Overview on ‘SolidWorks Innovation Day 2010’ Event, Pelf Infotech - Pune

Recently I had an excellent opportunity to attend ‘SolidWorks Innovation Day 2010’ organized by Pelf Infotech, Pune on October 19, 2010 at Hotel Westin for its customers and potential customers mostly working with 2D CAD packages. SolidWorks have good number of users in and around Pune and Pelf Infotech have been serving to more the 200+ clients.

So, obviously the event was having huge crowd of more than 250 dignitaries from SME’s, design service providers, MNC’s and R&D firms. The attendees were given warm welcome by Pelf Infotech.
The program started with the welcome speech by Mr. Ajinkya Huddar, Managing Director - Pelf Infotech Pvt. Ltd. He gave an overview on services provided by Pelf. He shared some fantastic and innovative ideas on 3rd generation CAD; need to switch from 2D to 3D tools, FEA, sustainability and publishing tools to design better quality products. Videos on 3rd generation SolidWorks and road-able aircraft were shown. Really interesting stuff!

Mr. Sandeep Srivastava, SolidWorks, western region, was next to give presentation, he explained the importance of innovations to drive companies to success. He showed the list of most innovative companies in world and asked what is common in most of these companies? thinkkkkkk…??? Any guess.
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Its SolidWorks, used to design at some stage to shape innovative ideas to real products.

Then, he came to Sustainability. Really awful to see the images on condition of Earth and humanity today - Acid rain. Water pollution. Global warming. Dying animals, plants, and fish. He then gave brief overview on SolidWorks initiative for designing sustainable product, green design to save nature and humanity. Thanks for good initiative by DS SolidWorks Corp.

Visit SolidWorks Sustainability website to explore further - http://www.solidworks.com/sustainability/index.htm

Then, there was some silence after completion of presentation by Mr. Sandeep, the spot light was moving 180 degrees in a hall, then it was announced that the unveiling of SolidWorks 2011 would done by the hands of lucky spectator where spotlight would stop, and we got the lucky one! Everybody enjoyed the pleasant moment to find person to launch 2011. A huge cake with ‘DS SolidWorks 2011’ written over it was cut with some crackers to boost the happiness.

The ‘Launch of SolidWorks 2011’ in Pune was officially announced.

Then, in next session there were presentations by application engineers from Pelf Infotech, who presented the real-situation in companies handling design projects and way to manage work with SolidWorks.
It was amazing to see the list of ‘new enhancements in SolidWorks 2011’ the list is too long, some 200 enhancements in latest version. Let me list few which I find more interesting, they are.
• PhotoView 360 and walk-through
• Defeature Tool
• Fast Drawing Detailing
• Planer Simplification and enhanced Beam Analysis
• HVAC and cooling Modules
• Routing Improvements
• Welded Structure Improvements
• 3DVIA Composer
• EPDM
• Enhanced Memory Management
• Flow Simulation

An Insightful presentation on ‘choosing a right Workstation’ was given by Mr. Suhas Pingat, Market Development Manager at HP. He talked about the range of Workstations supporting CAD, CAE applications and importance of having right hardware to get optimum output from latest CAD packages.

Then, in lunch break we got chance to see the ‘Object 3D Printing System’ prototype machine, It supports STL and SLC file formats. Nice to see a physical prototype of product before going for manufacturing!

In second half, Customer Case Study - By Yashodeep Fabritech was presented by representative of Yashodeep Fabritect. Really good to hear about the experience of a small vendor on using 3D CAD package to drive his company to success. He showed how conveyors, powder transfer system, tanks and vessels, heat exchangers and bleaching tube, etc were designed using SolidWorks and his experience with 2D CAD tools.

Later, there was demo on ‘SolidWorks Flow Simulation’ a new CFD tool for quick and easy simulation of fluid flow, heat transfer and fluid forces. Adding CFD tool is biggest enhancement in 2011 according to me, it was primary requirement for many SolidWorks users to build successful products. I feel the tool is easy to use and a CAD designer with little training on this tool can perform simulations easily.

Mr. Anand, Pelf Infotech, gave a brief introduction on using 3DVIA for product documentation, really great way to create, update and distribute product communications utilizing 3D design data and bills-of-material information. Using 3DVIA for making User manuals, maintenance manuals, training manuals is best way to train customers, users.

A representative from Moldex3D demonstrated the ‘Moldex3D eXplorer for SolidWorks'. Part of the company's line of CAE products for the plastics injection molding industry. The eXplorer tools help identify potential design problems and solutions to optimize part design and manufacturability. Quality issues such as air traps, weld lines, and hesitations can be simulated and analyzed. He also gave brief overview on new features in latest release of Moldex3D R10.0.

There was small demo on LOGOPRESS used for Sheet metal Stamping and Die Designing. Various modules were explained.

Mr. Mandar Parkhi, Mark Design Solutions (P) ltd presented their product ‘CADECplus Configurator ‘an automation tool that enables designers to find logical answers and provides tools to implement logic within design process. Hats Off to Innovative Technology! For details visit their website

http://www.markengg.com/Cadec.html

All the sessions were very interactive; lots of queries were answered by the presenters effectively. The event concluded with Vote of Thanks by Mr. Ajinkya Huddar, managing Director - Pelf Infotech Pvt. Ltd followed by prize distribution for luck winners.

Check videos on new enhancements on DailyCADCAM

Happy Cadding!

Sachin Nalawade
www.dailycadcam.com