GrabCAD Workbench: First Experiments

May 3, 2013

(Updated with some modification. May 3, 2013 @9:42a)

In my yesterday post, I’ve been talking about PDM software, obvious value proposition behind PDM implementation, the fact a substantial amount of manufacturing companies are afraid of implementation PDM software as well as about how cloud software startup are trying to crack the idea of PDM and may be implement it differently. I wanted to have some hands on done and experiment with new apps on the cloud. Hardi Meybaum of GrabCAD was kind to grant me an access to Beta preview of GrabCAD Workbench.

After some confusion around multiple GrabCAD accounts (actually I have two accounts now), I succeeded to login and get to the project page (below). You can see project browser and area dedicated for file viewing. Nothing special, you can see it in many engineering software – CAD, viewers, etc.

I experimented with GrabCAD viewer. The “explode” feature is nice. So far, I get an access to SolidWorks assembly Hardi shared with me and was able to play with navigation between parts and sub assemblies.

Next thing – you can collaborate by sharing files with other users (which I did by sharing with my another gmail account – as a result a new GrabCAD account was created). The new user (account) provided me access to SolidWorks assembly with all parts and not only to a specific part I shared. This is probably a hint to GrabCAD engineers to think about security model, which will be absolutely must if you want to get your software closer to PDM functions of secured collaboration.

Another collaborative feature – pins and comments. I can put a pin in the viewer, put comments, screenshot and share it with other people. Nice collaborative feature. Also, you can put comments alongside with viewer file.

The last step in my experiments was to make a change or to upload pseudo “new version” of the assembly. The original file shared by Hardi was labeled as V1. So, I downloaded the file and change its name to something different in hope to have V2. I succeeded to upload the file, but didn’t get a preview (that was my fault of file renaming – see update below). Instead of preview I’ve got a nice feature allowing me to request a preview feature for this type of file. That was true for dwg and dwf files I tried to upload.

I’ve been working on viewer problem I faced. That was actually my fault by renaming file with wrong extension. I’ve been re-do it again and… voila, GrabCAD viewer captured it with nice message about queueing file for 3D viewing preparation, which ended with absolutely correct preview after 5-8 seconds processing.

Another interesting observation was “switch to old look” button, which gave me an access to traditional GrabCAD profile page with file access, properties and comments. Project was marked as private project – good sign of thinking about security. On the other side, it means GrabCAD workbench is a natural extension to GrabCAD website with the ability to access other projects as well.

What is my conclusion? GrabCAD Workbench is focusing on providing engineers with the tool to share CAD models and collaborate around CAD design. Because of cloud/hosted nature, it is easy to start. I found user experience nice and soft. I’ve been disappointed by absences of basic security implementation between parts and assemblies. I’m looking forward to talk to GrabCAD fellows and learn more. This is just my first impression… More to come.

Best, Oleg

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PDM: re-invent the wheel or innovate?

May 2, 2013

Engineers hate PDM. It is an axiom known to all people touching engineering and manufacturing software. Nobody gets up in the morning and looking for PDM software. Most of product development people are considering PDM as an evil that they need pay taxes to get right revision and don’t overwrite changes made by his colleagues. The value proposition of PDM is obvious. Navigate your browser to the reports made by Jim Brown of Tech-Clarity here. Here is a conclusion:

The conclusion from that report was a clear indication that Product Data Management (PDM) helps companies control control and secure product-related data, improve the ability to quickly find and reuse information, and share product knowledge with other departments. The report went further to point out that the companies indicated the results of better control, search, and collaboration are increased efficiency, improved quality, reduced cost, and the ability to bring products to market much faster. So it was easy to make a conclusion from that report that PDM helps companies improve the metrics that drive product profitability.

At the same time, the same Jim Brown in his online dispute with Chad Jackson agreed that PDM is overkill for small and medium design team. I posted about it few weeks ago in my post – PDM: Rightsize, Wrongsize, Overkill? The current status quo of PDM is that majority of engineering and manufacturing companies are not using PDM. The optimistic estimation of amount of CAD seats managed by PDM software is probably 15-20%.

Recently, I saw two startup companies decided to challenge the space of collaboration and PDM using cloud solutions – GrabCAD Workbench and Sunglass PDM.

GrabCAD – company known because of a website providing online storage for CAD models and place to promote your engineering skills via different challenges. GrabCAD is coming with Workbench – an online solution that provide a secured location to share CAD design and collaborate in teams. Josh Mings smacked a review of GrabCAD workbench here. The following passage can explain what Workbench does:

Workbench provides a secure location for sharing models. Inside this environment, people can upload files (3d, 2d, docs, etc.), comment on files and further collaborate on the project files. The 3D viewing interface provides additional tools to section, measure, explode and place ‘pins’ on the 3D object itself. The idea is to replace less secure methods of collaboration like email, FTP, Dropbox or other online share sites, providing a single point interaction for the model and the people.

GrabCAD is planning to come with 3 levels of collaborative solutions – Professional, Team and Enterprise. Pricing is not available yet, but the first (Professional) is available now for limited beta. I requested a try for me and waiting it to be available soon.

Sunglass.io is come to the market as a online collaborative site with 3D viewing solution. Currently Sunglass is introducing what they call “product data management to 3D distributed cloud platform”. GraphicSpeak Randall Newton put an interesting writeup about Sunglass PDM here. The following passage is my favorite:

Nobody gets up in the morning and says, “Hurray, I get to work in our PDM software today.” Most product designers and engineers consider the data management side of using CAD for product design to be drudgery. The more product data management can be unified with design data and the processes of team workflow, the less onerous keeping the data current will seem. Only time and customer feedback will tell us if Sunglass has created a winner.

At $20 per month per user, the price of Sunglass PDM is a factor of ten less expensive than most PDM products on the market. But they offer a much richer, more nuanced approach to data management. Ease of use will be the key to early success.

Target low end PDM white space

Both Sunglass and GrabCAD are using modern web development concepts together with cool user experience. GrabCAD is leveraging the community of more than 500K engineers using GrabCAD website to upload/download CAD files. Both companies are thinking how to fill the gap current PDM packages like TeamCenter, PDMLink or SolidWorks Enterprise PDM left untapped. From the examples I’ve seen, Sunglass and GrabCAD are proposing an alternative experience to traditional PDM. At the same time, most of traditional attributes left without changes.

What is my conclusion? User experience and S3 cloud storage. Community of engineers and dashboard with CAD plug-ins. Most of these attributes were introduced by old PDM tools in the past. Will it be enough to change the mind of conservative engineers about the role of PDM systems in their working processes? Everything new is actually well-forgotten old. The history of software has many things like this. Cost is a huge factor also. Only time will show if GrabCAD or Sunglass created a winner in new PDM space. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

1 Comment | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

Cloud CAD and what does it mean for PLM?

November 30, 2012

The topic of CAD (or 3D CAD) in the cloud is getting more traction. The first “CAD in the Cloud” announcement happened almost 2 years ago when SolidWorks introduced their technological work during SWW 2010. Read SolidWorks takes off to the cloud to refresh your memories. Back that days it raised lots of conversations, disputes and controversy. Here are few historical posts – The Death of SolidWorks? by Develop3D, If you wonder how SolidWorks Cloud will look like… by WorldCAD Access, Bertrand Sicot reinforces SolidWorks cloud plans by Deelip.com. One of the last publications by SolidSmack – SolidWorks 2013 and the promise of SolidWorks V6 can give you a good update of where SolidWorks stands now. Below is a picture of SolidWorks cloud prototype as it was captured by Deelip Menezes at SWW 2010. According to his post SolidWorks V6 is due in 2013.

In the meantime, we can see the idea of how to use cloud technologies for design and collaboration became more popular with new products and companies at the horizon. Here are few names you better pay attention to. GrabCAD is transforming from “Facebook for engineers” concept into a set of online collaboration tools. You can see a video of GrabCAD for Teams below.

Sunglass.io is another startup company, which is trying to use cloud and in-browser technology to introduce a fresh approach of collaboration and design on the web.

One more startup – TinkerCAD is approaching 3D online design and 3D printing combined as a new experience to work for engineers and designers on the cloud.

Moving from startups to large behemoths, earlier this week at AU2012, Autodesk just announced new product in Autodesk 360 product line called Fusion 360 – 3D CAD in the cloud.

3D CAD: Unix, Windows, Cloud

I can see a clear technological platform shift in the CAD industry. 3D CAD is moving from Windows (as a mainstream 3D CAD platform today) to the cloud. It happened in the past when 3D CAD moved from variety of UNIX workstations to Windows/PC platform. Similar shift is happening now.

3D CAD and PLM

What 3D CAD platform shift means for PDM / PLM? The significant portion of PDM and PLM business is tightly related to CAD systems. The connection between CAD and PDM/PLM was always “love and hate” relationships. Engineers are clearly hated PDM systems as something that interfered with their work. Seamless (embedded) PDM integrations were supposed to solve that problem, but faced technological complexity of implementation. CAD vendors’ competition made CAD-PDM/PLM relationships even more complicated. I can see 3 main trends that may happen to PDM/PLM with 3D CAD gearing up to the cloud.

1. Reduce complexity. Since communication between CAD and PDM/ PLM will move to the cloud servers, it will reduce the complexity that in many cases was a result of desktop to server communication.

2- Simplify user experience. Reducing of complexity will result in a streamline of user interface. No more awkward files, folders, lockups, and many other things that complicate user process.

3- Focus on business processes. I believe cloud CAD will reduce lots of data-management tasks that require use attention. It will result in the ability of user to focus on business process improvement.

What is my conclusion? Traditionally, CAD was heavy focused on desktop and file management. It included file management. All together create a complicated technological and user interface problem. Moving of CAD to the cloud can positively impact the ability to improve user experience and hide some complicated data-management activities from users. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

What is behind “GitHub for CAD” marketing buzz?

October 16, 2012

PLM and marketing are not good friends. Marketing did a poor job for the last 10 years for PLM. For many years, PLM was advertised as something that can do everything… and even coffee. At the same time, marketing is indeed very important. Especially, it is critical for a new startup company. Between two risks (technical and marketing), marketing risk is usually more costly and painful to fix.

Gen-Yers are coming to 3D, CAD and PLM

The following two press releases drove my attention during last two weeks. One of them came from Sunglass.io, which came out of beta stage announcing – the following – Sunglass Launches Web-Based Platform Out of Beta, Effectively Creating a ‘GitHub for 3D Design’. Press and bloggers cover this announcement pretty well. My favorite SolidSmack posted – Breaking: Sunglass.io blast out of beta, snags "GitHub for 3D design’ title. Here is how Josh describes Sunglass.io:

Sunglass wants to be the go to place for all things 3D+collaboration, even to the extent of adding plugin into the most common 3D software and combining cloud services such as rendering and simulation. They’ve added support for all the popular formats and plugins for SolidWorks, Inventor and Sketchup, with CATIA, Rhino and Processing plugins coming.

Sunglass.io press release outlines the following functionality of Sunglass.io: version browser, integrated plug-ins, share spaces, collaborative assembly for concurrent work, rich media annotation.

One more announcement came yesterday from another startup company – GrabCAD. Navigate to the following link to read TechCrunch article – GrabCAD Raises $8.15M From Charles River Ventures, Yammer Co-Founder & Others For Its ‘GitHub For Mechanical Engineers’. Here is my favorite passage from this announcement – GrabCAD says it will use the new capital to accelerate the company’s growth as it builds new collaborative tools to improve the design and communication processes in the “creation of physical products”.

I’ve been posting about GrabCAD several times. Take a look on one of the last posts – GrabCAD: From Facebook for Engineers to PLM? GrabCAD recently switched the strategy from "community for engineers" to "building collaboration tools to help design and build products". I recommend you the following read about GrabCAD on WIRED magazine – GrabCAD Is Building Community in 3-D. Here is an interesting part how Hardi Meybaum explains the problem GrabCAD supposed to solve:

The problem, he says, is that engineers create CAD files with offline desktop software and haven’t traditionally shared what they’ve made. Meybaum thinks that attitude is shifting. “The old way of thinking was that ‘products are my own and I don’t want to share them.’ But we’ve found that people want that to change because there are so many benefits in sharing and collaborating.” Those benefits include getting help fixing a mechanical problem, getting suggestions on how to improve a design, and learning tips from more experienced engineers when you’re just trying to get your start.

GitHub for CAD/PLM?

If you are building software these days, you should know GitHub providing free public repositories, collaborator management, issue tracking, wikis, downloads, code review, graphs and much more. Here is how Wikipedia defines GitHub -

GitHub is a web-based hosting service for software development projects that use the Git revision control system. GitHub offers both paid plans for private repositories, and free accounts for open source projects. As of May 2011, GitHub was the most popular open source code repository site.[3] The site provides social networking functionality such as feeds, followers and the network graph to display how developers work on their versions of a repository. GitHub also operates a pastebin-style site called Gist,[8] wikis for individual repositories, and web pages that can be edited through a Git repository.

So, why I think GitHub is a good association for new CAD/PLM? It represents a new modern web-based way to collaborate. It also includes community and project orientation . If you think about PLM marketing, you won’t find any new buzzwords here. Web based, collaborate, projects… All these words have been used by marketing wizards before. There is an imporant difference, in my view. GitHub serves the needs of a specific community of software developers. It heavily relies on paradigms of open source development and web. From that specific point, it combines two worlds – open-source software development and web-based work behaviors. Open-source software development has strong web roots. Because of this connection, things worked so successfully together.

What is my conclusion? GitHub for 3D. GitHub for Engineers. GitHub for Design. I think, what is behind "GitHub" buzzword is a try to change the way how people work together. Open vs. Close. Keep information vs. Share Information. You can continue this list. Technology is easy, but people are hard. Some of them, will see an increased demand for openness and share as IP problem (you can read about it here). On the opposite side (read here), you can see it as a big part of the future of the whole tech ecosystem. Today, Gen-Yers are trying to change the world by applying methods of work developed for the last decade in a public web. I don’t see significant technical risks in this process. Web-based collaboration technology is proven by many web applications. However, there is a market risk related to how manufacturing companies and engineers will adopt new methods of work. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Picture credit the carrierrocketter.

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM Think Tank – July Top 5

July 29, 2012

Usually, we expect some relaxation during summer time. Even we are still in end of July, this summer already provided lots of events, news and surprises. Last week was dominated by news about financial activities of Dassault Systems and PTC. Week before was marked by Autodesk acquiring SocialCam for 60 million dollars. I can see lots of activity and innovation happen in engineering and manufacturing software. One of these innovations is introduction of modern browser techniques to the space of CAD and Viewer collaborations. Companies like Sunglass.io and GrabCADannounced their viewing capabilities available. I will continue to monitor the industry from "beyond PLM" viewpoint and share this news with you. Now, let me move to the traditional top 5 stories.

What is the future of PLM databases?

Database technology is a fundamental part of everything in enterprise software. However, after 25 years I can see some changes demanded. The complexity of product lifecycle problems brings the need of new concepts in data modeling and data management. One of the main questions – how to break the boundary of a single database? This is a key question, in my view. It will solve the problem of logical scalability and provide a platform for future information discovery.

Why Engineers don’t like company private social networks?

In my view, Facebook IPO put some cold water on some ‘social heads’. I think, PLM companies are missing some points in the space of social networking for enterprise. Here is my list of suspects – complicated user experience created by social PLM pioneers, anti-social engineering nature, engineer’s focus on “cool stuff” and ignorance of corporate oriented tools.
Co-browsing and future of CAD design collaboration

Collaboration in design is endless topic for innovation. I think the idea of collaborative browsing can “hold the water”. How many times you worked with shared screen on your computer? I did it many times. To have multiple engineers working on the same design can be an interesting option in your future CAD application in the browser.

"Alte-Zachen" PLM and new business models

In my previous life, ‘Alte Zachen’ person was taking old stuff away. I never knew what happens to this stuff after. The same about “second hand” PLM software. What will be the value of re-selling and buying existing licenses? I can some interesting work for lawyers to be done in this space. The main personage of “Pretty Woman” movie was buying companies having financial troubles and sell them apart for a significant profit. Will future PLM innovators buy existing PLM alte zachen for their future profit? A good question to ask… Just my thoughts.

PLM Dress Code Factoids

The dress code of PLM events is different from CAD and consumer events. Few people in PLM industry are still dreaming about how to follow ERP success. PLM companies and event organizers are dreaming about how to bring more executives to their events. They are key players in PLM strategic decision making. Dress code is part of the agenda to make PLM event comfortable for execs. I guess CIOs and other corporate execs feel wrong sitting next to engineers in blue jeans. I also believe some country and location specifics can be considered too. I rarely see suits and ties during events in Israel and California. At the same time, it looks quite appropriate in Germany and some other places in Europe.

Best, Oleg

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

Why Engineers Don’t Like Company Private Social Networks?

July 22, 2012

Couple of weeks ago, I discussed the potential of Yammer / Microsoft bundle to influence PLM field – Will Microsoft-Yammer kill Social PLM… Not yet. Actually, it seems to me Yammer indeed created some influence on what startups in PLM field are doing.Vuuch, last announcement introduces the ability to create company discussion groups.

In a nutshell, it looks exactly like Yammer idea. The employees of any company can register with their company emails and get an access to discussions inside of the same domain. Here is the link to a short video I found in the email from Vuuch:

Social PLM attempts

In my view, Vuuch is one of the leaders in trying to apply "social-networking" ideas in product development and enterprise. I can see similar attempts coming from large vendors too. The videos below show Dassault 3DSwYm and Windchill SocialLink experimenting with the idea of communities for product development.

Can we ask engineers to behave in a social way?

When you speak about communities, the adoption is a key. Yammer claimed 5 million users and 85% of Fortune 500 companies are using Yammer. Here is the link on Yammer’s Crunch base profile :

With a Freemium model, Yammer enables employees to voluntarily adopt the service. A premium version is available to paying customers and includes additional administrative and security controls, integration with other applications, priority customer service, and a dedicated customer success manager. More than 5 million users, including employees from 85 percent of the Fortune 500, have adopted Yammer’s Software-as-a-Service solution.

I wasn’t able to find numbers related to user adoption of social PLM tools. Are you aware about successful implementation of private social communities in product development and manufacturing? I wanted to raise a provoking question – what is wrong with social PLM communities? Is it about not attractive content, user experience, absence of interest and/or need?

Recently, GrabCAD raised quite many splashes in the engineering space – 250,000 engineers, 45,000 CAD models and 3M downloads. However, GrabCAD is not in the business of private communities for product development. Taking into account their latest announcement, I have to say "not yet". Another interesting example of community building is Local Motors – the place for people (engineers included) to create influencing vehicles together.

What is my conclusion? I think, PLM companies are missing some points in the space of social networking for enterprise. Here is my list of suspects – complicated user experience created by social PLM pioneers, anti-social engineering nature, engineer’s focus on "cool stuff" and ignorance of corporate oriented tools. These are just my guesses and thoughts… I’m interested in your opinion. Speak your mind…

Best, Oleg

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

4 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

CAD Project Cloud Collaboration… What?

July 19, 2012

The life around us is changing fast. Consumerization. BYOD. Cloud. Social. We are in the middle of the biggest technological change that happens in front of our eyes. What does it mean for engineers? Apparently engineering needs are no much different from what it was 10 years ago. The fundamental need to work together (avoid word "collaboration"), exchange design (files, data?) and see the history of changes actually remain the same for a very long period of time. However, the life and environment around us are a bit different these days. The consumer behavior influenced our mind and push us to explore new opportunities.

I was reading SolidSmack’s blog post – GrabCAD Revamps to Push Out CAD Project Possibilities. This is not the first time I’m referencing GrabCAD on my blog. The dynamic and growing startup initially focused on creating of "Facebook for Engineers" recently shifted gears toward CAD collaboration. It looks to me the idea of collaboration and usage of 3DViewer, CAD history (versions) is a way to re-think the reality of cloud work for engineers? I found the following conclusion made by Josh Mings interesting:

Where could it go from here? Competition is heatin’ up in the web-based 3D collaboration scene, and it’s likely not going to slow down. GrabCAD has huge user base, the web presence and the combination of CAD library, 3D file viewing and private sharing, which makes it a very good resource for a project space–limited to an extent, but simple to use. There is no version tracking yet, but viewing at the ‘Files’ tab shows how it’s being pushed toward more organization and file options. But is version tracking really needed?

Josh is speaking about competition. So, I decided to take a look – who is around to do a similar type of job. I found few products and technologies.

Autodesk 360. New cloud tool coming from Autodesk. The idea behind Autodesk 360 is to provide unified cloud experience to people using CAD and other design tools. You can upload files to Autodesk 360, preview them and use basic collaboration.

BuzzSaw. Another product from Autodesk. BuzzSaw is focusing on collaboration around projects (mostly use in AEC and construction domains). The idea of project space and ability to upload files and make them available is a dominant one in BuzzSaw.

AutoCAD WS. This is another paradigm shift product coming from Autodesk (the WS stays for Web Services). In a nutshell, AutoCAD WS is Google Docs just working with CAD (DWG) files. It is on the cloud, and you can upload and download files. Mobile clients convert AutoCAD WS in a popular tool you can use when "on go".

n!Fuze. This is a relatively new product from Dassault Systems. Focus of n!Fuze is how to make SolidWorks CAD (but not only) files available and shareable between people.

3DVia. Online community created by Dassault System. People can upload CAD files and share them. Dassault sees 3DVia as a part of their future broad consumer strategy 3DSwYm (See what you mean). 3DVia is probably more useful when you work with CATIA. However, I’m not aware about limitations in working with other CAD systems as well.

In addition to these specific tools, I’d be mentioning few "generic purpose" technologies and products that can provide cloud, community and file sharing capabilities – DropBox, Google Drive, Sky Drive, Office 365.

What is my conclusion? I think, software for engineering industry is ready for the biggest "rethink impossible" moment these days. Challenge fundamentals. Achieve impossible by making things simple again. Will it be done by large companies or small startups? It really doesn’t matter. Winners will be companies that can adapt faster to new technological and business realities. Just my thoughts.

Best, Oleg

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

2 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM opportunity for new CAD heroes

July 2, 2012

Pivoting. Are you familiar with this term? In a modern startup lingua franca, it means the management methods of making course correction when developing products. This term was pioneered by Eric Ries – Silicon Valley entrepreneur and the author of the book "The Lean Startup". Randall Newton of GraphicSpeak mentioned this book in his blog postearlier last week – GrabCAD, Sunglass, and ThinkerCAD are leading a CAD industry pivot. The following passage caught my attention:

Today’s start-ups in 3D CAD have the same vision of 3D becoming commonplace, but the strategy they follow has made a sharp pivot away from delivering a software product. The new kids on the block are skipping the deliverable and putting the experience of using and working in 3D inside the browser. WebGL and HTML5 are the two ingredients of the secret sauce making this pivot possible. HTML5 is the current generation Web programming language; WebGL is an application programming interface (API) for rendering interactive 3D graphics and requires HTML5.

Speaking about "pivots", they are not all the same. In the following Forbes article you can see a classification of 10 different pivoting options – Zoom-in, Zoom-out, Customer Segment, Customer need, Platform, Business architecture, Value capture, Engine of growth, Channel, Technology. At the first look, you may think solutions mentioned by GraphicSpeak all belong to the "technology pivot". Here is the definition:

Technology pivot. Sometimes a startup discovers a way to achieve the same solution by using a completely different technology. This is most relevant if the new technology can provide superior price and/or performance to improve competitive posture.

In my view, many CAD innovations were introduced as "technology pivot". If you remember the move from UNIX workstations to PC and from 2D to 3D enabled by the power of computers and graphic technologies.

PLM – Zoom out pivot?

When thinking about new 3D experience and browser technologies, I came to the point that new CAD technologies have an option to navigate what they do to so-called "Zoom-out" pivot. Here is the definition of that pivot:

Zoom-out pivot. In the reverse situation, sometimes a single feature is insufficient to support a customer set. In this type of pivot, what was considered the whole product becomes a single feature of a much larger product?

An efficient access of CAD and 3D data is an important function in every PLM solution. To simplify the process of changes, manipulation, annotation and collaboration is crucial to deliver a good solution these days. New 3D CAD in-browser capabilities can be well positioned to provide an effective and practically available tool for everybody in the company (and not only to designers, as today’s 3D CAD systems deliver). It also will take the focus from "CAD in browser / cloud" discussion to something having much wider scope of deployment – product development processes.

What is my conclusion? Companies are interested in how to improve their product development processes. People are looking how to improve their experience. It seems to me zoom-out pivoting of 3D in the browser can deliver both. It still requires some technology prove to be done, so it will be very interesting to watch how in-browser CAD solution will become ubiquitous to delivery what companies and people want. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

1 Comment | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM Communities and Let-go Threshold

June 28, 2012

Communities are booming these days. Social networks and Web 2.0 unlocked the potential of interaction online and the idea of gathering people in a community went to mainstream. However, the original idea has nothing common with web. We can go back to organization of elite clubs, unions, discussion groups and many others. The internet makes it easy, by allowing everybody sharing content and subscribe on changes. Nowadays, we are learning how addictive this type of behavior could be. Facebook’s statistics can give you an idea of that. If you interested to know more facts, navigate to the following Mashable article – How to Tell if You’re Addicted to Facebook. I found the following passage interesting:

“The use of Facebook has increased rapidly. We are dealing with a subdivision of Internet addiction connected to social media,” said Cecilie Schou Andreassen, who conducted the study. Andreassen heads the research project “Facebook Addiction” at the University of Bergen (UiB) in Norway. The results of her research have just been published in the journal Psychological Reports.

Following public web, enterprise software companies are looking how to turn the power of communities to their advantages. The community of users was one of the most straightforward steps for many of them, but I don’t see it as a very successful one. Most of the discussion groups were limited to active users, which limit the ability to growth viral. Restrictions and social networks are not working well together.

I can see some interesting and innovative examples of community building in the space of CAD/PLM software. Aras Corp., a provider of enterprise open-source software is trying to leverage their wide free user base by organizing a community of so-called Aras Open Users. Navigate to the following link to read – Who is the member of Aras Open User Club. Aras is trying to addict users by free licensing and open resources helping to run a successful implementation. The following passage grabbed my attention:

Go to the self help section, absorb all of the information on our website, watch demos, check out the forums and learn all about the capabilities of Aras. Share this info with members of the tech team and eventual users to help them get familiar with Aras. Next, you need a roll out plan that includes how you intend to get everyone on board. The good news is that once your users understand their roles and how this powerful tool is going to help them get more done faster with better information, there will be no stopping them. Check aras.com for tips on roll out plans too.

Another example is the community of engineers built by GrabCAD. A startup company, GrabCAD is trying to follow "facebook" style allowing to engineers to upload and download CAD models for free. Funded by VCs and CAD industry veterans, GrabCAD demonstrates a very interesting way to organize engineers into community.

Together with some critics related to IP protection (read here), GrabCAD shows very impressive numbers – 250K registered engineers, 40K CAD models and 3M downloads.

What is my conclusion? I’m sure you’re familiar with "Let-go Threshold" term from your electricity school lessons. The ultimate question to all "community builders" is how to develop addiction to the network / community. Facebook did it. Some other social networks missed the point on their way and failed. In my view, the most successful communities were built around mainstream products such as SolidWorks and Autodesk. To have the right content is a key factor. A potential CAD / PLM community content is sensitive. Very often it related to IP ownership and company product development and manufacturing practices. It is not a simple place to innovate. Do you think "social innovation" is just in the early beginning of the innovation spiral? Will PLM companies be able to develop the volume of content going beyond "let-go threshold"? This is an interesting place to innovate. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

GrabCAD + 3D Viewer = ?

May 30, 2012

Social, Community, Website, Engineers, Challenges, CAD, MCAD, 3D Viewer… Everybody in CAD/PLM business understand, viewer is an important component of design collaboration.

So, what happened? Read yesterday announcement made by GrabCAD here. GrabCAD is going to 3D by adding viewing capabilities to their website. Here are few passages from GrabCAD blog about new functionality.

Share your models with anyone in 3 dimensions? Check. Pin annotations right on the surface of a model to share advice and ideas with other engineers? Check. GrabCAD’s new in-browser 3D viewer is a huge step toward seamless collaboration and sharing for mechanical engineers and designers.

According to SolidSmack publication, GrabCAD developed their own viewer. I didn’t find a confirmation for that on GrabCAD website. Josh Mings of SolidSmack compared it with Web 3D:

Wow, when I said Web 3D was heating up, I wasn’t kidding. You know GrabCAD is always cooking up new features, but this is a delightful surprise. Today, they launch their own web-based 3D Viewer available right inside the GrabCAD interface to view 3D files and collaborate with others. Here’s the sneak peak.

Actually, I thought Web 3D was branded by Bernard Charles of DS as part of 3DVIA introduction. However, it won’t decrease the importance of 3D viewing for engineers and other people handling 3D models.

What is “in the box”?

In a nutshell, GrabCAD provides the ability to view and annotate CAD models you uploaded to GrabCAD website. Viewer supports STL files and runs in any WebGL enabled browser. GrabCAD automatically converts files to STL (15’000 files already converted according to GrabCAD). Here is what GrabCAD viewer supposed to do:

Collaborate with engineers on projects you’re working on by annotating pins right on the model
Share your models securely with clients, manufacturers, or anybody without CAD software
Check out all public models on GrabCAD without downloading them

Few limitations that may disappoint some users. IE explorer is not supported, for the moment. Automatic conversion of file STL can go wrong and you will be requested to make a manual STL file upload. Speed can be vary and depend on STL file size and connection speed.

From “Facebook” to 3D collaboration business

GrabCAD expansion from community website sharing CAD models to 3D collaboration confirms that company is searching how to provide more services to monetize website performance. Couple of weeks ago, Hardi Meybaum, GrabCAD CEO stated that collaboration service becomes one of the most important one – …the company now plans to launch what could become the focal point of its business: a service that aims to change the way engineers and their customers collaborate on designs….

In my view, GrabCAD is challenged by how to monetize the tremendous success in making 200K engineers to register on their website and upload 40K free CAD models. Funded by few institutional investors, GrabCAD has an access to money that allows them to experiment with different directions.

Competition

By stepping into 3D Collaboration, GrabCAD will face more competition. Nobody has a vision for Facebook for engineers. However, to collaborate and share models in 3D is less unique value proposition, in my view.Autodesk 360, SolidWorks n!Fuze, CADFaster, etc. This is a short list of public cloud-based collaboration tools. When you turn to “on premise” solutions, the number of tools will only increase. What will be GrabCAD differentiation among all these products? Usability? Price? Community? It is an interesting question to ask.

What is my conclusion? Viewer is a cool feature. By adding it, GrabCAD will “grab” people to spend more time on the website.However, pivoting is the name of the game. GrabCAD + 3D Viewer = Pivoting.The question of GrabCAD business model is still not answered, in my mind. If GrabCAD focus is on helping engineers in manufacturing companies to collaborate, GrabCAD will be clearly moving closer to PLM trajectory and compete with other cloud-based PLM offerings. Otherwise, Hardi Meybaum and his team have more surprises in the box to come later. Time will show…

Best, Oleg

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

« Previous Entries
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 114 other followers