. Look people I have a serious question for you. How many times do you have to walk face first into closed doors before you begin to realize that opening the door first gets you farther faster and in much better shape? It will also allow you to take that big red clown ball off of your noses which is another great benefit.

OK I know this is hard for you all to understand but let me spell out why this is important to users who BUY your product. The larger the market share SE has the more we as buyers benefit from increased work that will come our way as a natural and inevitable consequence of growing market share. I said this FIVE YEARS ago and find it nearly impossible to believe I am STILL saying it to people who STILL don’t understand this. Oh, and you guys as a company will make more money too although I guess this must not be too important or else Siemens would be cleaning its dead wood out left and right.

Would one of you with some gonads please reply to this post and explain this situation to me? I want to try to understand this continuation of absolute and I fear deliberate evasion of duty to your customers and corporation to do what they and we have hired you to do. Really, I want to know.

From yet another secret spy camera purportedly in a Siemens M&PR meeting room where important decisions are made.

marketing decision process

A rather simple and elegant answer to determining what gets done. The Siemens gray color-neutral darts are labeled with cool to do M&PR stuff and the blindfolded guy whips it to the dart board which is invariably in the upper left quadrant of the selected wall as you face it. The tally guy writes down what makes it according to the points each dart gathers and this sets the agenda for the next meeting where highest scoring dart gets forwarded to a subcommittee for further study. This happens again for all the other darts until they all make it through the vetting process. Any darts that miss completely are discussed in another series of scheduled meetings where darts are labeled accordingly and launched with great hopes and expectations that these will graduate to the points category thus proving to themselves the great progress being made.

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Siemens Marketing, PR and the World of Never Never Land

Posted on May 10, 2014 | 2 comments

Reading the statistics here on my blog today and something that has been drawing more of my attention is this. Months ago, 10-6-13 to be exact I wrote a post comparing the direct editing capabilities of SE and SW. It has been BY FAR the most read post ever for me and still comes in the top three read posts every day including the new one if there is one. Many thousands of reads. Of course Larry, Curly, Moe and Shemp are to busy setting up meetings to determine colors on web sites and the next meeting and on and on. Way to busy to directly compete with those who should be regarded as competitors. By my reckoning and the number of reads the CAD world is keenly interested in a direct comparison where it is shown on the same part how things differ and how file sizes and complexities grow. These are what my numbers PROVE to me. But the symphony of crickets is the stiff upper lip of competition these people bring to the contest.

Meanwhile back in the chirping crickets department life goes on. In case you don’t know who the Stooges are read https://solidedging.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/the-destructive-siemens-corporate-mindset/ and add the fourth one Shemp who is Jon Fox to the list. As the social postmortem for SE goes on in my mind I ponder how people who are supposed to be planning conquests and growing market share and beating the competition can possibly be this inept and still get paid by the company they are sabotaging.

Funny thing about the sound of crickets. It is meant solely to attract themselves to themselves and has no other purpose. Kind of like what happens in real life with the Siemens crickets as they plan another meeting. Heaven forbid a multi-year cogent and properly themed strategy and multi-year dedication in serious time and money to the same. It would interfere with the meetings where the cricket noises prevail and life is never bad.

Wait till Autodesk gets ahold of these clowns with plans that span years and have serious effort in community and identity. A crummy product can still prevail over a great one that no one knows about. SE is doomed to third place if nothing changes here. The real choice is the color of granite on the tombstone unless Siemens gets smart and gets real and sheds their dead wood. Funny thing about dead wood. I go out for firewood and around the bottom of the pile there are always crickets.

These people do not want to win.

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Solid Edge University 2014 Update

Posted on May 2, 2014 | Leave a comment

It is with a great deal of regret and sadness that I announce that I will not be going to SEU this year so you will have to tune into other venues for updates about Solid Edge. I hear there will be good things to see there so if you have a chance to go consider it. The incentives are all gone though so it will be full ticket for everything and none of the goodies that expired at the end of April. I am a huge fan of Solid Edge and believe it to be the best midrange MCAD program out there. If you don’t know about it and you earn a living designing parts you are only hurting yourself.

Due to ancillary things that have nothing to do with this most capable program itself rather than spending my own money again for everything I have elected instead to earn some and will be working. All I am going to say here is that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

I have had updates with Camworks because I am involved in the process and as more information becomes available that I can talk about I will. Suffice it to say that the SP2 update with assemblies has been delayed and the Geometric guys are working feverishly to get this done. The choice was made to fix some stuff rather than release something not quite right and it is turning out to be more complicated than they thought it would be. They are also of course working on the Job Shop tech Data Base and making good progress there. We had an update discussion last Friday about this and I will say without a doubt that the right things are being done as quickly as they can do it.

I wish to give a little tribute to Rick Mason from Australia. He was at the very first Solid Edge V1 rollout with Kim Corbridge and has been with the program since. Rick has been a major contributor with his ability to use SE and has been willing to pass his knowledge along to anyone who is interested. “Ricks Rules”, a methodology for robust ordered modeling I have personally heard mentioned with reverence by some of the programmers in Huntsville. Rick is also proof that ordered Dinosaurs can learn to feel the Synchronous love with a little effort 🙂 Sorry to miss your “Blunder Down Under” last appearance at the main SE events and wish you the best of everything.

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Nomination for Design Excellence

Posted on April 15, 2014 | 4 comments

There are times where you buy a consumer product that is so complete so innovative and so revolutionary in design that you are compelled to regard the genius behind such a thing in wonder. Here we have a common, well at least I thought it was commonplace item in most houses and many vehicles. A utilitarian device meant for both hot and cold climes and contents supremely purposed for YOUR satisfaction. Howdja like that PR and Marketing bit of babble speak there eh? At least I did not and nor did these wonder purposed universal utilitarian hot or cold multi-delivery enhanced designed containers purveyors state 200% increase over your current whatever. Be grateful for the small things in life which can mean so much when you are spared them. Ready to see this wonder of technology? Hint, it comes with a convertible handle and content containment device that will automatically work with the handles detente that allows for right or left hand use. Apparently there may be a third hand or perhaps even more ways too but I presume they have not fully developed a market yet for this and so just two hands are mentioned at this time. Please note that the picture shows the device in it’s left handle detente position.

RT or LT hand cup and manual

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