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DriveWorksXpressis thefree Design Automation tool included with every seat of SOLIDWORKSandis a great way tosave a littletime every day.

  • Automate repetitive design tasks.
  • Re-use existing designs.
  • Generate new SOLIDWORKS parts and assemblies quickly and easily.

You might be thinking that while this all sounds great, you have been using design tables in SOLIDWORKS to save some time already.

Well, here are 5 reasons for choosing DriveWorksXpress over design tables:

  1. File Size – DriveWorksXpress creates new files, which keeps file size to a minimum.
  2. Ease of Use – Control Assemblies, sub assemblies and parts from one user interface without the need to open up each one to update its design table.
  3. Scalability & Share with Others – DriveWorksXpress allow colleagues with SOLIDWORKS to create Parts, Assemblies and Drawings too by filling out a simple form. Others do not need to know how you set it up, or which Assemblies and/or parts to open up and modify to get the desired results
  4. Automated Drawings – Update drawings for parts and assemblies quickly and easily.
  5. Rules Driven –Use Rules to determine which calculation or value is required to drive a given parameter. Rules and calculations that affect multiple parts and assemblies are easily linked in the DriveWorksXpress rule editor

The best part is that if you already have SOLIDWORKS, then you already have DriveWorksXpress!

You can find DriveWorksXpress inside SOLIDWORKS here:

Check out the DriveWorksXpress YouTube channel for How to Video Clips and you’ll soon be saving time!

For more information visitwww.driveworks.co.uk or contact your local SOLIDWORKS Reseller.

One
of our resellers’ 3D vision has sent us a fantastic customer success story,
once again showing us how DriveWorks can be used to streamline your business,
through saving time and freeing up your creative juices for innovation.

Custom
coach manufacturer Farber create speciality vehicles for a wide range of clients
in industries such as Home Land Security, Dental, Medical and communications.

With such
a varied portfolio of customers comes the challenge of creating custom designs
for each one, in the past this would mean expensive and time consuming
redesigns for each new vehicle.

Farber Speciality Vehicles began their experience with DriveWorks like many of our customers do, by tryingDriveWorks Solo in a 30 day trial. After seeing what DriveWorks Solo could do for their business they decided it was time to upgrade to DriveWorks Pro and expand their capabilities.

Now, using DriveWorks Pro, SolidWorks Models are produced in the
background permitting the engineers to spend more time working on other
elements of design.

Farber
Speciality Vehicles have automated the design of custom cabinetry for all their
vehicles, which means they can quickly create high quality custom designs that
meet the specifications of their customer.

To
find out more about Farber Speciality Vehiclesclick here.

3DVisioncoverOhio, Kentucky and Indiana.


Try
DriveWorks Solo for free athttp://bit.ly/15l2nhP

 


3DVision DriveWorks Case Study_Farber Specialty Vehicles

Logo

 

 

 

 

Tabluka is a UK based company that sells configurable and customisable furniture and other home accessories that can be designed and personalize to the customersown tasteover the web.

Tabluka Creative Director Daniel Knox says that The Tabluka concept is different in many ways. Different because it uses the latest digital design technologies. Different because it uses modern, stylish materials. Different because it puts you in control.

He says that Tabluka has been developed out of understanding consumer needs and thegowing desire forpersonalised, long lasting and sustainably sourced furniture.

Tabluka furniture is assembled by slotting together the flat packed pieces without the need for any screws, nails or tools – therefore no need for DIY experience. Anyone who watched The Apprentice and the flat pack furniture challenge, will understand the appeal of this when it is done well.
Product

Tabluka are currently using DriveWorks Pro Administrator, DriveWorks Pro Autopilot and DriveWorks Pro Live to allow their consumers to directly configure their own table and accessories online.

The site has all been createdusing DriveWorks form technology and lets you choose: the tableheight, width, depth, cormer radius andthe wood type and finish. There are evenoptions for cable management, for people who want to bring electricity or internet conenctions to their table!

And one of the most popular features is the ability to personalize the table by engraving family names, dates and special messages.

Tabluka

Benefitscited by Tabluka forusing DriveWorks are:

You can visit Tabluka here or follow the Tabluka concept on Twitter at @tabluka

 

DriveWorks Funk up your Forms Challenge Results

Winner of Funk up Your Forms

We are proud to announce that the winner of the DriveWorks Funk up Your Forms Challenge with 38% of the vote is David Braxton from Camfil Farr

We had a fantastic number of people voting and literally thousands of people viewing the DriveWorks Forms Gallery. Thank you for your entries and votes.

Congratulations to David who has a Formula 1 jacket on the way to him!

Conveyor 1

 

 

 

 

 

As the BRAND NEW DriveWorks Solo Head Start webinar launches this week,featuringa conveyor project, we thought it would be a great opportunity to showcase the DriveWorks Live Conveyor demo.

This DriveWorks Live demo is a great example to present the speed in which the user can receive all the sales documents. It also provides the user with a 3D preview of their model in the form, and sends an image of this with the sales documents.

Its a really quick and easy form to run through, and is optimised to work on various devices and in any of the most common internet browsers.

Here are the few simple steps I took to configure a conveyor in 3D:

1. Login to the www.driveworkslive.com demo site.

2. Select the ‘fixed width example’ square.

3. Select the conveyor project.

4. Choose the width, height and whether the conveyor you are configuring is heavy, medium or light duty (i.e. transporting heavy, medium or lightweight materials).

Conveyor 1

 

 

 

 

 

5. You can then also choose whether you would like raised sides or not – similar to bumpers in bowling!

6. You can then choose how many sections you would like your conveyor to have (1-5).

Conveyor 2

 

 

 

 

 

7. Then adjust the sections to be as desired – length of the section, whetherit is straight or curved, and the angle of the curve.

8. After configuring theconveyor, it’s a simple case of entering contact details and clicking submit.

9. Check your emails for the sales documents!
Conveyor docs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conveyors are incredibly configurable items, heres some great statistics from a company in thematerial handling industry already using DriveWorks:

Canopy

 

 

 

This DriveWorks Live demo begins by detecting whether the user is running on a Desktop or a Mobile device, as this will change the appearance of the form. The user is also able to choose what font style and colour they would like. This is an excellent way of demonstrating DriveWorks Form Technology providing the options to choose from and the rules based technology working behind the scenes that allows these changes to happen seamlessly.

Here are the few short steps taken to configure the perfect canopy, in a form design chosen by the user:

1. Visit the www.driveworkslive.com demo site.

2. Select the Entrance Canopy demo.

3. Choose the font colour and style desired.

4. Select the currency you wouldlike the canopy to be priced in.

5. Then it’s time to configure the dimensions of the canopy.

6. Followed by the foundations and frame colour.

Configure caopy

 

 

 

7. Then view the summary of the choices that have been made and add (or take away) any extras.

8. Simply add in contact details and click submit.

Canopy details

 

 

 

9. You will then receive an email including all relevant Excel/Word documents and models/drawings.

Canopy docs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have a go yourself and configure an entrance canopy to your exact specifications!

www.driveworkslive.com

Usually Monday mornings are the time when people struggle to get back into the work routine, after a weekend away, people dread this time of the week. However, if every Monday morning was like thisweek’s – we’d all be praying for them to come around more often!

Finally, our 3D Printer arrived!

There was much excitement when the package arrived and within minutes it was being put together by all the technical team. We had Jane, our Operations Manager, reading the instructions to ensure it all went smoothly and was put together correctly. Impressively, after only half an hour we were ready to go into production.

We chose to printthe pre-installed demo items, so we could get something as soon as possible, it’s amazing how impatient people become when there’s a new toy around!

So after time to warm up and around 8 minutes printing time – we ended up with a MakerBot logo pendant. Around 20 minutes later we managed toprint a stretchy bracelet.

So after an afternoon of playing around and listening to the magical, futuristic sounds it’s nowtime to get down to business and start testing it with some of the tech team’s designs.

 

We’ll be keeping you up to date with our creations via the DriveWorks Facebook Page!

Now we just need to decide on a name for it…

 

This sample project shows DriveWorks being used to configure an electrical enclosure.

As there are many different options that can be configured (e.g. who the order is for, the size of the enclosure, what components are included in the enclosure, where the components are to be placed inside the enclosure etc…) we decided to present different options on separate forms. This makes it easier for people with little or no knowledge of the enclosure products to clearly see the options available and to step through the project so that they can configure an enclosure that meets their needs.

The forms have been laid out in a clear and logical way and thought has also gone in to the navigation. We wanted to show how easy it is to move around the project making selections and how changes to options selected can be made at any time. And although the interface is clean and uncomplicated, ALL the rules that dictate what options are available and ALL the rules that drive the manufacturing outputs so that the CAD files and quote can be created are securely locked in behind the forms UI.

The project is a great way of seeing how flexible and customizable DriveWorks can be.

1. Visit the www.driveworkslive.com demo site.

2. Click on the ‘Fixed width example’ square.

3. The password and username – Guest and Guest.

4. Choose the Electrical Cabinet project.

5. The first form is information about the customer – you can choose a company and a company from the drop down list – the address will then be pre-populated, or you can add new details and these will automatically be added to the database.

 

6. Click Next to take you through to the next form.

7. The next page is an identification page, to help the User work out which element on the Electrical Cabinet is which. When this has been ascertained, you can click next.

8. This page is all about customising the product – you can change: the material, amount and location of components, size of overall product, the lock and add extras. This is easy to navigate by selecting the titles at the top of the form.

 

9. You can then preview in 3D the configured item. If this item is not completely to your satisfaction, it is then easy to return to previous pages by clicking ‘previous’ or going directly to the desired page by clicking the title.

10. When the item is exactly how desired, the final action is to view a summary of the order and enter your email address.

 

11. You will then receive all essential sales and marketing documents to complete the order.

 

This project demonstrates how a good design and clear direction on forms can make the configuration and order process quick and easy, even when presented with a complicated, multi-element product.

Why doesn’t DriveWorks create new configurations in your SolidWorks master model?

DriveWorks creates brand new copies of your master files andall changes are made to these files, but why do things this way? The reasons are outlined below:

 

Issue 1

By adding configurations to your SolidWorks master model you are increasing the data stored within the file, resulting in the master assembly file getting VERY BIG, VERY QUICKLY! If you ever needed to send this to anyone, the massive file would be difficult to move around.

DriveWorks Solution 1

DriveWorks takes a copy of your master models, the file size does not increase. As DriveWorks takes a copy of the files and works on those, the files can be easily transferred from machine to machine without having to worry about anyone else having a copy of your master data.

Issue 2

If you are working with your SolidWorks master models and all your automated design configurations are kept within one file – if anything happens to this file (e.g. it gets deleted or becomes corrupt during the creation of a new configuration) all yourmaster model data could be lost.

DriveWorks Solution 2

DriveWorks does not do anything to your master models, other than take a copy of the files. This ensures you will never run the risk of corrupting or losing all of your master model data when creating new configurations.

Issue 3

Using configurations also limits the interaction you have with drawings.

DriveWorks Solution 3

As DriveWorks creates brand new files, it also can create brand new drawings that reference these new files, this ensures the correct models appear on the drawing. DriveWorks also gives you the tools and ability to have a high level of control of the final drawing sheet, by controlling elements such as: the scale of the drawing views, any annotations that appear on the drawing and also custom properties in the drawing.

 

Specification flow is apowerful feature in DriveWorksthat givesthe DriveWorks Administrator the ability to customize the DriveWorks specification process. (ie rules for what happens and when it happens).

When aproject is first set up in DriveWorks it is created with a default specification flow which guides a specification through four basic states – Running (i.e. filling out forms in the specification), Saved, Pending, and Completed.

Each one of these states has links toother states to move from one state to another. For example, a specification in the Saved state can be moved into the Running state, and a specification in the Running state can be moved into the Pending state (by clicking Finish), or the Completed state (by clicking Release). These links between states are called transitions.

Each state also has certain operations that can be performed on it, but which do not move to another state, for example, a specification can be deleted, or copied.

The Specification Flow can be customized in DriveWorks Administrator to meet your own specification and Work flow needs.

Example Uses
There are lots of reasons why you may want to look at customizing your specification flow, here are a few examples.

You can read more about Specification Flow in the ONLINEdocumentation file
http://docs.driveworkspro.com/?ProjectEditorSpecificationFlow.html

 

 

 

Saving Time and Money through Design Automationwas the subject of the presentation at SolidWorks World 2009 by Trevor Waldeland and Eric Summerfield of Exlar

The customer has the option to put any motor on this product line.

Because of this, there is a list of things that can vary with the motor plate. (shown in Orange)

Motor1 Motor2

There are 2 steps to using Design Automation with DriveWorksXpress.

  1. Setting Up your project
  2. Running your project

So once you have decided what things can change, youidentify and capturethose thingsfrom your SolidWorks Model, make sure you have a drawing, create a formand build your rules.

Once that is done you simply fill out your form with the specification for your new variation.

ExlarForm

Your new partwill now have all the new dimensions we entered.
You can now create any new parts in the future in about 1 minute usingthe project you have set up in DriveWorksXpress

Exlar drawing

1. How long did it take to create variations before DriveWorksXpress?
30 minutes to 1 hour

2. How long did it take to set this project up in DriveWorksXpress?
2 hours

3. How long does it take now to create a new variation using DriveWorksXpress?
5 minutes

4. How many possible variations could there be?
Unlimited

5. How would you describe your experience of using DriveWorksXpress?
Really easy to setup and use. We are in the process right now of installing
the full version of DriveWorks because of the easy of use and time savings.

6. Have you shared your work with your colleagues?
Yes, all of our SolidWorks users has access to these files.

7. Will you be adding more products and rules?
Absolutely!!

 

On theDriveWorksXpress site we have an area where people can tell us how they have got on using DriveWorksXpress. They can upload picures of their products, screen grabs of their DriveWorksXpress form and aRules Summary. They can also tell us how long things used to take them before they had DriveWorksXpress and how long it takes them now. The feedback has been stunning.

One such company to told us what they have been doing is Mondragon Assembly. They design and manufacture systems and equipment for process automation. They are aglobal company, manufacturing in Europe and North America, andoffer highly custom solutions for assembly process automation requirements.

Oscar Jos辿 Hern叩ndez isthrilled withhis achievements in DriveWorksXpress…

Time spent setting up 6 weeks
“It took around six weeks, this includes learning how to use DriveWorksXpress, and whenever I discovered something new, I stepped back to make everything smoother and easier.”

Time spent before SolidWorks and DriveWorksXpress 2 days
“It took approximately 2 days.”

Time taken with SolidWorks and DriveWorksXpress 10 minutes
“It now takes around ten minutes or less.”

How would you describe your experience with using DriveWorksXpress?
“This tool is awesome, at first I thought we couldnt make a good use of it, but it has made our life much easier.”

Do you make use of the resources available at www.driveworksxpress.com?
“Of course, when I have a question I go to the DriveWorksXpress forum for some enlightenment and also when I was learning DriveWorksXpress I downloaded the exercises and videos.”

Have you shared your work with colleagues?
“Yes, the entire design department uses this.”

I’m going to keep reporting these results here on the blog because I think it’s worth sharing with everyone. with results like these it becomes easy to justify purchasing the full version of DriveWorks.