With lot of development in Industrial sector and mainly in automotive, energy and aerospace you can find almost all big brand vehicles being manufactured in India now. It’s good to see lot of events, seminars, conferences on CAD software launch are organized in all major cities in India to promote new versions and technologies.
Recently, Siemens PLM organized launch of Solid Edge ST3 in Pune, India. It was nice to see good response that the new Synchronous Technology Three is getting. You can read overview on success of event conducted in Pune on my previous blog post. Today, I want to share few facts that I noticed during seminar and when speaking to few delegates during tea breaks.
I was sitting next to two senior delegates, having age around 50 years. I think they must be either senior managers or directors of some company. Their profile is not important here; important is subject of discussion between them. I came to know that they are users of CAD packages since last 10 years, have worked on 2D CAD software in past and also have experience using history based Solid Edge software, which they purchased before launch of ST1. They like the features of ST3 and seem to be going for it in coming days. But, they were worried about the availability of trained manpower to make better use of Synchronous features to improve productivity.
Sometime it is true that one can handle and drive 150cc bike at good speed and comfort then using 600cc bike with unnecessary power and speed if user doesn’t have knowledge about controls and enough practice to drive it. It is not that SE ST1 and ST2 professionals are not available in India. But, after launch of Synchronous Technology mostly the big companies, OEM’s opted to go for new version. The small vendors and industries are still with parametric or history based tools. So getting a experienced professional is difficult task for small industries, no experienced professional will opt to move from big companies to small vendors.
As you know that SE ST3 has integrated order (history) and synchronous technologies combined, CAD managers are worried that if they give SE ST3 in hands of their existing designers, those having expertise in using ‘parametric tools’ they would naturally follow parametric method to design rather than using Synchronous Technology advantage – 600cc!!!
In 2008, Siemens PLM launched an Authorized Training Partner program in India. The program intends to expand the resource pool of skilled professionals available in the marketplace through the extended training ecosystem. Siemens PLM is aware that customers need both the technology and the talent needed to implement robust PLM, CAD solutions to enhance innovation. But today, when you search for Siemens PLM, or Solid Edge training in India you will find very few good private institute going for the courses and most authorized training institutes are closed. I think Siemens must take initiative to restart training program on large scale. Learning CAD software is still not a great deal but having more dedicated training institutes in ‘PLM’ space is prime requirement. Adding more training partners to bring more skilled resources to the market will help companies more easily and effectively expand their use of PLM.
Last month ‘Autodesk joined hands with AICTE to provide free software to over 10,000 engineering and architectural institutes in India. I think it is good move which would help engineering students to get hands on experience on CAD packages and find better job just after passing final year. Also, such move from Autodesk to provide free students licenses would help to lower piracy. Investment today on students would definitely expand CAD business in India in future.
Today, Pro/E courses are offered in almost all institutes throughout India, but condition might change after launch of ‘Creo’ so, better if PTC starts working on learning/teaching strategies now.
Siemens PLM India has its special training cell conducting training courses for every Siemens PLM product, but many professionals and students looking for the courses are not aware about it. Also, you can see most courses schedule are not updated they still show Solid Edge Version 19.0 Training and nothing mentioned about Synchronous Technology.
http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_in/support/training_calendar.shtml
Sub links are broken,
http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_in/support/current_courses.shtml
Learning CAD online is still not much popular in design professionals and students, many reasons for that like no local websites/companies providing learning solutions have to pay fees in dollars which is around two – five times more compared to the fees charged by institutes teaching in classroom mode. Non availability of personal CAD packages to practice at home and lack of good broadband service in some areas.
I think CAD vendors must seriously take initiative to generate trained manpower required to fulfill their customers demand. Must support private CAD Institutes, VAR (resellers) and engineering colleges to start certified courses and guide students to better career options.
Please share your thoughts on learning CAD…
Happy cadding!
Sachin Nalawade
www.dailycadcam.com
