For many SOLIDWORKS teams, the cost of engineering inefficiency isn’t found in one major problem.
Inefficiencies add up through time spent sharing files, coordinating reviews, tracking revisions, accessing design data, and managing changes. SOLIDWORKS Cloud Services connects SOLIDWORKS workflows to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, providing tools for design sharing, markup, cloud-based storage, revision management, collaboration, and design change management.
For teams evaluating their SOLIDWORKS investment, Cloud Services offers additional tools for managing design data, collaborating with stakeholders, and supporting more connected engineering workflows.
The potential ROI of these capabilities can be evaluated across five major workflow areas where your team may be experiencing inefficiencies today.
1. Spend Less Time Managing File Handoffs
Moving CAD files between people can create more work than simply sending the file.
- File preparation: Time spent packaging files, creating copies, or preparing designs for someone else to review.
- File transfers: Email attachments, shared drives, file-transfer tools, or other methods that require people to manually move design data.
- Reconciliation: Time spent determining which files were changed, what was updated, and whether everyone is working from the same information.
Cloud Services provides browser-based design sharing and markup, giving internal and external stakeholders a way to access and review designs without requiring the same CAD environment.
ROI question: How much time does your team spend each week preparing, sending, locating, and reconciling CAD files?
2. Make Design Reviews More Efficient
Design reviews can consume engineering time long after the meeting or review itself is over.
- Review coordination: Getting the right people access to a design and making sure everyone is reviewing the intended version.
- Feedback: Giving stakeholders a way to view and mark up 3D designs in context.
- Clarification: Reducing back-and-forth when feedback comes through screenshots, emails, or descriptions that aren’t directly connected to the design.
Cloud Services supports browser-based design viewing and markup, making it easier for stakeholders to participate in the review process.
ROI question: How much engineering time is spent coordinating reviews, interpreting feedback, or clarifying what needs to change?
3. Reduce Time Lost to File and Revision Confusion
The wrong file or revision can turn a small workflow issue into hours of unnecessary work.
- Duplicate files: Multiple copies can make it difficult to determine which design should be used.
- Revision control: Teams need visibility into the current state of a design and its revisions.
- File access: Locking and controlled access can help prevent people from unintentionally working over one another’s changes.
Cloud Services provides CAD-aware storage, file locking, and revision management within the 3DEXPERIENCE environment.
ROI question: How often does your team spend time resolving outdated files, duplicate designs, missing references, or work completed from the wrong revision?
4. Provide Your Team Access to Design Data Wherever They Work
Engineering teams aren’t always working from the same office, workstation, or location.
- Distributed teams: Engineers and other stakeholders can access design information without relying entirely on office-based file storage.
- Remote collaboration: Teams can work with colleagues and external stakeholders who aren’t sitting at the same workstation.
- Access-related workarounds: Reducing the need to manually transfer files simply because someone needs access from another location.
Cloud-based access can make it easier for teams to collaborate around shared design information, wherever the work is happening.
ROI question: How much time is spent getting people the design data they need or working around limitations of where that data is stored?
5. Build a Design Workflow That Can Scale With Your Team
As projects become more complex, knowing what changed can be just as important as knowing what the current design looks like.
- Change tracking: Capture changes and provide greater visibility into the status of design work.
- Approvals: Help teams manage the people and steps involved in a design change.
- History: Maintain a record of changes and approvals so teams have greater context when questions arise later.
Cloud Services provides tools for managing design changes and approvals through the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
ROI question: How much time does your team spend tracking changes, following up on approvals, or determining what changed and why?
Considering Your Potential ROI
The value of Cloud Services depends on where your team is losing time today. Look back through the five areas above and identify the ones that describe your current workflow. It may be the time spent packaging and sending files, the back-and-forth that follows a design review, or the rework that happens when someone builds from the wrong revision. Then consider what it would be worth to recover a portion of that time, across everyone involved, over the course of a year. That comparison, the time your team spends now against the time it could get back, is the practical way to think about whether Cloud Services fits your engineering workflow.
If you’d like to work through that evaluation with context specific to your team’s licensing and workflow, an MLC CAD specialist can help you assess fit before your next renewal. Talk with an MLC CAD specialist about adding Cloud Services.
