Career Archives - Page 3 of 11

SolidWorks World 2014 Day 3 – Tuesday

User Community and Beta Highlights from General Session
Tuesday General Sessions tends to focus on the user community. Richard Doyle has become a fixture on the big stage as he gives us the SolidWorks User Group Network updates. This year he announced the following awards.

2013 User Group of the Year is San Diego SolidWorks User Group, awarded to leaders Phil Sluder and Jim Boland
2013 Wayne Tiffany Group Leader of the Year is awarded to Jeff Holliday
2013 Michelle Pillers Community Award is awarded to Deepak Gupta

The SolidWorks Beta program for SolidWorks 2014 is the most successful yet. Here are this year’s winners for the program

Customers:

Bettina Walker, SolidWorks
Yoshihiro Dobashi, Simulation
Masanobu Higashino, EPDM
Muneki Okano, Composer

VARs:

Michael Malov of SolidWorks Russia, SolidWorks
Charley Saint of Hawkridge Systems, EPDM
Andrey Aliamovsky of SolidWorks Russia, Simulation
Ludmila Staroverova of SolidWorks Russia and Scott Woods of Hawkridge Systems, Composer

My Hands-on Presentation
I conducted my first Hands-on Session of this year’s conference on Tuesday evening, covering the topic of drawing views. This is a new presentation at SolidWorks World. Though the presentation is intended for beginners and novice users, by going through all of the view types, even experienced users learned something they have forgotten or missed before. Several attendees showed (by a raise of heads) they learned something new from several of the exercises throughout the presentation. I may expand the presentation to cover additional topics, such as the new Replace Model in SolidWorks 2014.

SolidWorks World 2014: Day 1, Day 2 Monday General Session – Mechanical Conceptual revealed

I'm an employee and also a member of the Bacon Brotherhood SolidWorks World 2014 is going strong. Sunday was a great time to catch up with old friends and meet a lot of new people. Many people are lucky enough to have joined the Bacon Brotherhood, including yours truly. For more details, see Twitter and search #baconbrotherhood.

This year’s SolidWorks World reached the record of 5600+ attendees on Monday! That is a new record, which is especially important since Monday (though technically Day 2) is really the first full day of the conference (often the number goes even higher by Tuesday).

The Monday General session was well reviewed by Brian McElyea of CAD Fanatic. Briefly, the morning was largely dedicated to SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual (SWMC) with a great presentation by Aaron Kelly, VP of User Experience and Product Portfolio Management and Kishore Boyalakuntla, Director of User Experience and Product Portfolio Management. They demonstrated a case where customers and vendors can work collaboratively to quickly develop new mechanical concepts on a common CAD model using social interaction and advanced design software. Brian then notes,

Representatives of four of the lighthouse companies (TriAxial Design and Analysis, Kennedy Hygiene Products Limited, Karl W. Schmidt & Associates, and J.G. WEISSER SÖHNE GmbH & Co. KG) that have been using the product over the last few months were then brought out and gave their thoughts on the software.

“Lighthouse” is a term that refers to real customers who are earlier adopters by invitation. They get a preview of functionality while an application is near completion but before it is made available to everyone. Lighthouse customers use the application in their real world enterprise on actual projects, and provide important feedback for further improvements.

Additional news is SolidWorks Industrial Conceptual was announced with a brief teaser. This generated a lot of excitement.

For a preview of Tuesday, see Michael Lord’s photoblog.

Drawings and Detailing are getting a lot of attention this year @ SolidWorks World 2014

What’s New in SolidWorks Drawings in Recent Years by Nikhil Kulkarni – This presentation focuses on showing recent tools/enhancements added to SolidWorks in the area of drawings and DXF/DWG.

The United States Government Loves Model-based Definition by Rich Eckenrode – This presentation is on the NIST project, PMI conformance testing models. He will describe the use of SOLIDWORKS in this PMI validation project. He will also touch on SolidWorks ability to compete in the space MBD and review some of the interesting facts with regard to using MBD in SolidWorks.

Drawing Templates: How and Why! by Jeremiah Griffith – Learn how to create functional and automated drawing templates to reduce redundant information entry. Make SOLIDWORKS work for you, and ease your life by using the tools provided!

First Article Reports and Inspection Documentation with SolidWorks by Mathieu Fourcade – Experience how easy it can be to create inspection documentation for first article or quality assurance purposes using SolidWorks. Dramatically reduce the time required to create inspection documentation and eliminate errors inherent to the manual “ballooning” of engineering drawings as well as in the creation of inspection reports.

3D MBD (Model-based Design) and MBE (Model-based Enterprise) State of the Union by Christopher Garcia and Paul Perreault – Learn how Anark has been helping the DoD and several manufacturing companies for over four years to lead the way into a 3D model-based enterprise. The initiative eliminates the need for 2D drawings in favor of 3D PDF and 3D HTML technical data packages. This session will review this progress.

Making Custom Symbols by Nikhil Kulkarni – See how to make custom symbols in SolidWorks.

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SolidWorks World 2014 Floor Plan is up!

In recent years, a floor plan tool for the SolidWorks World has been available online ahead of the conference. This tool seems to be getting more useful every year.

This year’s floor plan as a full map of each floor of the conference, including conference rooms and the Partner Pavilion.

The Partner Pavilion map layouts exhibitor locations with a flyout that includes a company profile.

SolidWorks World 2014 is right around the corner

Register to attend

There’s still time to register to attend online. On-site registration is also available. Check out the video highlights from SolidWorks 2011, 2012 and 2013.

CAD Manager’s Boot Camp

Don’t forget you can also attend the CAD Manager’s Boot Camp to explore a wide range of topics and issues to help you effectively deploy and manage SolidWorks software to learn methodologies to reduce the total cost of ownership and maximize your investment in SolidWorks software. (Pre-registration required; first come, first served.)

SolidWorks World 2014 Top Ten Ideas

If you have a login account for the SolidWorks Forum, there is still time to have your say by voting for SolidWorks World 2014 Top Ten Ideas. There is a record number of ideas to vote upon. Login to the SolidWorks Forum and goto the Ideas tab of the SolidWorks World 2014 and the Top Ten area. Results will be revealed at SolidWorks World. You do not need to attend in order to vote!

Model Mania

Back for its 16th year, the SolidWorks Model Mania Contest, will give you a chance to display your talents. Model Mania pits user against user and reseller against reseller in a battle of wits to see who can model and analyze a part faster, more accurately and more efficiently. Winners receive prizes. Any attendee is welcome to enter!

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As a matter of a discloser reminder, the author of this article is a DS SolidWorks employee, though this article does not represent an official work of DS SolidWorks nor was it reviewed by DS SolidWorks. Please note the FTC 16 CRF Part 255 notice in the right menu of this website for further details.

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Preparing for the SolidWorks Certification exams (version 2)

This entry is part 2 of 5 in the series SOLIDWORKS Certification

There continues to be a lot of interest in getting certified as SolidWorks Expert (CSWE). Through there are no official accolades that go long with passing the CSWE, the certificate can garner employer and industry recognition of your established skills. Even as the number of Certified SolidWorks Professional grows (CSWP), the number of those with the higher CSWE certification is still small by comparison. Right now, there’s just over 1500 CSWEs. To earn your opportunity to take the CSWE exam, you have to pass the CSWP and also pass four advanced exam modules from a selection including topics like Weldments, Surfacing, FEA, etc.

Applian Way Technologies has a blog with several articles that are brief preparation guides for various exam modules. A Very Swell Idea, Inc has some good advice for taking the modules in their discussion of CSWP Weldment exam. 3D Dimensional Engineer also has a great series on CSWP Preparation.

SolidWorks website itself has great information for each exam, including the core, advanced and the expert exams.

CSWA – Certified SolidWorks Associate
CSWA – Acedemic – Certified SolidWorks Academic Associate
CSWP – Certified SolidWorks Professional
CEPA – Certified Enterprise PDM Administrator
CSDA – Certified Sustainable Design Associate
CSWSA-FEA – Certified SolidWorks Simulation Associate – Finite Element Analysis Advanced Exam
CSWSP-FEA – Certified SolidWorks Simulation Professional – Finite Element Analysis Advanced Exam
CSWP-Sheet Metal – Certified SolidWorks Professional – Sheet Metal Advanced Exam
CSWP-Weldments – Certified SolidWorks Professional – Weldments Advanced Exam
CSWP-Surfacing – Certified SolidWorks Professional – Surfacing Advanced Exam
CSWP-Mold Tools – Certified SolidWorks Professional – Mold Tools Advanced Exam
CSWP-DRWT – Certified SolidWorks Professional – Drawing Tools Advanced Exam
CSWE – Certified SolidWorks Expert

Once you’ve earned your certificate, you can exhibit it in a number of ways. The certificate with a unique code is provided to you in the form of a PDF file, which can be printed out or shown on your mobile device. You can use your unique code number to allow others to verify your acheivement. Banner images are also provided so that you can add a certificate badge to your emails or website. You can also add your certification information to your Linkedin account. Don’t forget to notify your employer and colleagues.