Monday’s General Session had a major focus on the continuous improvements to 3DEXPERIENCE and SOLIDWORKS products we’ve come to know and love. A lot of what was covered was around a central theme of incorporating Artificial Intelligence into our everyday design and engineering process to streamline and optimize going from initial concept to fully realized product. Some of the things hinted at for future updates are going to change the game from generating 3D models. The example used of generating manufacturable bookshelves and coffee tables while only providing the material and a bounding box is groundbreaking. Amongst the excitement were also some great stories from 3DEXPERIENCE and SOLIDWORKS community members and how they leverage best-in-class tools to produce their best-in-class designs.

The session ended with the 2024 version of Don’t Miss This Demo where the Technical Marketing team put on another great edition and teased enhancements coming in SOLIDWORKS 2025. I won’t spoil the fun so you’ll need to go watch the recap to hear about some of the new things coming down the pike. Also, be sure to tune in tomorrow for Episode 2 of this year’s epic!

Instructional Courses and Hands-on Workshops

Each year, members of the greater SOLIDWORKS and 3DEXPERIENCE community come together to create and present exceptional content on topics they are passionate about: this year was no different. I managed to make my way around to a bunch of different user sessions on Day 1. After the General Session, I made my way down to a presentation on SOLIDWORKS CAM to see how to leverage automation to increase CNC Programming efficiency by using APIs. Speaking of APIs, there was another great session by Artem Taturevych who gave an introductory session to using the SOLIDWORKS API in a beginner-friendly, example-based way. There was already a ton of great content packed in and we are only through lunch!

After lunch, I hopped into a training session led by Dassault’s John Milberry who put on an incredible overview of ICAM Foundations, the post-processor technology built into 3DEXPERIENCE’s DELMIA Machining tools. His training gave a great introduction to customizing post-processors and helped solidify concepts that were a little hazy before. After John’s session, I turned my attention to my own presentation happening later in the day. In the final presentation slot for Day 1, I was able to present my Fundamentals of 3DEXPERIENCE Machining which aimed to lay a foundational understanding of the 3DEXPERIENCE CAM roles. I started with a brief overview of the portfolio and wrapped up with a simple hands-on example of bringing a model from SOLIDWORKS into DELMIA and then creating toolpaths. The response exceeded my expectations and led to some great follow-up conversations.

If you are interested in hearing more about any of the topics covered by one of TriMech’s Application Engineers at this year’s conference, we’d be more than happy to discuss!

What to look for on 3DEXPERIENCE World Day 2?

Day 2 kicks off again with a General Session and serves as a continuation of today’s messaging. We then have a whole host of TriMech-led sessions on the docket. Tracy Wettig is co-presenting 101 Things Your Mother Never Told You About Mates, I’ll be back with Sarah Taylor for a Hands-on Workshop Cloud Connection: Design and Validation, and Alin Vargatu is leading the charge on his session titled Ultimate Import Geometry Optimization for Large Assemblies.

TriMech isn’t the only group of presenters tomorrow at 3DEXPERIENCE World and there are a whole host of great sessions. You’ll want to review the daily agenda yourself and find sessions that match your interests. Regardless of what you choose, you’ll for sure find yourself in a great informational session. Stay tuned for Day 2!

Sawyer Gara, a TriMech Elite Applications Engineer, discusses SOLIDWORKS Toolbox and its integration into SOLIDWORKS PDM. He begins by familiarizing attendees with the SOLIDWORKS Toolbox and discussing the benefits of using it as opposed to manually creating standard hardware. From here he covers how to tell SOLIDWORKS PDM to manage our Toolbox and recognize where it lives. After telling PDM to use our Toolbox, we can then configure SOLIDWORKS to use that shared location! Finally, he touches on some key settings within PDM to ensure the Toolbox integration is successful and to ensure future upgrades go off without a hitch.

During this SOLIDWORKS PDM On-Demand Webinar, you will learn:

• Overview of SOLIDWORKS Toolbox
• Setting Up Toolbox within PDM
• Configuring SOLIDWORKS to use the correct Toolbox
• Key Settings when Working within PDM
• How to Update the SOLIDWORKS Toolbox

Included in the DELMIA Manufacturing on-demand webinar

With the inclusion of Cloud Services with every new seat of SOLIDWORKS purchased you are closer than ever to get your hands on the powerful, integrated 3DEXPERIENCE Manufacturing roles to streamline your processes.

Watch as TriMech’s Elite Applications Engineer, Sawyer Gara, outlines the DELMIA manufacturing roles and apps available on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. The primary focus will be on the 3DEXPERIENCE CAM Roles where we can write CNC programs while utilizing a full digital twin of the machining cell we have on the shop floor.

However, we’ll also take a look into some of the Robotics and Virtual Factory simulation capabilities at our disposal. Keep in mind that this is just the tip of the iceberg of the incredible smart manufacturing tools on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform.

Topics include:

• The DELMIA Manufacturing Domain
• The Basic Functionality of Every Machining Role
• The full CNC Programming Capabilities
• The Digital Twin Manufacturing Environment

Watch as TriMech Elite Applications Engineer, Sawyer Gara, walks us through the How SOLIDWORKS Electrical and PDM integration tool. SOLIDWORKS PDM is a powerful CAD-aware data management tool that can handle almost anything you throw at it and SOLIDWORKS Electrical is our best-in-class electrical schematic design tool that is integrated into Electro-Mechanical Design Process.

Traditionally, our SOLIDWORKS Electrical Designs have lived solely outside of our vault and short of using the SOLIDWORKS Electrical Viewer, most of our team did not have visibility to the projects. Now there is a direct integration for SOLIDWORKS Electrical to work with our SOLIDWORKS PDM Vault.

During this SOLIDWORKS Electrical and PDM On-demand Webinar you will learn:

• How it all works
• Key options during the set up process
• Things to keep in mind
• Where do we go from here

1. Change Identification
2. Change Evaluation
3. Change Planning
4. Change Implementation

If you read the recent Change Management blog post or watched the recent Managing Engineering Change on-demand webinar then you learned about how the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform can be the home to your engineering change processes. We talked about using issues and change actions to drive and track the engineering change for our documents and CAD Data. Using what was shown in the webinar, raising issues would fall under Change Identification and change actions being related to Change Implementation. But what if we want to incorporate the remaining stages into our process and get even more stakeholders? Fortunately, the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform has additional ENOVIA Roles that help us do just that.

Change Methodology

3DEXPERIENCE Change Evaluation

Once an issue has been identified in the Change Identification phase, we can move on to Change Evaluation. During this phase, change requests can be created by any stakeholder to see if the raised issue has merit and is feasible to be implemented. Creating a change request allows for impact analyses to be formed, tracked, and vetted out before transition to the next phase.

The impact analysis can help to track the impact of a requested change in areas such as benefits, costs, risk, and implementation to make sure the requested changes are reasonable to justify the cost. Like other steps in the process, change requests can have associated affected items, members, and approvals. Using change requests lets all stakeholders have a say in the decision making process (to approve or deny) before any tangible work has begun on the project. This can act as the final check to take in the full scope of a change before transitioning to the next stage of the project.

Change Request

3DEXPERIENCE Change Planning

So, let’s say that after a change request has gone through the wringer of an impact analysis and all stake holders sign off to approve the request changes. This moves us to the next stage in our Change Methodology into the Change Planning stage. It’s at this point that our designated change coordinator can begin creating a change order for the project. Within the change order we can make additional change orders and change actions to successfully complete the change.

Change Orchestration

The associated change actions or orders can have their own individual due dates, severity, and affected items. With this level of control, our change coordinator is able to route specific actions to the relevant user or group that can best take care of the change. If multiple change actions are very closely related, they can be merged together into a single change action entry to reduce clutter and make it easier to see changes taking place. Ultimately, the change planning phase allows us to use the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform to track change orders and make sure multiple teams are guided through a formalized, trackable change process.

Additional 3DEXPERIENCE Engineering Change Management Roles

With the 3DEXPERIENCE engineering change processes, we want to make sure that it fits our current processes, allows for formally tracking changes, and also be scalable. For smaller changes being done to a project for a small team, working solely with change actions and the occasional issue is more than feasible. However, for larger projects with more teams working together it may make more sense to have a more formal, connected change methodology in place. Leveraging additional 3DEXPERIENCE Engineering Change Management, Evaluation and Planning Roles can help keep everyone on the same page.

3DSwym Posts

Posts are your most basic type of content to share on a 3DSwym Community. These are generally just text posts and can be spruced up using the Rich Text Editor to modify formatting to get your content across effectively. Additionally, the posts can be categorized using the 6WTags and media can be pasted in.

3DSwym Post

3DSwym 3D / Photo / Video

Although media can be embedded in almost any other type of content, the 3D/Photo/Video type allows the media to be the focus. There are a ton of great options for uploading content directly to the SWYM community. If you don’t have the media already created, then don’t worry! Within this content type things like slides, tables, and sketches can be dynamically created to help reinforce what you are sharing with the team. This is a great option for using images rather than words to get an idea across.

3DSwym Media

3DSwym Questions

One of the most important aspects of working in a collaborative team is being able to ask questions and share answers. The last thing we want is answers to be kept private. The Question content type allows members to ask questions to the group and have the group collaborate on the answers. Any member is allowed to ask and answer questions but only the author of the question or an administrator is able to validate the answer as correct.

3DSwym Ideas

Ideas within a community act as a starting point for a new designs or for any form of innovation. These are similar to posts but go beyond by allowing users to assess the idea and can go through a full idea pipeline for different maturity stages. The idea pipeline can be customized for your current processes. For more information on ideas, check out this blog post that does a deep dive on ideas!

3DSwym Idea

3DSwym Surveys

Surveys can be created withing a 3D Swym Community that can be answered by any member of the community. Within surveys a couple of different types of answers can be received: Single or Multiple choice, Open Answer, and even Rating Scale. Results can be compiled into a pie graph or exported to a CSV file to be imported to down stream systems.

3DSwym Survey

3DSwym Wiki Pages

Wiki Pages are just what the name implies: Wikis for information. These can be used in a multitude of ways including keeping references to key information about the company, storing quick links to important documents, or even keeping a library of industry terminology. Wiki Pages can be customized with the Rich Text Editor and can have embedded media to really display key information. The Wikis can be nested within each other to provide a hierarchical table of contents to fully organize information. With everything set, Wiki Pages can be locked to prevent unwanted changes.

3DSwym WeDos

WeDos provide a place to assign simple task to community members or internal to conversations. These can be additional created using the Project Planning widget to take the functionality further. A WeDo can be created with an optional title and description to provide further context. A WeDo can be assigned to up to 10 different members that are provided with associated media and end dates. WeDos are particularly interested because they have their own access rights depending on a user’s assigned credentials to the SWYM Community. For example, everyone in the community can read a WeDo but only Authors and Owners are able to create new ones.

3DSwym Wedo

The 3DSwym app included with the 3DSwymer Role has a ton of great features that help create a connected community and collaborative ecosystem for all aspects of your company. From communication of simple posts, to tracking tasks and ideas, 3DSwym has it all.

A lot of times, this process isn’t formalized and just happens organically with no real items in place to track changes taking place or what the changes are accomplishing. Fortunately 3DEXPERIENCE Works Governance has plenty of built-in tools that will help us not only formalize the engineering change process but also track any past, present, or future changes.

3DEXPERIENCE Engineering Change Management Demonstration

TriMech Solutions Consultant, Sawyer Gara, shows how the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform can elevate the engineering change process for your team. We’ll take a look at how any member of our supply chain has the power to raise issues with our designs and offer potential modifications. From here, a change action can be created to kick off the formalized change process within our team. These change actions can be routed to the correct department for the actual change to occur. A lot of this process is handled for us automatically, so we don’t have to hunt down the next person in line saving us not only time but money.

From start to finish, our Engineering Change Process can be handled fully within the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform!

During this on-demand webinar you will learn:

• The added benefits of 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS to classic SOLIDWORKS
• The collaboration available on the platform
• Tools that help manage our products while we design
• Data accessibility from anywhere

Fortunately for us, 3DEXPERIENCE Works Governance has a built-in formalized Engineering Change Process that not only helps us make changes to our existing models in an organized way, but also tracks those changes.

Raising Issues

This part of our engineering change process is completely optional but carries some benefits to add in. Firstly, these issues can be raised on pretty much anything including the models we’re using, manufacturing processes, or even an issue with how we store raw materials. Less involved or mission critical issues can be resolved without having to kick off an entire engineering change. The Issue Management App allows everyone in the supply chain to get involved and let their voices be heard.

3DEXPERIENCE Part

Let’s take the Yoke shown above as an example. At some point in our development process, we’ve found out that the holes to mount the yoke are way too big and need to be scaled down. We’re able to create an issue for that. When creating the issue you can assign titles, descriptions, recommend resolutions, and even a due date for when you want it fixed. The other tabs allow you to attach any relevant attachments, assign who you want to fix the issue, and even associate the affected items to link the issue to a specific CAD Model.

Engineering change on 3DEXPERIENCE platform

Contents menu on 3DEXPERIENCE

Creating an Engineering Change Action

For issues regarding a specific CAD Model or set of CAD Models, typically we need the formalized change process to introduce new revisions and keep track of the history. In this instance, the model for our yoke 012-542 is currently in a “Released” State meaning we can make changes to it without a new revision. From inside of our Issue Management app, we are able to resolve the issues by launching into a Change Action.

New Change Action in 3DEXPERIENCE

With the change action formally created we have a ton of control over how the change is carried out. Assignees, approvers, and informed users can be assigned from existing members of your 3DEXPERIENCE Tenant or even predefined routes (similar to how an approval workflow would work with SOLIDWORKS PDM) to include even more members in the approval process. We can also open up the affected documents directly in SOLIDWORKS from the change action and begin working on the proposed changes.

Work Under

For this example, the proposed changes are fairly straightforward. In SOLIDWORKS I’ll make sure to lock the part, create a new revision, and begin updating the hole size. What we will notice is that while working in SOLIDWORKS, we are also working under the change action we opened the model from. This ensures that the changes being made to my yoke are being tracked and ultimately applied to the change action. When finished with the updates, we can save the file back to our collaborative space and move it to a frozen state so no further changes can occur.

Approvals and Completion

With the work on the change action done, we can switch back over to the Change Execution app. Since we were working under the change action in SOLIDWORKS, the new revision I created is already associated with the existing change action, so I won’t need to manually upload any files. An approver can open the new revision in any apps they have or even compare the two to easily see the differences caused by the change. The comparison will help the approver or informed user quickly see changes but they may need to fully open the model to see if the changes made are to the required specification.

If everything looks good, the assigned approver has the power to complete the change action. They can go and stamp approval on the changes that occurred. If for some reason the changes are not correct, the approver also has the ability to reject and push the change action back on the assigned user to make further changes. The approver will need to log in one more time to protect against someone accessing their machine while already logged in. With everything approved, both the Change Action and the Issue can be set to completed. Going through our formal change action not only tracks the changes that occur but also makes sure we have a secure process to release our parts.

Completed Order

More 3DEXPERIENCE Engineering Change Management Tools

With the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, we have a ton of tools that help us with almost any aspect of our engineering design process. One of the most important is being able to have a formal and secure engineering change process to not only keep track of changes but also to hold team members accountable for the changes needed to be made. The 3DEXPERIENCE Platform has an out of the box solution for our engineering change that can be modified for your specific approval workflows. Discover more tools on our Enterprise website »