Innova's SolidWorks Blogspot

EEF and Grant Thornton report shows manufacturing well placed to weather economic storms

2008-05-15T14:13:00.003+01:00

UK manufacturing is well placed to weather potential economic storms this year according to a review of the sector’s performance published today by EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation and Grant Thornton.

This shows that manufacturing continues to enjoy a renaissance with a range of indicators showing that the sector enjoyed its best performance in a decade in 2007,and that companies have benefited from a range of measures that they have put in place to improve their competitiveness.

The report illustrates the rapidly changing face of manufacturing as companies shift to higher value activities with their competitive advantage based on an increasing emphasis on areas such as design, development and service provision.
Furthermore, the report also shows the number of highly skilled jobs expanding despite the loss of unskilled work. Commenting, EEF Chief Economist, Steve Radley, said:

“Manufacturers continued to record healthy growth last year despite a more challenging environment with oil prices rising and the dollar weakening. With fears of a recession in United States and turbulence in financial markets, the economic backdrop is likely to become less favourable and growth in manufacturing slower. However, manufacturing's new resilience will leave it much better placed to cope with whatever the economy throws at it this year."
In the report, EEF’s analysis shows:
· The best conditions for manufacturing in ten years with rising levels of output and expanding employment levels
· Investment intentions in 2007 were the strongest since 1995
· Productivity in manufacturing us up by quarter in the five years to the third quarter of 2007.
· The balance of companies reporting improving rather than falling profitability has risen from -4% in 2003 to 34% in 2007
· The increasing dependence of manufacturers on overseas markets with one third of companies exporting half or more of their turnover.
· 35% and 28% of companies rate China and India respectively as a future major opportunity. The number of companies rating the new EU members as a growth opportunity has trebled since 2004.
· The motor vehicles sector saw an especially strong year with the highest output balances in a decade on the back of new models and consumer demand.
· Companies are constantly exploring new ways of responding to international competition with 39% citing new market entry as their top strategic priority and 71% increasing their innovation activity
· Although some companies expect to see some production and assembly move out of the UK in the next five years, seven out of ten expect the UK to remain their prime location.
Bob Hale, Head of Manufacturing at Grant Thornton, commented:

"Against a backdrop of profit warnings, falling business confidence and credit market turmoil, the UK manufacturing sector is at present something of a beacon in the dark. The strategic focus on new market entry is particularly positive, as it signals that many businesses within the sector are harnessing the strong growth rates still apparent in many parts of the world to counter the effects of a slowing domestic economy."

The uncertain wider economic climate has resulted in some mixed findings. What is certain is that small and medium-sized manufacturers are continuing to feel the impact of higher fuel and raw material costs, and that they are now having to pass these on to customers."While the drop in export orders is worrying, particularly for medium-sized firms, there are some more encouraging signs: smaller firms have been quite bullish about taking on extra staff, and some growth in output is forecast for the months to July."Russel Griggs, Chairman of the CBI's SME Council, said:

Innova Systems expand SolidWorks Team

2008-04-16T16:24:00.001+01:00

Innova Systems has announced that it has expanded its team of engineers, in order to meet the growing demand for its advanced 3D computer aided design software called Solidworks. After an extensive search for the very best people in this field, Innova has finally brought on board two application engineers and two new account managers.

"Our new application engineers are 'premier league engineers'," said Mark Bradford, Managing Director of Innova. "These are design engineers who have real industry experience and are at the top of their game. Likewise, with our new account managers, we have been careful to choose people who will fully understand our customers' needs and have the knowledge and motivation to ensure Innova maintains its reputation for excellent service and support."

Read more .........

Innova Systems Customer day - 8th October 2008

2008-04-16T15:40:00.003+01:00

Its here again! one of the most important dates of our diary - Our SolidWorks customer day which has now been announced for Wednesday 8th October 2008 - Where we will be presenting the new functionality of SolidWorks 2009.

The venue is the fantastic Imperial War Musuem at Duxford, which is just south of Cambridge on the M11, with easy access from all parts of the region.

In addition to previewing the new functionality, we will spend time with some productivity enhancements sessions, showing tips and tricks and how to get the most out your SolidWorks investment.

As at all Innova Systems customers days, we like to show our appreciation, and each Innova Systems subscription customer will be entitled to a free pass around the world famous musuem and a gift.

You will be notified shortly with all the details and agenda, but keep this date free in your diary.

Innova Systems help Amarinth Pumps

2008-04-16T15:22:00.002+01:00

Suffolk company Amarinth has much to celebrate: company revenue has grown 500% in 5 years; and it has been profitable from year two onwards. Amarinth is respected worldwide for its ability to deliver sophisticated heavy-duty pumping equipment to the oil and chemical industries.

Much of its success it attributes to the application of technology, in particular a 3D modelling technology called SolidWorks, which is supplied by Cambridge based Innova Systems.
Amarinth pumps can cost over £100,000 each because of the high grade materials used in their construction and the requirement to be manufactured to stringent safety critical standards similar to those seen in the aviation industry. Amarinth has customers all around the world including AMEC, BP and Shell, and has recently shipped a pump into China for the first time.

Read more .................

CircuitWorks is now part of SolidWorks Premium

2008-04-16T14:41:00.004+01:00

CircuitWorks is a powerful link for Mechanical Designers needing to create their products incorporating electronics packaged on Printed Circuit Board designs. This neat functionality is now available to all users of SolidWorks Premium at no extra cost

Working in separate programs with PCB makers slows the process and increases the chance of having to re-work something. The integration of SolidWorks and CircuitWorks is a marriage of high-performing tools that lets designers innovate and collaborate, rather than simply recreate new products. Previously, much of electronics development involved designing the product to fit around the electronic components. SolidWorks and CircuitWorks together let engineers design PCBs to fit inside ever more stylized product frames, whether an MP3 player or the dashboard of a new car.

SolidWorks and CircuitWorks combined let mechatronics engineers use digital modeling to improve product quality, reduce prototyping, and streamline development.
Very few products made today are purely mechanical. As products become ‘smarter’ with more complexity, electronic components are increasingly driving the design. The lines are blurring between electronic and mechanical industries, and this acquisition is a natural step toward helping engineers be more innovative and proficient in this changing climate.”

CircuitWorks is immediately available as a component of SolidWorks Office Premium. It will be provided to existing Premium customers at no additional charge.

3D Via for Technical Publications and more ..

2008-03-14T16:35:00.000Z

3DVIA is the Dassault Systèmes’ (SolidWorks’ parent company) product line devoted to bringing the 3D experience to more users, especially people who aren’t involved in CAD. For folks just getting started there is 3DVIA Shape, which is a free online 3D modeling application that allows anyone to start creating, uploading and sharing models. 3DVIA Printscreen allows users to save 3D scenes from both OpenGL (like SolidWorks) and DirectX applications. SupplierSource is also part of the 3DVIA product family; which also includes 3DVIA Composer (a suite of excellent tools for using 3D data throughout the product development and manufacturing process), 3DVIA Live (for 3D collaboration) and 3DVIA MP and 3DVIA Virtools (products that concentrate on helping developers and educators with new 3D environments and games)

Innova Systems to supply the Youngman Group

2008-02-26T16:49:00.002Z

The Youngman Group, based in Maldon, Essex are leaders in innovative Work at height solutions have invested in SolidWorks to help drive product innovation.

"Investment in new technology underpins our committment to ensure new products consistently lead the market in terms of quality and performance" said Youngman Managing Director Paul Bentley.

New product development has been highlighted by the senior management team as a specific growth area with much research conducted on how existing customers can be better served as their businesses grow and develop.

With SolidWorks, products can now be developed in less time, with higher quality and at less cost

Have you got an IPOD?

2008-02-13T15:48:00.001Z

One of the best investments I ever made was purchasing an IPOD - And now you can even download SolidWorks hints and tips to them and even preview a multitude of SolidWorks demonstrations. The technology and graphics are quite superb.

If you haven't got one, then don't worry. Just think of who you know who could benefit from using SolidWorks. Usually, anyone who is designing in 2D with old products like AutoCAD are suitable people to benefit from SolidWorks. Lets us know and if it results in a license sales of SolidWorks for Innova Systems, we will send you an IPOD Touch. Simple!

Just have a look at www.innova-systems.co.uk/innova-promotions.htm

and also www.solidworks.com/ipod

Innova Systems recognised at SolidWorks World

2008-02-13T15:29:00.000Z

At the annual SolidWorks World Conference held January 20-23 in San Diego, California, Innova Systems were awarded the exclusive “President’s Club” award in recognition for their achievements in Sales and Technical Support.

Jeff Ray, SolidWorks CEO, presented Innova Systems Managing Director Mark Bradford with their 2nd consecutive “SolidWorks President’s Club” award. This honour is awarded annually to SolidWorks resellers who demonstrate continued success and growth in their business. Innova Systems were the only UK Reseller to be recognised for the award and were the only Reseller in Europe to obtain growth targets for license sales of SolidWorks, COSMOS and PDM Works Enterprise products.

“I am very proud of the great team we have built, and for the future of Innova Systems. Our business is truly about our unique relationships we build with our customers. Our employees are totally focused on delivering exceptional service and support and all work together to create a winning team,” explained Mark Bradford.

What do Innova Systems, SolidWorks and Channel 5's the gadget show have in common?

2008-02-13T15:21:00.002Z

SolidWorks is all about designing better products that in some way do something to enhance our lives. Cambridge based company SplashPower, www.splashpower.com is a great example of designing an innovative new product which will improve the way our mobile devices such as phones or IPOD’s can be charged without having a charger and whilst you are on the move. Ultimately, the technology will get rid of all those messy cables.
The Splashpower Vision is for wireless power that consumers will be able to charge "any device, anywhere, anytime". Ultimately, the technology will enable SplashPower partners to deliver charging in cars, in hotels, in cafes as well as at home and in the office. In fact anywhere you want to top up your battery.
The technology was recently featured on Channel 5’s the Gadget show and you can have a look at the feature by clicking the You Tube link below:-
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5f6ACWFET4Q
SplashPower products are developed in SolidWorks, supplied and supported by Innova Systems, and we are delighted to be part of such new and exciting technology.

SolidWorks On a Stick

2008-02-12T10:17:00.001Z

Solidworks Interview: Bill Taylor, Solidworks Community Marketing Manager
At Solidworks World 2008 in San Diego, a group of CSWP’s, and bloggers were given what has been termed Solidworks On A Stick. To get a better understanding of what this project is all about, I recently contacted Bill Taylor who is the Community Marketing Manager for Solidworks. I submitted a few questions to Bill to answer in regards to this new project. The interview follows Below:

1. What is Solidworks on a stick?
SolidWorks on a Stick is simply a portable version of SolidWorks. The storage device that we happened to use was a USB thumb drive. The idea would be to give our user’s access to SolidWorks when they do not have access to their desktop.
2. What is the concept idea behind this project (how did it come about)?
The idea originally came from one of our technical support Team Leaders. At SolidWorks we hold regular innovation meetings and encourage people at all levels and departments to participate if they have an idea that could benefit our customers. One of our Team Leaders showed up one day and proposed the idea and everyone thought it was an interesting concept. I think it’s a great example of why empowering everyone in an organization is an important part of the innovation process.
3. If Solidworks can be successful in delivering their product on this type of platform, what is the next step in this process?
I’ll be honest, we are really just trying to gather feedback from some of our users with respect to how useful they think the concept is. Internally we have come up with many uses that we think would be valuable both to our users as well as our resellers. The idea looks promising but at the moment we do not have any official plans to develop it for the masses. So the next step at this point is to monitor the usage, collect feedback from our users and VAR’s and evaluate the data.
4. Some people will say that this is just a gimmick or sales tool meant to get Solidworks nerds and geeks excited about nothing. How do you respond to that?
We’ll I think we would want to separate the concept in general, and what we did for some of the CSWP’s at SolidWorks World. I think the concept in general (being able to access Solidworks when your not at your Desktop) is a very interesting concept that I think we are going to explore it further. The initial feedback that I have received is that it would be something of value to our customers.
The reason we gave some out at SolidWorks World was two fold. First, our users have been telling us for years that they recommend our software to others they know. We know this and understand that there is both a benefit to our users to do so and obviously it benefits SolidWorks as a business. In talking to our users they have told us that it would be useful for them to have a portable version of SolidWorks and that just one of the ways they would use it would be to show the software to others. So one of the reasons we passed them out was to see if people did in fact use it in this way. We’re simply trying to help enable what is already occurring today and has been occurring for years. Word of mouth is obviously an important part of growing the SolidWorks community. We appreciate the fact that this is happening and is why when we gave out the USB drives we also introduced a new rewards program so that we can start rewarding people for sharing their passion for SolidWorks software and 3D CAD in general.
Another reason we did this was simply to start getting some feedback as to weather or not this would be something of value and hear how people might use a tool like this. We want to know what people think.
So, there might be a third reason. It’s a cool giveaway, and I’ve got plenty of that feedback so far.
5. During his press conference, John Hirstick noted that he believes one of the future goals of 3D Cad is to deliver a product that is 100% web based meaning you don’t install anything, you go to a website, login and have access to the interface much like Google or Yahoo mail. Is this a first step in heading in that direction for Solidworks?
Although we don’t have any firm plans with respect to the USB drives I think it is a step in that direction in many ways, sure. I think installing software is just something we have grown accustom to, I think a time will come when we just don’t need that step any more. I know I’ve said this a few times earlier but my biggest interest right now is to get feedback and is the reason I gave out my direct e-mail address with every drive. Obviously having managed that project I am passionate about it but see no reason to limit our thinking to having to use a storage device.
6. Finally, is there any other fun stuff like Solidworks on a stick in development right now that we can all look forward too?
I can only speak for the projects that I’m managing directly but I know there are plenty of innovative ideas under development so I am confident you will see some other exciting concepts as time goes on. I can tell you that I am going to be focusing on the SolidWorks community and creating things of value for everyone involved. I personally have some exciting projects planned and really want to focus on bringing our users in early in the design phases to ensure we introduce things of great value. Talking with our users and getting them involved is one of my favorite things to do. There is so much passion out there.

Print screen tip from within SolidWorks

2007-12-10T13:18:00.000Z

Most people are familair with the Print Screen key that exists on most keyboards and this is a quick way to capture your windows screen and copy it to the clipboard.

Alternately you can hold down your key while clicking the Print Screen button to have only the currently select Window copied to the clipboard.

The Screen capture icon in SolidWorks behaves much like the Print Screen with key but it excludes the SolidWorks user interface and only captures the SolidWorks window (viewport).

This can be a tremendous time saver, especially when needing to quickly capture a view of your SolidWorks model and paste it to another document or to a photo editing program like PhotoShop.

The Screen Capture function can be found in SolidWorks 2007 and later just underneath Menu/View at the top of your SolidWorks interface

Keeping track of what changed when

2007-12-10T13:06:00.000Z

Many times in the course of modifying designs you look at two versions of a design and wonder…. ‘…these look exactly alike – what’s changed?...”

You could have kept a log of changes in the Design Binder or if you use PDMWorks you could have noted what changed when you checked the new version into the vault. But, in the rush to ‘get the job done’, these tasks often get missed.

Not to worry! Use SolidWorks Utilities (Part of Office Professional) to ‘compare’ features and provide the ability to view differences between designs. These compare utilities include:

Compare Documents. Compares the properties of two SolidWorks documents (including two configurations of the same model or different PDMWorks versions).

You can compare two documents of the same type, or of different types. This utility identifies differences in file properties, document properties, and so on.

Compare Features. Identifies differences in solid features between two versions of the same part. This utility identifies unique and modified features in both versions of the part.

Compare Geometry. Identifies geometric differences between two versions of the same part. This utility identifies unique and modified faces in both parts. It also computes the common volume of the two parts (or assemblies) and the volume of material added and material removed.

These handy tools can save you from doing tedious forensic analysis of complex designs. To learn more about this capability simply review the SolidWorks on-line help topic ‘SolidWorks Utilities’.

3D Content Central

2007-12-10T12:56:00.000Z

Did you know that you can access thousands of free SolidWorks parts on 3D Content Central?

Click here to see the massive array of standardparts available from all major manufacturers. It can save you hours of time by not having to model standard geometry from scratch.

Flo Xpress in SolidWorks 2008

2007-11-29T17:44:00.000Z

Another nice piece of functionality in SolidWorks 2008 is FloXpress

FloXpress is a SolidWorks-embedded product that enables users to predict and optimize flow and heat transfer processes directly without ever leaving the SolidWorks environment. FloXpress uses Flomerics’ unique “CAD-to-CFD” technology to detect and mesh fluid regions (empty spaces) automatically within the SolidWorks model. There is no need for any data translation or copies, because FloXpress works inside the SolidWorks user interface and shares the SolidWorks data model.

SolidWorks Labs

2007-11-20T17:19:00.000Z

Sometimes, its great to have a preview of some new technologies that are being worked on by the SolidWorks development team. With SolidWOrks Labs, you get the chance to 'step behind the curtain' and have a look at some superb productivity enhancement tools and also some brand new projects.

There is some really cool stuff, such as CB Model Pro - a really powerfull free form surfacing tools, together with DWG Navigator and Drawings Now!

Have a look at http://labs.solidworks.com/

Skipping Instances in a Pattern

2007-11-19T10:44:00.000Z

In the Circular Pattern PropertyManager, there is an option called Instances to Skip. This feature allows you control over which instances are created in your pattern. In the graphics area, a preview is shown of your pattern. The cursor changes when you hover over each pattern instance. Simply click on the instances to toggle whether they are skipped or not. Note that the first instance, the seed feature, cannot be skipped.

SolidWorks 2008 - MCAD Release

2007-11-12T16:15:00.000Z

Do you want to have a read of MCAD's review of SolidWorks 2008, the latest and hugely impressive release can be viewed online by clicking here

SolidWorks sponser DesignTalks

2007-11-12T13:37:00.000Z

SolidWorks is committed to supporting UK designers and manufacturers with fresh thinking and useful resources, and DesignTalks is the latest demonstration of that commitment.

DesignTalks is the ideal place for UK designers and manufacturers to debate the hottest topics of the moment. As well as providing an online debating environment, DesignTalks will also be producing white papers and other resources designed to help manufacturers get the best from designers - and vice versa.

The focal point for DesignTalks will be a regular series of round-table debates. These live events will allow the leading figures from UK design and manufacturing to discuss the topics and issues the industry must face - if it is to remain competitive in today's shrinking global market.

SolidWorks and Innova Systems helps innovative Companies

2007-11-12T12:29:00.000Z

Congratulations to a number of our customers who have all been recognised for designing better products.

PCME of St Ives in Cambridge have recieved the Queens award for Innovation
Thermoteknix of Cambridge have been awarded the Small Innovative company of the year at the Innovation Design Excellence Awards
Cambridge Design Partnership recieved the Design Colloboration Award at Innovation Design Excellence Awards

We are delighted to support these customers and congratulate them on their success. All of these companies use SolidWorks supplied by Innova Systems for new product development.

Welcome to our SolidWorks Blogspot!

2007-10-26T11:22:00.000+01:00

Innova Systems is a Top UK SolidWorks Reseller with many years experience.
SolidWorks has rapidly emerged as one of the most widely used MCAD products available, and its success is based on refreshingly clear and simple principles that have not changed from day one. Powerful, easy to use, affordable, 3D Mechanical design systems on every Engineers desktop. SolidWorks has focused on what it does best. Developing 3D Mechanical CAD systems that continue to outpace competitive products through usability, innovation and affordability.
We will aim to make our Blog a great resource for everything the SolidWorks User will need so don't forget to join this feed!