How many hours have you wasted chasing down the right file version, fixing a BOM error, or waiting on a department update just to move production forward? The 3DEXPERIENCE Platform changes that. It keeps your entire workflow connected from start to finish. Design, simulation, manufacturing, and marketing all stay in sync, so your team moves faster with fewer mistakes. What does this all mean? In this post, we'll dive deep into what the 3DEXPERIENCE platform can do to help streamline your product design.
I help teams just like yours bring their ideas to life using the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. Here’s how we can work together.
Think about how you collaborate today. Once you've finished a design in SOLIDWORKS, who needs access to that data? Does it have to get approvals before it goes to production? How do you get your files to your manufacturers? What about the BOM? How do you make sure you have the latest version of each component? With the 3DExperience Platform, all these questions are answered easily because everyone is working on the same version of the file without duplicate work!
Let's dive into how each department above might use the data:
Once you adopt the 3DExperience Platform, nothing changes from a SOLIDWORKS perspective. Your design process can continue as normal for all your part, assembly, and drawing files. Once you have a completed design, all you'd need to do is save your work to the Platform from within SOLIDWORKS CAD and the files will automatically be uploaded to the cloud. Once they're up there, anyone with access to your private cloud server can interact with them.
A lot of times, the first design isn't always the best design. It could be too strong or too weak for your application, or you might have to go through a lot of physical testing prototypes to get the desired performance, which can be costly in terms of both time and money. With the 3DExperience Platform, your team has access to the industry leading physics engines for Finite Element Analysis (powered by ABAQUS), Computational Fluid Dynamics, and Electromagnetics solvers. Because your simulation team is working on the same file as your design team, there is no duplication of work and changes propagate downstream so the design cycle is much tighter.
Once your design and simulation teams are done creating the perfect part, you need to make sure you can manufacture it. Imagine a designer and a machinist collaborating on the same data within a virtual simulation of your shop floor, refining design changes and optimizing manufacturing techniques together.
The machining functionality on the Platform enables seamless, cloud-connected programming and program verification for shop floor operators. This solution eliminates the disconnected processes traditionally found in manufacturing environments and provides an integrated, intelligent approach to NC programming. We can do 3+2 machining, Wire EDM, Plasma and Waterjet cutting, Nesting calculations, and Manufacturability Checker calculations, all included with your SOLIDWORKS license. If you're interested in learning more about this new functionality, check out this blog.
Once your product has been designed, validated, and ready to be manufactured, you'll need a BOM to go with it so you know exactly what's shipping in the box. The 3DExperience Platform makes it easy to assign part numbers, create BOMs, and organize your engineering content all in the comfort of a web browser. You can also define your own change and release processes to make sure your full product lifecycle management is taken care of from conceptual design to end of life.
Last but not least, you'll need some marketing content to show off your new product! With the Platform, your marketing team can get a jump start on the competition because you're able to work on the same file as engineering, so if changes pop up the marketing team is automatically working with the newest version. The 3DExperience Platform has some powerful cloud rendering tools to create photorealistic renderings of your product right in a web browser with an intuitive, easy-to-use interface.
The 3DExperience Platform is an extension of your SOLIDWORKS design tools to build an ecosystem of success across all departments. Reduce time to market, eliminate duplication, and collaborate more efficiently with both internal and external stakeholders.