(Need Help) To Win The Lottery

[Roasted By John]

The SW Verses Fusion is heating up here and I need a really good input. The engineering/design team will be getting together next week to prepare for this meeting the following week - Speak your mind?

Below is the email I got this morning.....


Guys,

I am getting a meeting together for a discussion group on the CAD/CAM solution for Wyrmwood it will be on Tue June 1st
J will be down and this will be for users of the solution.

I want you all to write up some basic concern areas in particular what I have heard seems to be based around use of assemblies and the other one seems to be ease of mates.
I am not knowledgeable myself on these solutions from a user perspective so I may have some of this wrong or some of these things I heard may be related.
I remember hearing that changes to the model don't update automatic in the Sketch things like this.

Very Very important that the team focus on top 2 or 3 items don't nit pick the interface. or where they put buttons or how it looks focus on real day to day use topics in particular things that if not resolved will take more labor then your used too in current solution.

My goal is for you guys to touch on these top items and have J who has used Fusion tell us how he would approach these issues.
Wyrmwood has not needed to Model complex items some of the things that your noticing may not really be worth a more advanced solution if we continue to make simple items but the direction of Wyrmwood is more furniture that means configurations. Modular tables have to be more precise... programming of more parts that must join well. Chairs are going to continue to be developed and there more complicated. So while Keystone Custom is going away the value of the more advanced assembly modeling may still be valuable I want to vet this out.

Learning Curve on the interface and cost will be the Pro's pushed by going to 360 as well as CNC post programs being implemented already.

Need a Side by Side price compare if someone can type that up in a sheet and bring it along.
Will one of you consolidate the issue topics so we can send that off to J in advance as well I would like him to be prepared as well.

Sum up

Need side by side pricing appropriate version of Solid Works next to 360 ( this has all been gathered before James may have it)
Need solid CAM cost included for the side by side and if 360 has a CAM add on to do the same need that in there
Need cost to post a machine for both CAM packages
Will be good to include a note that subscription is monthly for 360 while we can once and done Solidworks someone brought that up the other day so a note would be good.

Need list of Issues with good examples describing the impact of the issue and where it would be a problem going forward.

Would one of you have time to collect and compile your teams info in one document for me to look over before sending it to J.

Thanks

[mike miller]

I really don't understand why Fusion is even in the picture (except for the price)....??? Inventor would be a much more apples-to-apples comparison with SWX. And if you're changing anyway, Solid Edge would be a better solution than anything Autodesk sells IMHO.

Buy Solid Edge - Design and Drafting

SE starting level is $900/year with no upfront cost. You may need a higher seat level if you use weldments or sheet metal but I don't think you're into that anyway.... Synchronous for furniture would be awesome. I've used it enough to see that for myself. Show this video to your co-workers who have experience with SWX: https://solidedge.siemens.com/en/resour ... n-changes/

[Roasted By John]

Specifically Fusion verses SW

[mattpeneguy]

Specifically Fusion verses SW

How many seats are you dealing with here?

[MJuric]

The SW Verses Fusion is heating up here and I need a really good input. The engineering/design team will be getting together next week to prepare for this meeting the following week - Speak your mind?

Below is the email I got this morning.....


Guys,

I am getting a meeting together for a discussion group on the CAD/CAM solution for Wyrmwood it will be on Tue June 1st
J will be down and this will be for users of the solution.

I want you all to write up some basic concern areas in particular what I have heard seems to be based around use of assemblies and the other one seems to be ease of mates.
I am not knowledgeable myself on these solutions from a user perspective so I may have some of this wrong or some of these things I heard may be related.
I remember hearing that changes to the model don't update automatic in the Sketch things like this.

Very Very important that the team focus on top 2 or 3 items don't nit pick the interface. or where they put buttons or how it looks focus on real day to day use topics in particular things that if not resolved will take more labor then your used too in current solution.

My goal is for you guys to touch on these top items and have J who has used Fusion tell us how he would approach these issues.
Wyrmwood has not needed to Model complex items some of the things that your noticing may not really be worth a more advanced solution if we continue to make simple items but the direction of Wyrmwood is more furniture that means configurations. Modular tables have to be more precise... programming of more parts that must join well. Chairs are going to continue to be developed and there more complicated. So while Keystone Custom is going away the value of the more advanced assembly modeling may still be valuable I want to vet this out.

Learning Curve on the interface and cost will be the Pro's pushed by going to 360 as well as CNC post programs being implemented already.

Need a Side by Side price compare if someone can type that up in a sheet and bring it along.
Will one of you consolidate the issue topics so we can send that off to J in advance as well I would like him to be prepared as well.

Sum up

Need side by side pricing appropriate version of Solid Works next to 360 ( this has all been gathered before James may have it)
Need solid CAM cost included for the side by side and if 360 has a CAM add on to do the same need that in there
Need cost to post a machine for both CAM packages
Will be good to include a note that subscription is monthly for 360 while we can once and done Solidworks someone brought that up the other day so a note would be good.

Need list of Issues with good examples describing the impact of the issue and where it would be a problem going forward.

Would one of you have time to collect and compile your teams info in one document for me to look over before sending it to J.

Thanks

Maybe I'm reading that wrong but is someone saying that F360 has CAM and SW doesn't? SW also comes standard with CAM for milling for free or as part of the package including the TechDB which is actually pretty powerful. I do not think turning is included though.

[Roasted By John]

How many seats are you dealing with here?

(7) If I remember correctly

[Roasted By John]

Maybe I'm reading that wrong but is someone saying that F360 has CAM and SW doesn't? SW also comes standard with CAM for milling for free or as part of the package including the TechDB which is actually pretty powerful. I do not think turning is included though.

Thanks for bringing that up - we did talk about it before - but I will be checking back here for additional notes

[Tahhhd]

@MJuric is correct, Turning is not included with standard SolidWorks CAM.
You should bring a bag of apples to the meeting, and ask them if they would like to share "these lovely oranges"

[MJuric]

Thanks for bringing that up - we did talk about it before - but I will be checking back here for additional notes

I've not used F360 CAM but SW cam Standard is pretty decent. It includes a significant number of free posts as well. However many VAR's also have post writing services if you wanted something custom. We pay $750 per post with lifetime unlimited modifications.

If You already have the SW seats you're looking at $1295 a year VS $495 a year for F360. That's not paultry numbers but it's would be way different if you were just starting out with SW and had to pay the $3995 for the license the first year.

Another way to look at it is how long will it take for people to be as efficient and effective with F360 as they are now with SW? At $75 and hour that's only a little over 11 hours and my guess it will be considerably more than that for pretty much everyone that hasn't already been using it. Then is SW "Better enough" to be able to save 11 hours a year per seat after that? How much legacy data are you dealing with?

[Roasted By John]

@MJuric is correct, Turning is not included with standard SolidWorks CAM.
You should bring a bag of apples to the meeting, and ask them if they would like to share "these lovely oranges"

Interesting Concept, I knew I could count on you guys here giving great advice

[mattpeneguy]

I've not used F360 CAM but SW cam Standard is pretty decent. It includes a significant number of free posts as well. However many VAR's also have post writing services if you wanted something custom. We pay $750 per post with lifetime unlimited modifications.

If You already have the SW seats you're looking at $1295 a year VS $495 a year for F360. That's not paultry numbers but it's would be way different if you were just starting out with SW and had to pay the $3995 for the license the first year.

Another way to look at it is how long will it take for people to be as efficient and effective with F360 as they are now with SW? At $75 and hour that's only a little over 11 hours and my guess it will be considerably more than that for pretty much everyone that hasn't already been using it. Then is SW "Better enough" to be able to save 11 hours a year per seat after that? How much legacy data are you dealing with?

There's multiple ways to look at this, of course... If they don't currently have the 7 SW licenses, the first year is going to be expensive 28k vs 3.5k. But each year after that it'd be 9.1k for SW vs. 3.5k. So over 5 years the total cost of ownership would be 73.5k vs 17.5k or about 11.2k per year. Which equates to 1.6k per year per user over those 5 years.

So John, do you think the users will be able to have a substantial time savings amounting to $1600/($75/hr) = 21 hours per year. I'd think you could come up with something that SW does a lot better and quicker that you guys will be doing a lot of and if you can demonstrate something in F360 takes 20 minutes, but can be done in 10 in SW and it's the core of what you guys do, SW may be a better choice.
The above math gets a lot better in SW favor if you already own the 7 licenses.

One other big consideration is support. SW VAR support for me has been stellar. I have no idea what kind of support you get for 1/3 of the cost with Fusion. There's an intangible value in having great support when the $@%^ hits the fan and the deadline is tomorrow.

[MJuric]

There's multiple ways to look at this, of course... If they don't currently have the 7 SW licenses, the first year is going to be expensive 28k vs 3.5k. But each year after that it'd be 9.1k for SW vs. 3.5k. So over 5 years the total cost of ownership would be 73.5k vs 17.5k or about 11.2k per year. Which equates to 1.6k per year per user over those 5 years.

So John, do you think the users will be able to have a substantial time savings amounting to $1600/($75/hr) = 21 hours per year. I'd think you could come up with something that SW does a lot better and quicker that you guys will be doing a lot of and if you can demonstrate something in F360 takes 20 minutes, but can be done in 10 in SW and it's the core of what you guys do, SW may be a better choice.
The above math gets a lot better in SW favor if you already own the 7 licenses.

One other big consideration is support. SW VAR support for me has been stellar. I have no idea what kind of support you get for 1/3 of the cost with Fusion. There's an intangible value in having great support when the $@%^ hits the fan and the deadline is tomorrow.

That's one of the issues with SW over many upcoming competitors, up front cost. You're plunking down ~4K per seat and another 1.3K per standard seat that first year. You're getting into IV, which is equal to some of the upper SW packages for 2K a year, period. You're getting into Fusion for $500 buck, period.

I think you'd have a tough sell saying SW is worth it over IV at those price points.

That being said I thought John's company already had the seats so it's much easier to swallow.

In the end however the software cost becomes rather trivial compared to the labor cost. 10K a year is $5 an hour or 3 weeks of work at $75 an hour. You can easily loose three weeks a year because of software issues....I loose that every year with Solidworks

[Roasted By John]

Thanks @mattpeneguy & @MJuric

Yeah we do have 3 seats here, not sure why they are considering 4 more seats, I have a feeling to assist in inflating the numbers. There is no question in my mind which is quicker and which is easier, because it's quicker. But it still comes down to training that's for sure. I can have those savings in one job, an assembly with over 100 pcs. Another thing that's not included is all the meeting time we're getting into this incredibly ridiculous comparison.

[MJuric]

Thanks @mattpeneguy & @MJuric

Yeah we do have 3 seats here, not sure why they are considering 4 more seats, I have a feeling to assist in inflating the numbers. There is no question in my mind which is quicker and which is easier, because it's quicker. But it still comes down to training that's for sure. I can have those savings in one job, an assembly with over 100 pcs. Another thing that's not included is all the meeting time we're getting into this incredibly ridiculous comparison.

Last place I worked just LOVED meetings. Engineering meeting, followed by project meetings, followed by manufacturing meeting and on and on.

One day we were in a resource meeting and was looking at the fact that we did not have enough people to get the work done. One of the managers said "We'll we have X number of people and Y number of work if everyone just put in a few extra hours a day we'd be caught up in a month". My response was "So how many hours a day are people ACTUALLY working? Right now you have the entire engineering staff in a meeting, we are all in meetings for 25-30% of our days....which is why we are behind in the first place"

[MJuric]

Thanks @mattpeneguy & @MJuric

Yeah we do have 3 seats here, not sure why they are considering 4 more seats, I have a feeling to assist in inflating the numbers. There is no question in my mind which is quicker and which is easier, because it's quicker. But it still comes down to training that's for sure. I can have those savings in one job, an assembly with over 100 pcs. Another thing that's not included is all the meeting time we're getting into this incredibly ridiculous comparison.

I have no doubt that someone that was good with F360 could probably model parts up pretty quickly. I think the "Gains" will probably come from things that people generally don't take into account like, reusing parts, tracking parts and a plethora of productivity tool that probably aren't even available for F360.

If all you're doing is basic modeling that's one thing, if you're leveraging some of the power of SW it's hard to even compare the two.

[jcapriotti]

Are all 7 users in the software 100% of the day? SolidWorks has floating licenses (at a increased cost). So you may only need 3 or 4. With F360 you need a license for each user regardless of how much they use it, same with Inventor and Autocad as Autodesk has fully gone to named user licensing.

In our case, we have 50 floating licenses installed on 150 users.

[jcapriotti]

The other thing is at $500 a year, Autodesk has to be taking a loss on that pricing. Inventor is $2190/year, Autocad is $1775/year, Autocad LT is $445/year.

Onshape is $1500/year which doesn't include CAM and FEA.

At some point I'm guessing that price will increase, I just don't see how it can't when you look at the rest of the market's pricing, and Autodesk's reputation. Imagine all the Inventor users converted to F360, you really think they will take a $1700 loss per user? Stockholders would have a cow. Draftsight started out free, had to know that wouldn't last.

[Roasted By John]

I have no doubt that someone that was good with F360 could probably model parts up pretty quickly. I think the "Gains" will probably come from things that people generally don't take into account like, reusing parts, tracking parts and a plethora of productivity tool that probably aren't even available for F360.

If all you're doing is basic modeling that's one thing, if you're leveraging some of the power of SW it's hard to even compare the two.

For us users here that is our argument, Configurations, Design Tables, Macros, Custom Properties and most people don't realize "Diagnostics", are all portions of the comparison that will never be equaled between the two.

The Diagnostics part in SolidWorks is where you make it or break it, with any time study. Since we started using the SSP process, our Diagnostics are almost Zero, it's very easy to find any error and to fix them quickly.

I'll always use the analogy "The comparison between SW and FU is the same as comparing a Platypus and an Ostrich, they both lay eggs"

[mike miller]

For us users here that is our argument, Configurations, Design Tables, Macros, Custom Properties and most people don't realize "Diagnostics", are all portions of the comparison that will never be equaled between the two.

The Diagnostics part in SolidWorks is where you make it or break it, with any time study. Since we started using the SSP process, our Diagnostics are almost Zero, it's very easy to find any error and to fix them quickly.

I'll always use the analogy "The comparison between SW and FU is the same as comparing a Platypus and an Ostrich, they both lay eggs"

[MJuric]

For us users here that is our argument, Configurations, Design Tables, Macros, Custom Properties and most people don't realize "Diagnostics", are all portions of the comparison that will never be equaled between the two.

The Diagnostics part in SolidWorks is where you make it or break it, with any time study. Since we started using the SSP process, our Diagnostics are almost Zero, it's very easy to find any error and to fix them quickly.

I'll always use the analogy "The comparison between SW and FU is the same as comparing a Platypus and an Ostrich, they both lay eggs"

Absolutely agree. I can only speak with extremely limited experience. It was kind of like picking up a really nice hammer and a Harbor freight special. If you have experience hammering a lot of nails you can just feel the difference. Using F360, despite "Feeling" like a competent modeling tool all the "Extra's" the stuff that made a cheap tool a high quality tool, just didn't seem to be there. To the contrary the exact same experience and similar amount of time spent with Onshape was completely different. Despite being just as incompetent with Onshape you could tell that the features that made a quality tool where there somewhere....I just didn't know where they were or how to leverage them.

[Roasted By John]

Ok - here is my initial draft, we have approx 2 weeks to clean it up - but here we go..

Memo:
Date: 5/24/2021
RE: SolidWorks (SW) – Fusion (FU) 360 (Comparison)
TO:
From: John Stoltzfus
Good afternoon,
Interesting comparison, very similar to a Platypus and an Ostrich, they both lay eggs, however both can’t fly.

SKETCHING
After using FU for a few weeks now, the ease of modeling is very comparable to SW or any other 3D modeling program, all programs are pretty much the same to where you need a flat surface or plane to draw a sketch, (except a few can model right off using 3D sketches). Drawing a rectangle, circle or line is no difference, almost all have the same Icon, so there’s no confusion from that part.

MODELING – EXTRUDING OR CUTTING
There is no difference with these features either, where you can input numeric values or use the drag handles.

DRAWINGS
I personally like more Drawing Features on Fusion then SW, primarily the dimensions don’t go all over the page like SW sometimes does, however that’s it. There is no comparison between SW or FU on all other aspects of the Drawing discussions, Custom Properties, BOM’s are all a huge part in Computer Generated Models/Drawings.

ASSEMBLIES
There is no comparison between the two on this – FU is worse than the neighbors step child. I spent considerable amount of time trying to come up with a robust method to mate parts and they still breakdown. This is not a training issue it is a FU issue, to correct the Assembly Model, I needed to add sketch points and mate those, and if you don’t do it that way, the Assembly Model will blow up.
There are only a few people that work here who realize our Product Development Workflow in SW, much less the years behind the development of our process and how that workflow can be used in any modeling process. I think we all know that, yeah, I used SW for many years, (23 ½ years), and I have never been satisfied with my Workflow and modeling Processes. For years I have been working on a process that I call the Skeleton Sketch Part process and feel that is the only way and the quickest way to model anything that needs to be transferred from Solid Model to Drawings etc. This process is now used throughout the World designing a lot of different components and assemblies, for instance, how about a draw bridge in the State of LA Drawbridge Division, so the first thought in your mind is “We’re not building bridges”, true, but the same process applies in building/designing a (four pc) bookshelf. Today there are a lot of people using the SSP process, it is the “Only” robust parametric process, where the tough error diagnostics are a thing of the past.
I’ve applied that same SSP Process using to FU and the results are the same, which is good, however I’ve had a few things breaking in the assembly/part updates, so I’ll need to see, it definitely is harder to do the diagnostics, not only trying to find the issue, how to correct it was a challenge as well. So comparing SW with FU strictly based on price, SW will always surpass FU to where it’s a speck of dust.

CONFIGURATIONS
Nothing to compare here, FU has no Configuration Options

CUSTOM PROPERTIES
Custom Properties is the most “Undersold” feature in SW, where SW is so far advanced that there’s no comparison between the two

DESIGN TABLES – OPTIONAL DRIVE WORKS
Nothing to compare here, FU has no Design Table Options

MACROS
Nothing to compare here, FU has no Macro Options

CAM
While FU does have CAM integration there is no comparison between SolidCAM and FU CAM, in a lot of different aspects, (this is from Users that I know that have compared or used both) We do have the machines in MA updated to the correct posts for the FU collaboration, so they would need to be modified if we go with another CAM software. The machine posts in PA would need to be modified any way so there’s nothing new here, additional training would be required though, so on the CAM side, it’s possibly a bigger investment jump, but the ROI should add value later on.

PRICE
Understanding the values above makes the Price Comparison ludicrous, there are literally no comparisons between them. The time savings alone using SW far surpass any of the initial costing, just looking at the Subscription Costs for instance, let’s say that FU is $495.00 annually and SW is $1,500.00 for a difference of around a $1,000.00 per seat, which equates to 20 hours at $50.00 per hour per seat, so the adder to that pricing is the approx. the seat price of $4,000 which is a difference of 80 hours at $50.00 per seat, both would equate to 100 hours total per seat per year. We already have most of the licenses in place and ready to go. SW supplies us with a certain amount of “Free Training, per seat per year”
With slightly over 2,000 working hours (40hrs/week) the difference in the above pricing can easily be saved and possibly increase the Engineering through put by a huge margin, plus we’ve wasted a whole lot more time in meetings and discussions, by people that don’t have a vested interest and care more about a, in your face visual using charts etc., so they can take credit in saving the company money, while in reality they are the ones costing the company a lot of money.

SUPPORT
Nothing to compare here, the SW support and the SW International Community is the best in the Industry, hands down.

ENGINEERING STRUCTURE
The “Lack Of” an Engineering Department Structure should be a bigger concern, product development, inventory management, and revision management/control are haphazard at best. The challenges will remain by having (2) two different campus’s and no model/drawings transparency, especially magnified by currently using two different modeling programs.

[MJuric]

Early you mentioned that the "Fusion 360" expert was also weighing in on this so I would be a bit more careful. For instance you say "No macro's". Well fusion 360 actually has an API which means you can do macro, to what extent I have no idea.
https://autodeskfusion360.github.io/

You also mention "No configs", which is true in the traditional SW sense but F360 also has equation driven variables so you can, to some degree, create configurations by changing variables which drive the model. Furthermore if F360 is as good or better than inventor in this area it's better than SW in this area....by alot.

Custom properties- It also looks like they are designing F360 more like an app than your typical desktop CAD system. Custom properties....there's an app for that. https://apps.autodesk.com/FUSION/en/Det ... n&os=Win64

Again no idea how good any of this stuff is in comparison to SW, I'm just throwing a red flag on the claim that "That doesn't exist". You'd lose credibility really quick if you came in strong saying "F360 can't even do this" and the "Expert" responded with, yes you can, here.

Unfortunately you're on the defensive a bit here. I'm sure everyone is aware of how SW works as you're using it, but F360 can easily be "Sold" as "Just as good" because not as many people know how to use it.

[Roasted By John]

Early you mentioned that the "Fusion 360" expert was also weighing in on this so I would be a bit more careful. For instance you say "No macro's". Well fusion 360 actually has an API which means you can do macro, to what extent I have no idea.
https://autodeskfusion360.github.io/

You also mention "No configs", which is true in the traditional SW sense but F360 also has equation driven variables so you can, to some degree, create configurations by changing variables which drive the model. Furthermore if F360 is as good or better than inventor in this area it's better than SW in this area....by alot.

Custom properties- It also looks like they are designing F360 more like an app than your typical desktop CAD system. Custom properties....there's an app for that. https://apps.autodesk.com/FUSION/en/Det ... n&os=Win64

Again no idea how good any of this stuff is in comparison to SW, I'm just throwing a red flag on the claim that "That doesn't exist". You'd lose credibility really quick if you came in strong saying "F360 can't even do this" and the "Expert" responded with, yes you can, here.

Unfortunately you're on the defensive a bit here. I'm sure everyone is aware of how SW works as you're using it, but F360 can easily be "Sold" as "Just as good" because not as many people know how to use it.

Thanks Matt - All I need to add in small print "The words and comparison statements are only a matter of opinion" and "Re-quoting anything from this document is will be classed as taken out of context" lol

Your points are well taken, defensive is absolutely correct, however, not for a personal gain, looks like my time is limited working for Wyrmwood, there are other opportunities coming up, so I say what I want..

[Frederick_Law]

You still alive after your presentation?

[Roasted By John]

It was postponed for another week or so, if life or death hinges on my story of how stupid they are if they go with Fusion 360, that won't change my presentation, I'm over 50, ya know...

[Tahhhd]

They probably won't want to hear about spending more money, but you could replicate your servers at both locations with PDM Professional, so everyone would be seeing/working with the EXACT same files.
(Not to mention the added level of control.)
t

[Roasted By John]

They probably won't want to hear about spending more money, but you could replicate your servers at both locations with PDM Professional, so everyone would be seeing/working with the EXACT same files.
(Not to mention the added level of control.)
t

Still Fusion has the attention of the CEO - so it's slim pick'n having SW remain as the software of choice here...

[David Matula]

try 9, 19, 34, 49, 22, 6, 3.
hope those are enough numbers.