DriveWorksXpress is a free design automation tool included in every license of SOLIDWORKS.
More and more companies are adopting design automation techniques to save time, reduce repetitive engineering tasks and minimise costly errors. Design automation is becoming the norm and engineering students can gain the skills they need by completing the DriveWorksXpress Training and Certification.
Download and complete the DriveWorksXpress Training Tutorial. It’s easy to follow and there are lots of free resources to help you.
Take a short online test to get certified. You’ll get instant feedback and your certificate will be emailed to you automatically.
Continue your learning with additional resources and join a global community of SOLIDWORKS and DriveWorks engineers.
Press F1 in DriveWorksXpress to use the built-in Help File.
Wach our free monthly webinar to learn how to get started with DriveWorksXpress.
Request a Little Book of Rules – a handy guide to writing rules in DriveWorks.
Download our sample projects to see more industry examples.
Watch short video clips to learn how to use DriveWorks at your own pace.
Add to your knowledge with extra tutorials and videos.
The DriveWorksXpress Training and Certification is a free certification for all engineering and design students who have access to SOLIDWORKS.
Becoming a Certified DriveWorksXpress Associate gives you new skills to add to your r辿sum辿, kick starts your engineering career and open doors in a competitive jobs market.
Last week Heather, who is involved in running the SWUGN sponsorship program here at DriveWorks,hit the road again for another week long SWUGN tour. This time, she was on a road trip that took her to both Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
“On Tuesday afternoon, we arrived in Bird in Hand, Pennsylvania. We met up with Mid-Atlantic Independent SOLIDWORKS User Group (MARISUG) leader Jeff Holliday. We met at an establishment called the Amish Experience as both Jeff and his wife Susan conduct tours of the Amish country in their spare time. We were treated to a two-hour driving tour of the area and learned a lot about the Amish culture and community.”
“That evening, I presented at the MARISUG meeting in Skippack, Pennsylvania. The meeting was well attended and users learnt how they can start to automate some of their designs using DriveWorks. They also learnt about our new DriveWorksXpress Training and Certification program. Someone from the meeting that evening became certified the very next day – congratulations!”
“Jeff Holliday won the ‘DriveWorks SWUGN User Group Leader of the Year’ at SOLIDWORKS World 2017 in LA. As part of this award, Jeff configured his own custom-made razor handle. I had a chance to see the finished product during my visit congratulations again Jeff!”
“The Central New Jersey shore was buzzing with activity when we arrived on Wednesday. This part of New Jersey is home to places like Asbury Park, Bruce Springsteen, the East Street Band, Bon Jovi and the Asbury Jukes. Its also home of the Central New Jersey SOLIDWORKS User Group and Shawn Casebolt, the group leader.”
“Shawn is the Design Engineer for PL Custom Emergency Vehicles, which is both a SOLIDWORKS and DriveWorks customer. Shawn gave us a tour of the PL Custom Emergency Vehicles site before the meeting. It was a great chance to see both SOLIDWORKS and DriveWorks working together to create these emergency vehicles.”
“When I present on DriveWorksXpress, it’s exciting for me to show a tool that engineers can start to use right away. Shawn and some of the others from PL Custom added to the discussion that evening and shared on their own experience of working with DriveWorks.”
“The last stop on my journey through the Mid-Atlantic states was to visit the South-Central New Jersey SOLIDWORKS User Group (SCNJSUG). While this meeting may have been the smallest in attendance, they made up for it in their energy and engagement!”
“There was a lot of discussion around DriveWorksXpress and its functionality. There were also many interested in the DriveWorksXpress Training and Certification.”
“Special thanks to the SWUG leaders Jeff Holliday, Shawn Casebolt and Jose Umana for working with me to make this DriveWorks SWUGN Tour a success!” – Heather.
Throughout September and October, you can save $500 when you upgrade from DriveWorksXpress to DriveWorks Solo.
DriveWorksXpress is the free design automation tool included in every license of world-leading, 3D CAD design software, SOLIDWORKS.
DriveWorksXpress is ideal for everyday repetitive design tasks. Use it to create multiple variations of SOLIDWORKS Parts, Assemblies and Drawings quickly and accurately.
Save time, reduce repetitive tasks and minimise costly errors.
Youll find DriveWorksXpress under the SOLIDWORKS Tools menu, all you need to do is activate it by following these simple steps.
Once you’ve activated DriveWorksXpress, get started quickly and easily with the free online resources. Online you’ll find a help file, sample projects, how to videos, tutorials and monthly getting started webinars to help you should you need it.
You can even get certified in DriveWorksXpress. Become a Certified DriveWorksXpress Associate (CDWXA) in just 3 steps, in 3 hours by completing the DriveWorksXpress Training and Certification. It’s a free online certification for all engineering and design professionals and students with access to SOLIDWORKS.
DriveWorks Soloallows you to quickly and easily create custom products inside SOLIDWORKS, reduce the cost of custom designs, respond quickly to sales inquiries, enhance product quality and reduce repetitive tasks.
DriveWorks Solo is the next step in automating SOLIDWORKS. It provides powerful design automation with the following additional functionality compared to DriveWorksXpress:
DriveWorks Solo has an advanced form designer to create visually appealing, dynamic configurator projects, with images, a wider range of form controls and form navigation for guided selling.
Control and drive many more SOLIDWORKS features such as colours, materials and textures with custom properties. Control multiple sets of models in a single project.
Greater control over SOLIDWORKS drawings. Create multiple drawings for each part and assembly and control layers, sheet scale, annotation position, break-lines and much more.
Built in XML templates for Quotations, BOMs and covering letters enables you to automatically generate personalised documents based on your rules, stored alongside your project files.
DriveWorks Solo lets you take data from excel or an internal data table and use it to power your forms. Use the information in your rules and drive the results in your output documents.
With over 180 functions and the ability to use variables, the DriveWorks Solo Rules Builder is more powerful with greater capability. Your rules are validated as you build your project.
See the additional functionality in DriveWorks Solo yourself with a 30-day free trial.
DriveWorks software is modular and scalable so you can quickly and easily upscale the project you have already created in DriveWorksXpress to DriveWorks Solo.
You’ll also benefit from free online resources for DriveWorks Solo. Even during your trial period, you have access to a training tutorial, how-to videos, webinars, online training, sample projects and the online help file.
Throughout September and October save $500 off DriveWorks Solo when you upgrade from DriveWorksXpress.
All you need to do is email us with a screenshot of your DriveWorksXpress configurator project and we’ll send you a voucher code.
Give the voucher code to your reseller when buying DriveWorks Solo with Subscription Support and save $500*.
*Offer is only valid for upgrades from DriveWorksXpress to DriveWorks Solo between 1st September and 31st October 2017. Screenshots must be received before you purchase DriveWorks Solo, no refunds will be made retrospectively.
At DriveWorks, we love hearing about the creative ways that our customers and resellers are using the software and we regularly blog, tweet and write case studies about their configurators.
Recently CAD2M, a DriveWorks reseller based in The Netherlands, got in touch with us as they’d had a really cool idea for a DriveWorks configurator. Their marketing team have been working with our Applications Engineer, Tom, to create the project and we’re pleased that it has now gone live and is ready to use!
Wendy Angenent, who is part of the marketing team at CAD2M,told us a bit more about the campaign, its purpose and why they chose ice cream…
“At CAD2M, the marketing department is known as the department that likes to snack the most! Whenever somebody brings a pie into the office to celebrate their birthday, we’re the first to grab a piece. When we were thinking about a DriveWorks campaign, of course we first thought of food and what food is better during summer than an ice cream?
We decided that Magnum ice creams were the most suitable for configuring because of all the different layers they have. Magnum already have a lot of combinations on the market, but we thought it would be fun to think of a few more! We wanted to launch a ‘playful’ DriveWorks campaign to show everyone that configuring products is fun.
Anyone can use the configurator and we hope it encourages you to try DriveWorks! We launched the configurator 7 hours ago and so far 43 people have used it. Try it for yourself!”.
We really like this creative use of DriveWorks and we hope you enjoy creating your own Magnums! If you’d like to tell us about how you’re using DriveWorks, please get in touch!
Every year we hold a bake sale at DriveWorks HQ. In previous years we have raised money for charities such as Macmillan Cancer Support, Cancer Research UK and the Alzheimer’s Society. Our annual bake sale took place on Friday and this year, we are fundraising for a very different cause, suggested by Jake from the DriveWorks team.
Here at DriveWorks, the opinions of every single member of the team really matters to us. One of the ways we gather opinions is through our suggestion box.
Previous ideas that have been implemented from the suggestion box are:
Back in MayJakeput a suggestion in the box for a defibrillator to be installed on site. Our office is on a converted farm with 17 offices, a few houses, horse stables and NGS gardens that are opened up to the public. The site is also surrounded by lots of public walkways, some houses, a few pubs and a school. A public access defibrillator would be there to protect all of these places and our wider community. We all agreed this was a great idea so we began some research.
We found that an outdoor public access defibrillator, a small machine which can shock a person’s heart into restarting, costs around 贈2000.
Research shows if you give a person CPR they have a 3% chance of making a full recovery, whereas if a defibrillator is used in the vital first few minutes, patients have a 60-70% per cent chance of making a full recovery.
As there are currently no public access defibrillators nearby, we want to provide a lifesaving device for our community so we are challenging ourselves to raise the 贈2000 over the next 12 months.
Our first fundraising event, the bake sale, took place on Friday. The DriveWorks team arrived on Friday morning with boxes and boxes of homemade cakes. We set up a marquee outside and decorated it with bunting and balloons.
The DriveWorks team were more than willing to help a great cause by eating lots of cake! We were also joined by friends and family of the DriveWorks team and our neighbours from the houses nearby and the other offices on site, including some of the guys from Dreamscape who made a very generous contribution to the fund.
Later in the afternoon some residents from Cheshire Grange, a local care home specialising in Dementia care, came along too. Even in the rain the DriveWorks team showed the visitors around the gardens. Howard and Wendy Platt then kindly provided their greenhouse to offer shelter from the rain so they could enjoy some tea and cake.
We then held a raffle, with the top prizes of Afternoon Tea at the Park Royal Hotel and two 贈30 gift vouchers for Go Apekindly donated to the cause. There were also many other prizes including candles, wine, toiletries, chocolates, homebrew beer provided by one of our developers, Ben and the very popular prize of pink flashing heelies, won (and hugely enjoyed) by Tom!
Despite the rain (in August, typical British summer!) we raised 贈449.51, doubled by DriveWorks to 贈899.02 and then topped up by Jake to a grand total of 贈900!
A huge thank you to everyone who contributed to the bake sale by donating raffle prizes, cakes and money, we couldn’t have raised so much without you all.
With 贈1100 to raise over the next 12 months, we’ll be raising money in lots of other ways too. Keep an eye out on our blog for more of our fundraising activities.
If you have any ideas for how we can raise more money to reach our target, pleaseget in touch!
The DriveWorksXpress Training and Certification is a free certification for all engineering and design students and professionals who have access to SOLIDWORKS. We want to help you succeed so weve provided all the resources you need to easily complete the DriveWorksXpress Training and Certification and gain this valuable new skill.
One person who has already benefitted from completing the certification is Lukasz Marek. We caught up with him to find out how gaining new skills and becoming a Certified DriveWorksXpress Associate has helped him further his career so far.
“I was preparing for a job interview with a company that uses DriveWorks and I wanted to learn more about the software.”
“Id heard about DriveWorksXpress and I knew it was included inside SOLIDWORKS but I hadnt used it before.”
“I completed the Training and Certification to learn more. It was very straightforward and it took me around an hour to complete. I then received a certificate confirming I was a Certified DriveWorksXpress Associate.”
A few days after Id completed the certification, I had an interview at a company who currently uses DriveWorks. I already have 7 SOLIDWORKS certifications on my resume, but they were hooked on my Certified DriveWorksXpress Associate certificate. They liked that I had a printed certificate confirming I had completed the training and it was a great talking point.
Definitely having the printed version of my certificate that demonstrated my knowledge. It really helped me to impress the interviewer and secure the position.
Id encourage them to take it! Its very straightforward to complete and you can talk about your experience during interviews.”
“Demonstrating that you have knowledge of DriveWorksXpress shows that youve proactively looked for ways to enhance your skills, which can be built upon further, especially in a company that uses DriveWorks.”
“Automation is a buzz word in the industry right now and in my experience, its one that interviewers want to hear about!”
“You can combine your new DriveWorks knowledge with any existing SOLIDWORKS certificates you may already hold and show that youve been creative and explored the SOLIDWORKS Xpress products too.
Plans for DriveWorks World 2018 have been revealed and registration is now open to secure your place!
DriveWorks World 2018 will be held at the Park Royal Hotel in Cheshire, UK from the 16th-18th April 2018.
DriveWorks World is your chance to learn, network & share ideas with DriveWorks experts & enthusiasts. There will be something of interest and value to you, whether you are new to DriveWorks, or are an advanced user of the software.
Join us to be inspired and advance your knowledge.
Here at DriveWorks, we’re very proud of our team and how well we work together to create great software!
Our team is growing and we’ve recently been joined by our newgraduate Applications Engineerand 5 placement students. After welcoming our new faces, we decided to arrange a team building activity where we could all get together and have some fun.
TheDriveWorks Team gathered at the Team Sport Indoor Go Karting track in Warrington to take part in a mini grand prix. The team raced it out togther in a qualifying session, before taking their places on the starting grid based on their qualifying times.
They then whizzed around the 1000m multi-level track and the competiton was fierce as everyone wanted a place on the podium!
Well done to Ian Prossor, our new graduate Applications Engineer, who won the race! Our Tech Team Manager, Phil, came second and Connor, who is on placement as an Applications Engineer, was third. Even though he didn’t make it onto the podium, our Technical Marketer, Rob, had the fastest overall lap.
Here’s a few snaps from the evening…
Our annual technical event is the perfect place for you to learn more, enhance your projects and become certified.
The links below include letter templates that you can use to help justify your attendance to DriveWorks World 2018.
These letters will outline the value that attending DriveWorks World provides not just to you, but to your entire organization.
Choose the letter below that applies to you.
Simply copy and paste the text into an email or word document and fill in the blanks to send to your boss.
Here at DriveWorks, we’re really keen to support our local community and get involved. We’ve been supporting our local football club, Grappenhall Sports FC, for a while now and we’re pleased to support them again this season.
Members of the DriveWorks Team regularly play football for Grappenhall FC and we all enjoy hearing about their progress. The club has over 250 registered players and their first team currently play in the Cheshire Football League.
They’re aiming to raise funds to support the cost associated with running a football club in the Cheshire Football League so this yearwe’ve also arranged to have a sponsorship board placed on the pitch.It looks great and we’re very happy that we were able to help our local club.
Watch this space for updates on the clubs performance this season!
Students: If you’re looking to improve your SOLIDWORKS skills over summer, we can help you!
DriveWorksXpress is a free design automation tool included in every licence of SOLIDWORKS. If you’ve got access to an educational licence of SOLIDWORKS, then you’ve got access to DriveWorksXpress!
Becoming a Certified DriveWorksXpress Associate gives you new skills to add to yourr辿sum辿. You’ll also strengthen your existing SOLIDWORKS skills by learning more about an Xpress product – DriveWorksXpress.
We want you to succeed and we’ve provided all the resources you need to easily complete the DriveWorksXpress Training and Certification and gain this valuable new skill to take into industry.
As a SOLIDWORKS user you will always have access to these free resources which you can use to expand your design automation knowledge at any time.
Press F1 in DriveWorksXpress to use the built-in Help File.
Wach our free monthly webinar to learn how to get started with DriveWorksXpress.
Request a Little Book of Rules – a handy guide to writing rules in DriveWorks.
Download our sample projects to see more industry examples.
Watch short video clips to learn how to use DriveWorks at your own pace.
Add to your knowledge with extra tutorials and videos.
In this article, Matthew Hoyt, of Steiner Technologies, discusses 3 ways that DriveWorks has helped them to automate their quoting process.
Generating quotations is a key piece of your business; quotes serve as a critical communication vehicle that connect your prospective customers to your product. And that means creating those quotesefficientlyandeffectivelyis important to your sales team, design engineers and other key staff. This is especially true for companies that create custom solutions and must provide special diagrams and other features with their proposal.
After the popularity of our recent blog post,Design Automation Software: What It Does And Why Its a Game Changer for Manufacturers, I thought it was time to take a deeper dive anddiscuss some specific ways that DriveWorks software can help automate the customer-quoting process.So I rounded up ideas from our design engineering team and heres a look at the three features that have made the biggest impact.
Every time a customer quote is generated for a custom tool (in Steiners case,The Autofacer), DriveWorks will collect all pertinent information into a table. That aggregated data can be exported from DriveWorks into Microsoft Excel and customized based on certain criteria (for example,by toolorby distributor).
These group tables/charts, which can then be manipulated according to the specific criteria youd like to see, essentially works like a live database in Excel. They are updated whenever the data in the Excel table is updated from DriveWorks, providing real-time visibility into customer order tracking. For example, how many open orders do we have? Which type of tools are being ordered? What sizes? How many quotes went on to become orders? All of this information can be extremely useful for the sales and management team.
Diagram 1.This chart (which is updated whenever the data in the Excel table is updated from Driveworks) shows month-by-month quoting activity for The Autofacer. The blue columns show the number of quotes and the green columns show the quotes that became orders.
Lets say your company is generating a quote for a custom tool or machine. Chances are, several calculations must be performed in order to determine the exact specifications of that custom order. At Steiner, for example, we perform several calculations using a secondary source, Microsoft Excel.
DriveWorks works in tandem with those secondary sources, with built-in macros that export data to perform key calculations (shown in Diagram 2a). Then the data is returned to the software to inform the criteria and next steps in the quote generator (such as tool size and prompts like the OK to proceed, shown below inDiagram 2b). These functions, which are performed behind the scenes, make for a smoother and more efficient process and save users time from having to reference data from one source and reenter it in another
Diagram 2a. DriveWorks exports data to a secondary source (Excel) where design feasibility for a tool application is calculated. It then returns that data to the software.
Diagram 2b.Data is imported from Excel back into DriveWorks to inform the next step. In this case, it has verified that the tool size selected meets customer requirements and the design team is OK to proceed with quoting.
Our third favorite feature using DriveWorks for quoting is the fact that the software uses built-in intelligence to guide users through the quoting process. Here again, well use the example of a quote request for the Autofacer.
DriveWorks helps pre-populate certain fields with the data it knows, thereby reducing the number of decisions that could otherwise vary throughout the quoting process. This type of intelligence creates time-saving efficiencies in quoting and delivers more consistent end results, regardless of who is inputting the data.
Every manufacturing business is unique, of course but I hope you find these three tips helpful as you think about some ways to streamline your own customer quoting process. At Steiner, were always looking for ways to improve productivity and create efficiencies, and we enjoy sharing them with our readers!
DriveWorksXpress is a free design automation tool included in every license of SOLIDWORKS.
In today’s market more and more companies are adopting design automation techniques to save time, reduce repetitive engineering tasks and minimise costly errors.Design automation is becoming the norm and engineering graduates can gain the skills they need for industry by completing the DriveWorksXpress Training and Certification.
The DriveWorksXpress Training and Certification is a free certification for all engineering and design students who have access to SOLIDWORKS.
Becoming a Certified DriveWorksXpress Associate gives you new skills to add to your r辿sum辿 to kick start your engineering career and open doors in a competitive jobs market.You’ll improve your career prospectsby demonstrating that you’re proactively learning new skills and going beyond the theory discussed in the classroom.
You’ll gain an understanding of how products are designed in industry which you can discuss during an interview. Employers are always extremely interested in real life experience, and you’ll impress themby discussing the project you set up in SOLIDWORKS and DriveWorksXpress.
Once you’re a certified DriveWorksXpress Associate, you’ll join a global community of DriveWorks and SOLIDWORKS engineers.
Uponcompletion of the certification you’ll recieve a certificate and a logo which you can include on your CV and job applications.
