Another year over and what a year it’s been!

We’ve had 3 software releases with DriveWorks 19 and accompanying service packs, hosted more virtual events than ever before, continued to grow our team and continued to support the DriveWorks Community around the world.

Our live broadcasts from virtual DriveWorks World were a huge success and we’re looking forward to doing the same again in early 2022.

We celebrated our first year of quarterly DriveWorks Drivers meetings and launched our new weekly Let’s Chat About sessions.

Although once again it has been an unusual year with the pandemic, we have always made the most of situations out of our hands and embraced this time as an opportunity to improve, create and innovate.

Celebrating 20 Years Innovation and Automation

2021 marks 20 years of continuous innovation and automation at DriveWorks. A milestone that sparks the start of the next phase of our strategic plan.

Our core values and commitments to technology were recognised earlier this year when BGF – the UK’s most active growth capital investor invested £4 million into DriveWorks. This funding is already supporting our continued investment in our team and technology, helping us to accelerate.

We are continuing to address the significant market demand for customized 3D product visualization, design automation, and digital selling in an increasingly virtual world.

In May, we welcomed experienced senior business leader, Sharon Baylay to our team as Non-Executive Chair. We are already benefitting from Sharon’s insight and experience.

As we continue to drive product development forward, we’re also delighted to announce the appointment of Philip Stears as Chief Technology Officer.

In the new year, we are looking forward to continuing our journey of innovation and automation. We’ll be welcoming even more members to the DriveWorks team and sharing our exciting plans for DriveWorks World 2022 – so keep your eyes peeled!

We hope you have a happy and healthy festive season and we wish you all the best for the new year!

Looking Back at 2021

In November, businesses from across the Warrington borough joined together at Time Square Warrington for the Annual Warrington Business Conference.

The conference, which welcomed around 200 delegates brought companies together to hear about Warrington’s continuing regeneration plans and support for business growth.

We were proud to be sponsoring the event along with the British Business Bank and FDR Law.

Being part of the Warrington Business Exchange and attending these events has helped us to get to know other businesses in the area.

During the Business Exchange Conference, we had the chance to meet Stand Out Socks. A Warrington based company that is leading the way in raising social awareness.

Inspired by Co-Founder Ross, a young man with Down Syndrome, a man not scared to stand out in a crowd, and together with the help of his big brother Christian, Stand Out Socks was created.

Their mission is clear:

Raise social awareness, give back and make people smile with their incredibly bold socks.

Every year on National Down Syndrome Day it is custom to rock some bright socks. This year, Ross and Christian thought “Why just do this for one day?”.

As well as raising awareness the pair also wanted to create a sustainable, paid job for Ross. Once this is achieved, they hope to create employment opportunities for more stand out people with unique and varied abilities in Warrington.

After hearing about the inspiring message Ross and Christian are spreading, we wanted to get involved to show our support.

This year we gave everyone in our team a pair of Stand Out Socks for Christmas.

Ross and Christian paid us a visit to DriveWorks HQ to hand-deliver the socks  – in their bright orange hoodies we couldn’t miss them!

During our company strategy day a couple of weeks ago, we handed out the gifts. It’s fair to say there were lots of smiling faces as everyone opened their Stand Out Socks!

After receiving the socks, a number of people from our team also placed orders for more to give as gifts to their own friends and family this year.

Thank you to Ross and Christian for the wonderful socks, we look forward to seeing their business grow. It’s really inspiring to see how they’re already spreading awareness throughout the region and beyond.

Philip Stears Joins DriveWorks as CTO

2021 marks 20 years of continuous innovation and automation at DriveWorks.

Over the years, we’ve developed our software by listening to our community and anticipating and responding to changing market needs, whilst also taking advantage of new and emerging technologies.

In 2021 as well as celebrating our 20 year anniversary, we also received investment from BGF an established, independent investment company that has backed almost 400 businesses in the UK since 2011.

BGF’s funding is already supporting investment in our team and our technology, as we address the significant market demand for customized 3D product visualization, design automation, and digital selling in an increasingly virtual world.

In May, we welcomed experienced senior business leader, Sharon Baylay as Non-Executive Chair.

Now, as we continue to drive product development forward, we’re delighted to announce the appointment of Philip Stears as Chief Technology Officer.

Philip’s passion for technology and his willingness to train, develop and inspire teams, combined with his vast knowledge of DriveWorks, make him the ideal CTO for our business.  His appointment is a win for our team, a win for the future of our software, and a win for all of our customers.

His career so far spans 20+ years in tech, development, and IT.

He first joined DriveWorks back in 2001 as one of our very first developers. He worked closely with DriveWorks CEO, Glen Smith, and Co-Founder Maria Sarkar, understanding the commercial opportunity and helping to define our design automation and underlying rules capability.

His role involved building, managing, and training the DriveWorks development team, as well as forging essential relationships with many in the SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD community.

More recently he honed his software, digital and technical expertise with another highly skilled team, delivering complex, high-performing, fault-tolerant media solutions, and has spent time living and working in Europe.

Philip lives and breathes innovation and automation, and as a key member of the DriveWorks Senior Leadership team, is well placed to inspire everyone in the business and support our growth.

Philip on Technology

“I have always loved technology, it’s such a massive enabler and force multiplier in our society – the barrier to entry can be almost unimaginably low, and the scope to bring meaningful change, whether just individually (I am writing some brewing automation software, for example), or at large (such as the amazing work done by DriveWorks to enable its customers to achieve results that often seem to stretch credulity to breaking point), is staggeringly immense.

It’s such a very exciting time in the world of technology right now, limitations are ebbing away, complexity is being reduced, and the sci-fi of yesteryear is the reality of our daily lives.

There are challenges too, of course, but there’s such great cause for optimism!”

In his new role as CTO of DriveWorks, Philip will be keeping an eye on the latest technologies, the industry and what our customers want, to identify new trends and ensure we not only address them but we continue to drive our software forward.

There has been a real buzz in the office since Philip joined us. His passion for innovation and technology will encourage our team to investigate and explore the “what’s possible” as we get further into Digital Transformation and cloud technologies.

Philip has been catching up with some old friends and meeting the many new faces who have joined us over the years, as well as presenting at DriveWorks Drivers to introduce himself to our customers and resellers too.

“DriveWorks is very close to my heart and I’m really pleased to be back ‘to my roots’. Having worked on the codebase at DriveWorks for a number of years, and on a number of versions, it makes me really proud to see how the software and the team have evolved as technologies and market needs have changed.
The future for DriveWorks is certainly bright, and I’m beyond excited to be a part of it.”

– Philip Stears, DriveWorks CTO

Career Opportunities

Our team is growing and we’re looking for talented people to join us.

Companies are embracing digital technologies and our software is key to helping manufacturers move forward. With increased demand from the industry, and funding from BGF, we’re growing rapidly, investing in our people and resources – it’s a great time to join us!

We are a forward-thinking, growing business. Our people are at the heart of everything we do and our offices are inspiring places to be. We’re committed to supporting our teams with the training, tools, and knowledge they need to build incredible solutions, driven by innovation and customer feedback.

If you’d like to be a part of our team, get in touch with us.

Celebrating One Year of Learning, Sharing and Networking

On Thursday, December 9^th we hosted the One-Year Anniversary meeting of DriveWorks Drivers.  We can’t believe DriveWorks Drivers has been running for one year!

Over the last year, we have had a great time getting together with our customers, partners, and resellers from around the world to connect, share and talk about all things DriveWorks.

In this meeting we rounded up the first year of DriveWorks Drivers. To start off, Bridie and Heather introduced a video montage from the last year that recounted some of the meetings high points as well as some of the funnier moments where we really did test the bounds of virtual meeting technology.

Introducing Phillip Stears as Chief Technology Officer

While he is no stranger to many in our community, we were excited to welcome our new Chief Technology Officer, Philip Stears, to his first DriveWorks Drivers meeting. It was great to have Philip say a quick hello and reacquaint with old friends as well as introduce himself to everyone else.

We heard about Philip’s vision for the future and the opportunity for our community to continue embracing new technologies. We’re looking forward to welcoming Philip back for future DriveWorks Drivers meetings!

Fun Ways to Use DriveWorks

User presentations are a big part of all of our DriveWorks Drivers meetings. As part of our one-year anniversary celebration, we invited a few members of the DriveWorks team as well as our users to present on ‘fun ways’ they have used DriveWorks technology to build something that may not be part of their daily design or work day.

Tim Iland – Animal Pairs Game

To start things off, we invited Tim Iland, Applications Engineer at DriveWorks, to offer a glimpse into the Animal Pairs Game that he has developed using DriveWorks 3D.

We all had a chance to have a go with it – some of us did pretty good!

Wade Anderson – Cannonball Run

Wade Anderson, Chief SOLVE Officer at Solveshop, was happy to share the game project he built called Cannonball Run. He was inspired to build this game after seeing other DriveWorks users had created their own. He explained briefly that the game is backed by physics projectile equations. The game was built using Macro Timers, the Integration Theme and Real-Time Solvers.

David Dewey & Bill Murch – Sub Search in DriveWorks

David Dewey (Base 10 Consultants) and Bill Murch (IDM Consulting) joined together to share the fun project they have been working on. Located on opposite sides of the globe from each other, they were able to collaborate and share their DriveWorks knowledge to create a replica of a nostalgic board game called Sub Search.

It sparked a lot of conversation and excitement amongst attendees who wanted to find out more about the Drive3D files, Calculation Tables and Macro Buttons they had used to create it.

Dave Meecham – Battleships

He’s no stranger to attending and presenting at DriveWorks Drivers, so when our Technical Manager Dave Meecham learned that we were sharing some fun projects created with DriveWorks he located his version of Battleships to share with the group.

Dave showed the game in action, playing a tense game against Applications Engineer, Tim.
Dave won the game, leading to questions about any hidden features he might have included to make the game go in his favour!

Paul Gimbel – Using DriveWorks for Fun

Paul Gimbel, Business Process Sherpa from Razorleaf, presented on various ways that he has been able to have fun using DriveWorks. Paul’s fun projects are a great way to explore new areas of DriveWorks that he may not always be able to use during his work day.

While we didn’t have a chance to play all of the games during the meetings, Paul did show us some classic games such as Perfection and Scrabble that he has built in DriveWorks using generic rules, group tables, countdown timers and more.

Anyone who enjoys a good game of Scrabble would love to see Paul’s version of DriveWords. Paul is open to having more discussions on these and invited any DriveWorks users to share their questions in the My.DriveWorks Forums.

End of Year Pub Quiz

No DriveWorks Drivers meeting would be complete without a pub quiz and this meeting did not disappoint.

The competition was close at both meetings with a range of DriveWorks questions to test the attendees.

We’re looking forward to hosting more quizzes at future meetings and giving out even more prizes to our winners.

Thank you to eveyone who has joined us throughout our first year of DriveWorks Drivers!

We’re looking forward to hosting many more meetings in the future to continue our learning, sharing and networking. 

Join Us at Our Next Meeting

We were delighted to welcome so many DriveWorks users to the DriveWorks Drivers one-year anniversary meeting.

We will be hosting four DriveWorks Drivers events again next year, with the first one scheduled for March 2022.

If you would like to register your interest to attend the event, or share your story during future meetings, please get in touch with us.

We are excited to announce the release of DriveWorks 19 Service Pack 2.

DriveWorks 19 SP2 adds to the new features and enhancements added in DriveWorks 19 and DriveWorks 19 SP1.

In May, we released our latest major version, DriveWorks 19, and presented the new features and enhancements during Virtual DriveWorks World.

DriveWorks 19 Service Pack 1 was then released in August 2021.

Now we are pleased to announce we have released DriveWorks 19 Service Pack 2.

Over the past few months, our team have dedicated a lot of time to work on adding new enhancements and updates to this service pack release.

We’ve also been running our rigorous testing process to ensure DriveWorks 19 SP2 fully supports the latest release of SOLIDWORKS, SOLIDWORKS 2022.

Download DriveWorks 19 SP2 now from the DriveWorks Community.

Download the Latest Release Now from the DriveWorks Community

DriveWorks Resellers and Customers with an Active Subscription Support Contract can download DriveWorks 19 SP2 from the DriveWorks Community.

Here’s what you’ll need to download the latest release:

• A MyDriveWorks Community Account, you can create an account if you don’t have one or reset your password if you’ve forgotten it.
• Pre-Requisites can be found in our Online Documentation.
• Your DriveWorks 19 License Codes

High Sheriff’s Awards for Enterprise

The High Sheriff’s Awards for Enterprise are the county’s most prestigious awards for business performance. Managed in partnership with the University of Chester, the awards were introduced in 2006 by the then High Sheriff of Cheshire, David Briggs MBE, to recognise successful businesses across the county.

The awards recognise outstanding achievements by enterprises in Cheshire, Halton and Warrington. Since starting in 2006, the awards have grown to become Cheshire’s prime business awards. Entrants are judged by a panel of senior members of the Cheshire business community on a range of criteria including enterprise, responsible business practice, innovation, development and export.

The awards are presented at an annual Awards Evening hosting Cheshire’s leading entrepreneurs and business leaders to celebrate outstanding business achievement across private sector organisations of all shapes and sizes.

In 2019, we were extremely honoured to receive two High Sheriff’s Awards for Enterprise.

We were presented with the Award for Innovation, awarded to us for demonstrating an ability to create, nurture and develop new products.

We were also joint winners of the Cheshire Business Exporter of the Year Award, alongside the Tall Group. The award recognised significant growth in international business through a clear commitment to the development of new export market opportunities.

Our CEO Glen Smith and Vice President Maria Sarkar attended the awards ceremony at Chester Racecourse. They were presented with the awards by Alexis Redmond MBE, the 2018/19 High Sherriff of Cheshire.

Now in their 15th year, the High Sheriff’s Awards are still recognising outstanding achievements by enterprises in Cheshire, Halton and Warrington.

The Office of High Sheriff, which is more than 1,000 years old, is an independent non-political Royal appointment for a single year. The current High Sheriff of Cheshire is Robert Mee who was appointed by the Queen in April 2021.

After a long career in Financial Services and holding a number of non-executive positions, Robert retired in 2010. He then undertook a number of volunteer roles, including a collaboration with Cheshire West and Chester Council to set up a development board for Ellesmere Port to drive economic growth and help advise on priorities for the town.

Robert then joined the Cheshire and Warrington Local Enterprise Partnership board, for which he is also chairman of the Cheshire Science Corridor Enterprise Zone board. He later became the chairman of the Hospice of the Good Shepherd in 2018 and is a trustee of Cheshire Young Carers.

Sponsoring the High Sheriff’s Award for Digital Innovation

This year we are proud to be sponsoring the High Sheriffs Award for Digital Innovation.

Digital innovation is something we’re extremely passionate about at DriveWorks. The global marketplace is becoming more digital and businesses must evolve in order to stay competitive.

Digital innovation is the implementation of new digital technologies to solve existing business problems and improve organisational practices to create growth opportunities for organisations.

We’re keen to see what other businesses across Cheshire and Warrington are achieving through digital innovation.

This prize will be awarded for the most innovative use of technology in business transformation.

Apply Now

The awards highlight outstanding achievements by local companies with fewer than 250 employees across 10 different categories, with entrants being judged by a panel of senior members of the business community.

Applications for the High Sheriff’s Awards for Enterprise 2021/22 are now open.

The deadline for applying is Friday 10th December 2021 at 23.59pm. You can enter a maximum of two categories.

Winners will be announced at a celebration to be held at Churchill House, home to the University of Chester’s Business School, on  the 7th of April  2022.

Find out more and apply here.

Using Intelligent File Naming in DriveWorks Solo

DriveWorks Solo offers the ability to take complete control over the naming and location of your generated files.

File naming is an important consideration when planning an implementation, and DriveWorks provides complete flexibility in how files are named.

Your file names can be as simple or as complex as you require, with the ability to suffix, prefix or even ignore a file’s original name.

In this case we are going to use intelligent file naming to allow DriveWorks to re-use a file that has been previously created.

The top-level assembly will still require a unique name, if not, nothing at all could be generated. But all sub-assemblies and parts can be assigned an intelligent naming convention.

Intelligent file names combine parameters within your Project that impact the outcome of the model into the file name. For example, the length or color of a component.

For this to work, a component’s file name rule will need to include the values of all the parameters being driven within the component.

Every time DriveWorks is used to generate new files, the file name rule will be evaluated and if the file name has already been generated, DriveWorks will re-use the existing component. This reduces the number of components being generated and improves model generation time.

Let’s look at an example to see how this works in practice.

In this DriveWorks Solo Conveyor Project we use intelligent file naming to re-use parts within the conveyor assembly.

As previously mentioned, this improves generation time but also allows us to create a library of parts for this assembly. This also helps easily identify files without having to open them in SOLIDWORKS.

Within Model Rules the rule shown below determines whether the file name of the Conveyor Assembly uses Intelligent File Naming. This is controlled by a Check Box Control on the form.

If intelligent file naming returns TRUE, then this rule will use the return of numerous Form Controls along with text strings to identify each value to create a unique file name.

In this example the parameters being used are the Length, Width, Height and whether side rails are required.

If I enter the values 600, 870 and 680 for Length Width and Height, the resulting file name is:
CONVEYOR FRAME ASSEMBLY-600L X 870W X 680H.SLDASM

You can see the result of the generated file names below.

Learn more about Intelligent File Naming in the DriveWorks Solo Online Help File

Our Community

We love being a part of the SOLIDWORKS Community. With the support of our resellers, customers and partners, we have attended SWUG meetings, sponsored meetings and helped group leaders to find presenters with interesting presentations since 2015.

Although these past 18 months have been very different, we have still had the chance to connect with the SWUG Community through many online meetings and during virtual 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021.

At 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, we were honoured to be chosen as the SWUGN Partner of the Year.

To help stay connected, we have been busy catching up with lots of different people from all corners of the SOLIDWORKS Community. It’s been a great opportunity to learn more about the different career paths that have led members of the community to be such a key part of the network.

As we approach the end of 2021, we are slowly and safely entering back into in-person meetings.

We have already started to prepare for 3DEXPERIENCE World 2022 in Atlanta, and look forward to seeing many of you there!

DriveWorks Supporting Regional SWUG Events

Recently, we sponsored and attended two regional SOLIDWORKS User Groups events.

Southeastern Regional SWUG Summit

On Saturday, October 23rd we sponsored and attended the Southeastern Regional SWUG Summit at the Olde Mecklenburg Brewery in Charlotte, North Carolina. WNC-Ashville SWUG Leader, Adam Ebernickel hosted the event and invited user groups from the region for a day of knowledge sharing, networking and of course, beer!

Presentations that day included:

Brewing with Electricity by JP Emanuele, Industry Process Consultant at Dassault Systèmes. SOLIDWORKS Tips & Tricks by Robbie Hoyler from TPM and also xShape by Chris Duchaine from TriMech.

Boston SOLIDWORKS User Group

On Wednesday, November 10th, the Boston SOLIDWORKS User Group hosted an in-person event at the Dassault Systèmes campus in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Presentations that evening included:

What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2022 given by Mark Martel, Technical Sales Director and Andy Barnes, Technical Manager, at Dassault Systèmes. SOLIDWORKS Connected by Chris Mowatt from TriMech. Last but not least,
SWUG Manager Dan Wagner led the group through a fun pub quiz that challenged everyone’s SOLIDWORKS knowledge – it was quite competitive!

DriveWorks SWUG Sponsorship Program Updates

Being part of this community, we are proud to support meetings however we can. Over the years we have sponsored lots of group meetings whether that being through attending, presenting or providing prizes and giveaways.

Recently, we have updated the SWUGN area of our website with a quick and easy way for SOLIDWORKS User Group Leaders to request a DriveWorks sponsorship of their meeting.

Simply visit the SWUGN section of our website and choose the Request Sponsorship button to provide information about your upcoming meeting.

Once received, a member of our team will reach out with any questions or follow up needed.

On this page, you can also find program information, photos, and updates on SWUG activities that we have supported over the last few years!

We love being a part of the SOLIDWORKS Community and look forward to continuing to support the SOLIDWORKS User Group Network.

Get in Touch

We can’t wait to be a part of lots more great SWUG meetings in the future!

Get in touch and tell us about your meetings.

3DEXPERIENCE World 2022

3DEXPERIENCE World 2022 will be held as a hybrid event on February 6-9, 2022, with the in-person event being held at the World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

As this is a hybrid event, Dassault Systems are designing a unique agenda that will enable you to participate in many of the moments typical of the annual event, in person or virtually from wherever you are in the world.

Whether it’s the General Session, Technical Breakout Sessions, the 3DEXPERIENCE Playground, Certifications or Meetups – there will be something for everyone no matter how you choose to participate.

We have already started to plan for attending the event in Atlanta, it will be our 17th year attending and sponsoring!

We’ll Be There – Attending & Sponsoring

We are excited to be attending 3DEXPERIENCE World 2022.

We’re a silver sponsor and will be exhibiting, presenting, learning and networking.

DriveWorks CEO, Glen Smith, Vice President, Maria Sarkar and CTO, Philip Stears will be at booth 923 in the 3DEXPERIENCE World Playground, along with several other members of the DriveWorks team.

We’ll be showcasing the latest version of our software, DriveWorks 20 and talking all things Design Automation, CPQ for Manufacturing and Digital Transformation.

Look out for details of the presentations we’ll be hosting throughout the event and we’ll see you during the meetups and social activities too!

What to Expect from a Hybrid Event?

The live part of the event will be packed with more than 300 technical breakouts, general sessions, reseller-specific sessions, the 3DEXPERIENCE Playground, Model Mania competition, and lots more. There will also be the Tuesday night special event to look forward to.

The virtual part of the event will have its own platform (similar to the 3DEXPERIENCE WORLD 2021 virtual event) that enables you to see what is happening at the event via a live stream.

You can watch the live stream of General Sessions, 100+ technical breakout sessions, virtual hands-on sessions, meet with other virtual attendees during 25+ meet-up sessions and listen to their stories, ask questions,  visit the Playground, watch Livestream videos, and visit the sponsors’ booths.

You can also join the virtual Model Mania, and last but not least, play online games and have a chance to win virtual badges and trophies!

Why Attend?

General Sessions

Hear from industry luminaries and Dassault Systèmes executives about how the skills and strategies gained from attending 3DEXPERIENCE World can power innovation, growth and prosperity for SOLIDWORKS users, business leaders and entrepreneurs alike, now and into the future.

HIVE Hangouts

The Hive is a community space located by registration that is dedicated to providing attendees with scheduled networking opportunities, and community-enabling activities while in Atlanta, GA. Meet your peers, and join in on the live activities that are taking place during the 3-day event.

Calling All Worldwide Makers

Join all things ‘Making’.

Experience the power of design, digital fabrication and collaboration. If you are a hobbyist or maker, 3DEXPERIENCE World is the ideal place for you to get inspiration and learn.

Come for the skills, stay for the Community!

Virtual MeetUp Sessions

Join the 25+ MeetUp sessions that are part of 3DEXPERIENCE World 2022. Network with your peers, learn how similar challenges have been solved, and ask questions of SOLIDWORKS experts and executives, thought leaders, makers, and influencers.

Technical Training Sessions

Offering unique training and learning experiences, 3DEXPERIENCE World brings a number of different sessions from the entire Community to help you expand your skillset, increase productivity, and quickly turn your ideas into amazing new products.

Get Certified

Interested in getting certified? Earning a certification can help you stand out from your peers, get a job, keep a job, or possibly move up in your current job. Be a part of the growing and passionate SOLIDWORKS community of certified users and get certified at 3DEXPERIENCE World.

3DEXPERIENCE World 2022

To find out even more about what you can look forward to at this hybrid event, check out the 3DEXPERIENCE World 2022 website.

DriveWorks Drivers One-Year Anniversary Meeting

On December 9th, we will be holding our one-year anniversary and the final DriveWorks Drivers meeting of the year.

During this meeting, we’ll be rounding up the first year of DriveWorks Drivers and of course, have our usual knowledge sharing and networking.

DriveWorks Drivers is held at two different times to suit most time zones – 3:00 pm (GMT) and 9:00 pm (GMT).

This is a virtual networking event so you can join from anywhere.

The meeting will be held via Microsoft Teams and will last around 90 minutes.

Follow the links below to register through the DriveWorks Community – you will need a MyDriveWorks account.

Once you’ve signed up you’ll receive a confirmation email with a calendar invitation. Add the event to your calendar and we’ll email you a link to join us on Microsoft Teams on the day.

What to Expect? 

Here’s what you can expect from the next DriveWorks Drivers meeting on Thursday, 9th December.

Registration is Open

Registration is open for the one-year anniversary meeting of DriveWorks Drivers.

You will need to use your new MyDriveWorks account to register, if you don’t have an account yet, it’s quick and easy to create one.

Round-Up of Smart Factory Expo 2021

Smart Factory Expo is industry’s biggest digital manufacturing show. As part of Digital Manufacturing Week, this annual event welcomes expertise, ideas and opportunity for digital manufacturing.

The two-day event brings together all the technologies enabling the digital manufacturing revolution – creating a carefully curated shop window for manufacturers at all stages of their digital journey. It is a showcase for the revolution in technology, process and thinking behind Industry 4.0.

For the sixth year running Smart Factory Expo delivered an exciting and engaging event of which we were pleased to be a part of!

Showcasing Our New Booth

Our stand was located in the Digital Transformation zone, where our team were chatting with manufacturers, showcasing our award-winning software and the power of design automation and CPQ for manufacturing.

It was really great to set up and see our new booth in action. Impressively made by our CEO, Glen Smith who is a Mechanical Engineer, the booth is made up of four 60-inch tv’s bolted together. It certainly was an attention grabber and a great conversation starter.

It was great to see so many in the manufacturing industry recognising and embracing the need for digital technology. Over the two days, we took the opportunity to show manufacturers how DriveWorks CPQ for Manufacturing can help them sell custom products digitally around the world.

Through speaking with all kinds of people in the industry, we found more than ever the need for companies to be flexible and agile.

Exploring the Latest Technology

With ten visitor zones, each focused on different digital manufacturing opportunities, Smart Factory Expo offers something for everyone.

The themed zones created an opportunity for attendees to engage with world-class exhibitors, innovative start-ups and experience-sharing sessions from some of the most exciting names in global manufacturing and technology.

Whilst we were there we took the opportunity to visit other exhibitors and explore the latest trends in digital manufacturing technology.

On Wednesday afternoon following his presentation, Alexander Karim, IoT & Mixed Reality at Microsoft joined us on our stand to see our technology and show us the impressive Hololens, which of course we had a go with!

We also met with universities and discussed more ways we can support the future of the industry and learn from their research.

Hearing from Industry Experts

There was a wide range of speakers scheduled across all of the Digital Manufacturing Week events, especially at the Smart Factory Expo.

Set up on nine theatres around the exhibition hall, there were over 120 speakers presenting and demonstrating the latest technology and ways manufacturers can embrace digital transformation and industry 4.0.

During the event, we heard all kinds of presentations delivered by industry and manufacturing experts. From the Made Smarter Innovation theatre to the Digital Transformation theatre, there was always something to listen in on and learn about the future of this industry.

On day two of the event, our CEO, Glen Smith took to the Smart Infrastructure theatre stage to talk about CPQ for Manufacturing – Everything You Need to Sell and Manufacture Digitally.

During his presentation, Glen shared how companies around the world are using automation to do more with less. The key message from Glen’s presentation was that now is the time to automate, upskill your teams and adopt digital technologies, to gain competitive edge and win more business.

Explore Our Technology

See DriveWorks rules-based technology in action.

See how versatile and customizable DriveWorks is by having a go with our online configurator examples.

Suitable for any industry.

Industry’s Biggest Digital Manufacturing Show

This Week We’re Exhibiting and Presenting at Smart Factory Expo 2021

DriveWorks CEO, Glen Smith Presenting at Smart Factory Expo

CPQ for Manufacturing

Everything you Need to Sell and Manufacture Digitally

Thursday 11th November at 1pm (GMT)
Smart Infrastructure Solutions Theatre

CPQ for Manufacturing – Everything you Need to Sell and Manufacture Digitally

Now is the time to automate, upskill your teams and adopt digital technologies, to gain competitive edge and win more business.

Learn how you can use digital technologies to sell and manufacture digitally.

In this presentation, DriveWorks CEO, Glen Smith will share how companies around the world are using automation to do more with less. Use digital technologies to successfully sell your products at home and around the world.

Work smarter – be inspired for yourself, and for your company.

What is Smart Factory Expo?

Smart Factory Expo is where manufacturers explore digital transformation technology and hardware that will give you a competitive advantage. Smart Factory Expo brings together expertise, ideas and opportunity  – the manufacturing industry’s showcase for digital manufacturing.

For the sixth year, Smart Factory Expo brings together all the technologies enabling the digital manufacturing revolution – creating a carefully curated shop window for manufacturers at all stages of their digital journey. It is a showcase for the revolution in technology, process and thinking behind Industry 4.0.

Industry’s biggest digital manufacturing show enables you to conduct months of research within two days.

We’re excited to be involved at this year’s Smart Factory Expo 2021 event in Liverpool happening this week, 10th and 11th November 2021!

What to Expect

Smart Factory Expo features nine content theatres and ten visitor zones, focused on different digital manufacturing opportunities and featuring world-class presentations and exhibitors, alongside Innovation Alley – a dedicated start-up corridor brimming with entrepreneurial energy.

A full calendar of activities including solution theatres with free-to-attend presentations, demonstrations and networking spaces, all located within the exhibition hall, means visitors are able to research the latest technologies transforming manufacturing, network with peers and gain invaluable insights from industry leaders, all in one place.

Themed zones provide visitors with self-contained platforms to engage with world-class exhibitors, innovative start-ups and experience-sharing sessions from some of the most exciting names in global manufacturing and technology.

Visit us at the Smart Factory Expo

Visit the DriveWorks team at stand H30 in the Exhibition Hall to find out more about digital transformation, design automation, sales configurators and CPQ for manufacturing.

Explore the Latest in Technology

Make sure you don’t miss a thing. Visit the different zones to investigate and source the latest technology innovations and solutions relevant to your organisation.

Hear from Industry Experts

There are a wide range of speakers scheduled across all of the Digital Manufacturing Week events. Learn from industry and manufacturing experts, including DriveWorks CEO, Glen Smith.

Register Now

Register now to save your space at industry’s biggest digital manufacturing show.

Using Tabulated Data in DriveWorks Solo

Using tabulated data helps to keep your projects tidy while allowing available options to change depending on previous user inputs.

Linking Form Controls to tabulated data also makes your projects more flexible as updating the table data will be mirrored by the associated controls.

For example, the table below can be used to dictate what material options are available for the selected handle type:

Here’s how the rules are set up in the background:

The Handle Type’s Items property has been defined by listing the distinct values in the first column of the table using the ListAllDistinct function.

The Handle Material’s Items property rule uses the return of the Handle Type Form Control to dynamically change the available items.

The ListAllConditional function has been used to only show valid material options.

Download and Use DriveWorks Solo Free for 30 Days

Follow the 3 easy steps below to download the DriveWorks Solo 30 Day Free Trial and see the functionality for yourself.

Learn More About DriveWorks Solo

We’re committed to your success and believe in helping others to help themselves. We’ve created help and training resources to help you get the most from DriveWorks Solo and your 30-day free trial.

Explore the Help File

Learn more about DriveWorks Solo in our extensive Online Help File.

Training and Resources

Explore our learning resources to help you succeed with DriveWorks Solo.

Final DriveWorks Drivers Meeting of the Year

Registration is now open! 

Celebrate One Year of DriveWorks Drivers with us on Thursday 9th December.

We can’t believe DriveWorks Drivers has been running for one year! We hosted the first meeting on December 10th 2020. Since then we’ve held 8 separate meetings and been joined by a total of 402 attendees.

Thank you to everyone who has joined us for DriveWorks Drivers and shared their story of using DriveWorks over the past year. It’s been great to network and learn from all members of our community.

On December 9th, we will be holding our one-year anniversary and the final DriveWorks Drivers meeting of the year. During this meeting, we’ll be rounding up the first year of DriveWorks Drivers and of course, have our usual knowledge sharing and networking.

What to Expect

Here’s what you can expect from DriveWorks Drivers meetings

Knowledge Sharing

Guest Presentations

Technical Discussions

Quiz

Registration is Now Open!

DriveWorks Drivers is held at two different times to suit most time zones – 3:00 pm (GMT) and 9:00 pm (GMT).

This is a virtual networking event so you can join from anywhere.

The meeting will be held via Microsoft Teams and will last around 90 minutes.

Follow the links below to register through the DriveWorks Community – you will need a MyDriveWorks account.

Once you’ve signed up you’ll receive a confirmation email with a calendar invitation. Add the event to your calendar and we’ll email you a link to join us on Microsoft Teams on the day.

Join us for the 3pm (GMT) Meeting 

Join us for the 9pm (GMT) Meeting

Share Your Fun Project

As this is the one-year anniversary meeting we wanted to make it a fun celebration of all things DriveWorks.

We’re inviting you to share your story about how you’ve used DriveWorks in a unique way.

For example, have you created your own game using DriveWorks, or do you have a fun sandbox environment?

If you have created a fun project like this and you would like to share it with the group, please email events@driveworks.co.uk and include the following information:

• Company name
• Contact email address
• For what product/products have you implemented DriveWorks?
• How are you using DriveWorks in your daily workflows?
• The fun/alternative game/sandbox item that you want to share with the group
• What DriveWorks technology have you used to create this?

Don’t worry if you haven’t implemented DriveWorks in this way, just sit back and enjoy the meeting.

Registration is Now Open

Registration is now open for the one-year anniversary meeting.

You will need to use your new MyDriveWorks account to register, if you don’t have an account yet, it’s quick and easy to create one.

Catching Up With: Sean O’Neill

Senior Strategy and Community Manager, SOLIDWORKS

Recently, we had a chance to catch up with Sean O’Neill.

After spending about 5 years working as an Applications Engineer and in product marketing at a SOLIDWORKS reseller, Sean has joined Dassault Systems as the Senior Strategy and Community Manager. Sean has taken on an exciting opportunity to create programs and content to inspire SOLIDWORKS users around the world.

Sean helps connect community members who go above & beyond in sharing their SOLIDWORKS passion and expertise. In his role, Sean also looks to amplify the voices and efforts of many community members who seek to inspire others through their use of SOLIDWORKS products.

If you missed it, you can catch Part One here.

In this second part, we will be talking about how the pandemic has impacted the SOLIDWORKS Community and reminiscing on previous world events.

How has the Global Pandemic impacted the SOLIDWORKS Community over the last year?

It’s an interesting question, you can look at the world as it ‘was’ and you can almost see how things were moving in the direction where we are ‘now’.

I don’t believe that we are really living in two different worlds; they were just travelling parallel for a while until they converged over the last year with the pandemic.

We (the world) were already starting to embrace technology and become more virtually and digitally connected, the pandemic just accelerated the process a bit. I believe that we were always headed toward where we are right now.

We are a global community, and our programs and groups are taking full advantage of technology to share, network and learn with others from around the world. As we start to go back to events, I think it would be shameful to not try to co-exist with both ‘in-person’ and ‘virtual’ situations.

An example would be the SOLIDWORKS user groups. There are a lot of groups that were already covering large regions. Hosting virtual meetings has allowed those groups to grow even more and provide an opportunity for people to attend that may not have been able to attend in the past for whatever their reason (location, family, work, etc.). People who may be able to attend in-person meetings want to get together local to meet each other, and to get back to in-person meetings is an important item. It’s also about keeping those other connections intact and keeping the virtual audience engaged.

We had a lot of success with our virtual 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021. As we started planning 3DEXPERENECE World 2022 – we discussed ways to offer content through a virtual platform as well to reach as many people as we can.

Sean – speaking of the last year, have you taken up any new hobbies?  

Over the last year, I have spent so much more time with my family and have enjoyed having a chance to do more as a dad. We have a younger family – a 2-year-old and an 8-month-old.  With the pandemic, we haven’t been able to do a lot of things or go anywhere so we created this really awesome playroom for the kids.

Having the time to just be home forces you to slow down and just be home with your family. Keeping younger kids occupied as well has made life pretty interesting and has taken a lot of our time the last year.

As far as hobbies, an area that I’d like to get more involved in is woodworking. I think woodworking is so interesting and I love that there is such a vibrant community around it. As a technical and creative thinker, it’s a great hobby as it requires both precision and creativity.

We’ve been reminiscing with others, and I’ll ask you the same – do you have a favourite SOLIDWORKS World/3DEXPERIENCE World from years past?

On top of everything else, it was a really special year for me as I was involved in the Magic Wheelchair project. Christine Gattman from Magic Wheelchair is a great person and has such a wonderful energy around her. Listening to her speak and talk about the program you can see how hard she works and what she’s doing is very inspiring.

Sean – how do you want people to remember you and your role in the SOLIDWORKS Community?

Over the course of my career, I have had opportunities to work with some really awesome (and sometimes famous) people doing really amazing things. To be honest, I don’t know that I want to be remembered for just that.

If I had to say, I would want to be remembered for being successful in creating opportunities to connect people and put people in a position where they can do more to inspire other like-minded people. Creating programs like the SOLIDWORKS Champions and Influencers are things that will hopefully long outlast me. In my position, I like to think that I don’t do what I do for the notoriety of it – I do it because I really love what I do and I’m good at making connections with people.

Honestly, I get so much more out of creating these connections and opportunities as those that are consuming it.

It was a pleasure speaking with Sean, learning about his role at SOLIDWORKS, hearing about his time creating and working on the SOLIDWORKS Champions Program and the SOLIDWORKS Influencer Program and how he thinks the pandemic has impacted the SOLIDWORKS Community.

3DEXPERIENCE World 2022

3DEXPERIENCE World 2022 will be held as a hybrid event on February 6-9, 2022, with the in-person event being held at the World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Our team has already started to plan for attending the event in Atlanta – it will be our 17^th year as a sponsor for this event!