Inventor VS Solidworks...Seriously

[pdnm1]

OK, word just came down here that they want me to set up a Solidworks Rep vs, an Inventor rep., have them each state their case and "battle it out" for our business.

We currently use Inventor 11 and have used Inventor here since Rev 6. But the issues that have come up are most, if not all of our vendors use SW and just about every new prospective hire has nothing but SW experience.

I think the decision may have already been made to make the switch, but I really want to know what to expect for this "battle" and how should I approach it?

What kind of hardware differences between the 2 do you know of, if any?

Note, no one here, other than myself has ever been trained on Inventor. Everyone is basically "self taught" and that causes about 90% of the issues we have here with Inventor. So you can understand that all you'd hear around here is how Inventor can't do this and can't do that.

Any possible help and heads-up on how I can approach this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

It would be kind of lengthy to get into what the differences are.
what I recommend is creating a spreadsheet and organize what you need out of a solid modeler and rate each item against each other.
if you are self taught on inventor - would you be self taught in solid works?


pat
http://www.cadenhancement.com

[Anonymous]

"Note, no one here, other than myself has ever been trained on Inventor.
Everyone is basically "self taught" and that causes about 90% of the issues
we have here with Inventor. So you can understand that all you'd hear around
here is how Inventor can't do this and can't do that."

There is your problem in a nutshell. Period!

You can bet that they will be saying exactly the same thing about
Solidworks, if they have not had training. In 99% of the cases both
software is equally capable of creating the same type of designs. So, it's
not the software.

I've done these head to heads for years against ProE, SolidWorks, UG and
other software and have only lost one battle, not on features, performance,
accuracy, and certainly not on time to complete a task. The battle I lost
was due to internal politics, for which there is very little defense.

I note that you are still on release 11. That tells me that your company
has no interest in spending the money to get up-to-date, or to properly
train their employees to actually be productive on Inventor.
What makes you think that they will do any better at switching to
SolidWorks, spending large sums of money to purchase different software from
scratch, train the existing users, and deal with all the legacy inventor
files that you have created four years?

Here's a couple suggestions: get on the comp.cad.solidworks newsgroup and
compare the gripes that you read there, especially the ones regarding bugs
and frequent service pack regressions. Solid Works has just as many if not
more problems with their software as any other software vendor. So, the
grass is not greener on either side of the street. Build a solid defense
backed with facts. Solidworks reps cannot handle factual information..:)

If you need help in battling the demons, including management, give me a
call. Let's see what we can do!



--
Dennis Jeffrey, Autodesk Inventor Certified Expert
Autodesk Manufacturing Implementation Certified Expert.
260-399-6615
Instructor/Author/Sr. App Engr.
AIP 11SP3, AIP 2008 SP2, PcCillin AV
HP zv5000 AMD64 ( modified)
Geforce Go 440, Driver: .8185, 2GB RAM
XP Pro SP2, Windows Classic Theme
http://teknigroup.com

[JDMather]

>I think the decision may have already been made to make the switch...

Be sure and come back and tell us about how the switch goes. Keep track of specifics like training time on the new software. Where are you located? I would love to do a case study on the process.

J.D. Mather
Certified SolidWorks Professional
Autodesk Inventor Certifed Expert
Professor, CAD and Product Design
jmather_at_pct_dot_edu

[pdnm1]

Woo Hoo!!!!

Got word a few moments ago that the decision has been made....INVENTOR stays!!!

Thanks to Dennis for all his help. It was his points that drove my issues of concern home.

The final decision is to get everyone here trained (Duh!) and add more seats of Inventor. Solidworks stays put with 2 seats. The decision was to not add any more seats since Inventor can do everything we need it to do in the first place.