Implementing Inventor

[peterm]

As a medium sized manufacturing company (200 staff), we purchased Inventor with subscription many years ago (series 7 I think). Unfortunately we failed to implement it into our design and manufacturing process due to lack of resources and limitations of the software. Eventually in 2011 we cancelled the subscriptions.

This year we decided to look at it again to see if we could get some return on our investment. After going through a lengthy analysis with a recommended Autodesk partner the suggested route was to invest another £65,500 on new software, subscriptions and training.

This amount is completely outside of our budget and we feel as though we have been conned into purchasing the software in the first place when it wasn't fit for purpose and are now being held to ransom to get it working.

We will, of course be ditching Inventor, but I was wondering if anyone else had suffered a similar experience.

[peterm]

Thanks for that Brian.

The initial purchase was for 2 seats of software plus training and support. So in a way it was a pilot scheme.

We proved over the years that it didn't work for us, but unfortunately in the process we have lost thousands of pounds.

The question is, do we stick with something that works, though not very efficiently, or do we throw good money after bad.

[brian.cranston]

Ahh, that makes more sense... Perhaps start at the beginning...

What prompted your company to look at moving from AutoCAD to Inventor?  What issues did you expect it to solve?

[peterm]

The vast range of product we produce with all its variations and interdependencies.

We found that sometimes a change in one component could affect hundreds of others. Innevitably something would get missed and you ended up on site with two components that didn't fit together.

Inventor was sold to us as a solution to this problem - change one component and you can automatically update everything that relates to it. This could potentially save us a lot of money, time and good will.

[mrattray]

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@PeterM wrote:

...

We found that sometimes a change in one component could affect hundreds of others. Innevitably something would get missed and you ended up on site with two components that didn't fit together.

Inventor was sold to us as a solution to this problem - change one component and you can automatically update everything that relates to it. This could potentially save us a lot of money, time and good will.

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This is EXACTLY what any parametric CAD package (i.e. Inventor) does, and EXACTLY what AutoCAD does NOT do.

[peterm]

Precisely. So I wasn't wrong in steering the company down this path. Unfortunately we stumbled accross the limitations I mentioned earlier which meant that we couldn't implement it into our workflow.

[mrattray]

The solution would have been to change your workflow to take advantage of the software, as was suggested earlier.

[dgorsman]

I'm a little more platform agnostic than others, in that a sort-of-ok tool in your hand right now is better than the perfect tool which will take time to set up.  AutoCAD and LT allow relatively untrained users to be thrown at work and hatchet together drawings without spending a lot of money on licenses and time on set-up.  They are better suited to the freewheeling, make-it-up-as-you go design process.  I know, I know - bad business practice, wastes time, inefficient, yadda yadda 😄  .  Rome wasn't built in a day, and getting from the former state of affairs to a regimented, standardized production system won't happen overnight.  Trying to do so results in chaos, which is bad for business and results in the better tool being discarded as worthless (even though it isn't).

As JDMather noted, proper implementation is key.  For me that means not trying to do everything right away.  Start with a corner of scope of work, where the parametric system would provide leverage without causing a lot of havoc.  Implement it with a few licenses, not the entire shop.  The models created can then be fed into the more traditional AutoCAD system with higher confidence and less time for rework.  Build experience, find out where it works for you and where it doesn't (I'll bet it will work in most).  Look for other areas where you can *slowly* adopt it, gradually growing the license pool and user experience.

[peterm]

That's exactly what we tried to do. The idea was to tackle a small brand new project on Inventor and see how it went (2 licenses).

The parametric bit with iparts and iassemblies worked fine, but not being able to pass drawings accross to the production team stopped the whole project in its tracks.

So the option was either to move everyone over to Inventor just so they could access drawings (almost impossible to implement), or go back to AutoCAD.

[PaulMunford]

Interesting debate. There's no reason why you can't create the drawings you need from inventor.

Inventor Is not a good conceptual design tool. You pretty much need to have figured out what you're going to make before you start modeling.

Inventor is a good production tool, and it rocks at configuration.

65k sounds to much. Contact more than one reseller.

[IgorMir]

Hi Peter,

Just out of curiosity - have you ever advertised a position for the experienced Inventor user at your company?

And if you did - how many applicants were turned down for a reason that "... highly skilled and much better suitable applicant has been selected"?

Cheers,

Igor.

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@PeterM wrote:

That's exactly what we tried to do. The idea was to tackle a small brand new project on Inventor and see how it went (2 licenses).

The parametric bit with iparts and iassemblies worked fine, but not being able to pass drawings accross to the production team stopped the whole project in its tracks.

So the option was either to move everyone over to Inventor just so they could access drawings (almost impossible to implement), or go back to AutoCAD.

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[scottmoyse]

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brian.cranston wrote:

I have a rule when it comes to implementing CAD software.  Don't fight the software.  I doubt there will ever be the perfect CAD package.  I've seen companies struggle to implement because they wanted to push a square CAD package through a round hole. You have to be willing to modify workflows and behaviors in order to gain the efficiencies.

Training! Training! Training!  A CAD implementation will fail without training.

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People, Process, Technology.... so many companies don't get that, I say companies rather than people, since management often don't understand this and hold one department at ransom due to the rigidity of another.

There is a decent amount of reseller bashing going on in here.. it takes two to tango. Any reseller than sells and runs is the worst kind of reseller. They have an interest in making sure their customers are working with the software as efficiently as possible. But obviously, they also have mouths to feed, bills to pay and mortgages to deal with, just like anyone else. So there is always a cost. It's not just software, hardware & machinery definitely have the same issues/restrictions.

[scottmoyse]

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@PeterM wrote:

The vast range of product we produce with all its variations and interdependencies.

We found that sometimes a change in one component could affect hundreds of others. Innevitably something would get missed and you ended up on site with two components that didn't fit together.

Inventor was sold to us as a solution to this problem - change one component and you can automatically update everything that relates to it. This could potentially save us a lot of money, time and good will.

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This is exactly what we used Inventor to solve in my previous job, designing bespoke (and production) interiors for the Navy, Commerical & Residential buildings and Super Yachts of all sizes.

AutoCAD was costing us too much time and money. The amount of information we could output with Inventor vs AutoCAD in the same amount of design time increased massively over the years. Then we automated cut file and label generation for all our CNC parts and well.... it kicked ***.

I'm sorry you and your company didn't have the right people involved to make the most of it.

Oh and the first version we used was Inventor 7 I believe, but started to get serious with 8 & 9.

[peterm]

Hi Paul,
I'm sure with a bit of effort we could create drawings in the right format on Inventor, but we can't pass them across to the production department as they work on AutoCAD LT. The y need to be able to edit the drawings.
65K included the training, support, subscription and an add-on called Woodwork for Inventor, designed specifically for our sector.

[peterm]

Hi Igor,
No, employing an extra designer/engineer was not an option.

[peterm]

Hi Scott,
I don't have an issue with our resellers at all. They are also a certified Autodesk training centre. They have bent over backwards to help us and massaged the figures for best prices and split payments etc. But, at the end of the day, our initial 20K investment needs another 65K adding to the top of it to make things work. This is something we hadn't planned on and there just isn't the budget for it.

[scottmoyse]

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@PeterM wrote:
Hi Paul,
I'm sure with a bit of effort we could create drawings in the right format on Inventor, but we can't pass them across to the production department as they work on AutoCAD LT.

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Hey Peter,

Was there something wrong with saving the Inventor idw as an AutoCAD DWG?

Can you say how much the Woodwork for Inventor addon cost? I'd love to know. Which one was/is it?

[peterm]

Hi Scott,
The drawing isn't editable in AutoCAD.
Woodwork for Inventor is £1000 per seat (subs £200) and Woodwork CAM for Inventor is £2000 per seat (subs £400).

[IgorMir]

Well Peter, in such a case you are on your own big time. Your best bet is to ask questions on this forum and learn the software by yourself. It is doable. Just takes much more time. And it won't cost you 65 grand. Get ready to loose 150 grand before you start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Best of luck!

Igor.

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@PeterM wrote:
Hi Igor,
No, employing an extra designer/engineer was not an option.

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[peterm]

Hi Igor,

That sounds a bit odd to me. You seem to be saying that it is a better route to employ expert Inventor operators from outside the company, rather than train your own experienced designers and engineers to use Inventor.
An extra employee would cost at least another 30K per year plus several months product and operations training.

[scottmoyse]

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@PeterM wrote:
Hi Igor,

That sounds a bit odd to me. You seem to be saying that it is a better route to employ expert Inventor operators from outside the company, rather than train your own experienced designers and engineers to use Inventor.
An extra employee would cost at least another 30K per year plus several months product and operations training.

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I think Igor is saying that $65k is cheap to get up to speed, compared to the money you would lose if you tried to use Inventor in your current state. Which you have said you won't be doing.