As a sales engineer at SIE Computing, a manufacturer of custom-built
electronics assemblies and enclosures, Domenic Trapassi could handle a few
basic CAD operations, but was not nearly proficient enough to crank out the
models and drawings necessary for the request for proposals that would
ultimately land customer contracts. As a result, Trapassi and the rest of the
sales team regularly turned to engineering to create the CAD models, but the
process was slow and took valuable time away from day-to-day engineering tasks.
That is until SIE Computing discovered SpaceClaim,
a 3-D direct modeler that was intuitive enough for Trapassi's sales team to do
their own upfront modeling to use in quotes. Since doing so, SIE Computing has
seen a 60 percent increase in its ability to win programs.
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"Now we're able to show
the customer that we understand what they want and we're able to give them
something to visualize what it is they told us they want," says Trapassi,
senior systems architect. "It's helped increase our sales and increased our
ability to react to customer requirements."
Trapassi is the kind of
customer SpaceClaim is targeting with SpaceClaim 2010, the latest release of
its CAD tool. Now in its
sixth
version, the newest release includes a variety of new features for concept
and bid modeling, not to mention, more sophisticated capabilities aimed at the
traditional CAD audience of engineers. Many of the features stemmed from direct
requests from customers and as a result, SpaceClaim is making inroads as a tool
for leveraging 3D to communicate and manage relationships with customers, says
Blake Courter, SpaceClaim's co-founder.
"When the only people
in the organization that can use 3D are CAD specialists then you create a
bottleneck," Courter says. "Those bottlenecks are the major reason for process
delays, and SpaceClaim removes those bottlenecks."
Courter points to
several ways SpaceClaim 2010 makes 3-D direct modeling functionality more
intuitive. There is now direct 3-D sketching for points, lines and splines and
a mechanism placement function that supports tangency, ball joints and gears.
The company has also added new sheet metal capabilities such as new form
features and library, cross section-based creation, flat patterns that are
bendable to 3-D sheet metal, engraved cutout notes and lightweight patterns.
There are also new detailing capabilities such as customizable symbols, a symbol
library and a modular grid coordinate system for automotive and aerospace
applications. Finally, SpaceClaim included advanced API capabilities to
encourage partners to create custom tools and interactive objects.
"We've been working on
scaling and making SpaceClaim more industrial strength without making it as
complicated as a CAD system," Courter says. SpaceClaim 2010 is available
immediately.
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