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Implementing Inventor

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Message 1 of 79
peterm
1413 Views, 78 Replies

Implementing Inventor

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.

78 REPLIES 78
Message 2 of 79
waynefisher
in reply to: peterm

PeterM,

I would be interested to know what it is that you do at your company, where you could not implement Inventor. I have been using Inventor and automating it for years in both wood and metal fabrication industries. What software do you use for engineering that Inventor could not do, and why?

 

Message 3 of 79
peterm
in reply to: waynefisher

Hi Wayne,

 

Thank you for replying.

We manufacture office furniture using a combination of metal and timber. We use AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT for all our design and drawing work.

The drawing office found it impossible to use Inventor to dimension drawings in the way that they needed, combined with the fact that Inventor didn't work with dwg files (I'm not toatally clear on all the issues). This, of course, has now been changed.

From a design point of view, part and assembly modelling was not the ideal environment for concept work. It was too restrictive and constraing in comparison to simple solid modelling in AutoCAD.

Also, our range of product is vast with many variations of many components that all interrelate. We found that if we tried to incorporate all the relationships between components, the system would get tied in a knot endlessly trying to update everything whenever a change was made. The only way round this was to break all the relationships which defeated the point of using Inventor in the first place.

Message 4 of 79
JDMather
in reply to: peterm

Sounds to me like an ideal environment for a trained Inventor user.


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Message 5 of 79
mcgyvr
in reply to: JDMather


@Anonymous wrote:

Sounds to me like an ideal environment for a trained Inventor user.


With the key word there being "trained"..

 

 

 



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Message 6 of 79
waynefisher
in reply to: peterm

Hi Peter,

I would have to agree with JD's comment below. Have you or anyone in your company received Inventor training? It sounds to me that Inventor is the correct solution for your environment. Again, I have used Inventor in both furniture and now metal (flood gates) fabrication and have found it to be the perfect tool. It allows me to build anything, export it and allow the architect's to import our models directy into their Revit models of the buildings. If you need any help, perhaps I could point you in the right direction. Using the parameter functions you can create one ipt file which will hold all of your paramters for your assembly, then linking each part to the ipt file you can control the entire assembly size, ect. Using iLogic you can create rules and interfaces to assist in development. iAssemblies and iParts, again great things, you just need to know how to use them.

Message 7 of 79
Ray_Feiler
in reply to: 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."

 

If I understand you correctly here, you should be able to install and activate Inventor 2011 or 2012 depending on when you canceled your subscription at no cost to you. You do not have to run the latest version in order to learn and take advantage of Inventor capabilities over AutoCAD.


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Message 8 of 79
JDMather
in reply to: waynefisher


@waynefisher wrote:

.....Using the parameter functions you can create one ipt file which will hold all of your paramters for your assembly, then linking each part to the ipt file you can control the entire assembly size, ect. Using iLogic you can create rules and interfaces to assist in development. iAssemblies and iParts, again great things, you just need to know how to use them.


....or you could use it exactly like you are using AutoCAD, except much easier to use in my opinion.   All of the advanced stuff in Inventor doesn't have to be used to make it a significantly better experience than using AutoCAD.  It really can be used directly as an AutoCAD replacement.  It is at the core, simply a CAD program. But now I find it painful to model a simple cube in AutoCAD. But there was I time when I was far more comfortable using AutoCAD than Inventor.  The simple stuff is easier in Inventor than it was in AutoCAD and the advanced stuff simply isn't possible in AutoCAD. 

 

I have seen enough stuff like this

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Inventor-General/How-to-create-a-curved-ramp/td-p/5076056

or this

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?86817-Problem-dimensioning-a-drawing

in several different CAD programs, that I shudder to think how much effort it would take to diagnose the same types of error in design logic in AutoCAD.  I have observed what I think is a pretty solid estimate that about 90% of anyCAD users do not really  understand at a very basic level what they are doing.


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Message 9 of 79
peterm
in reply to: waynefisher

Hi Wayne,

 

Two of us had a week's basic training followed by a week of advanced training.

We went through all the ipart and iassembly stuff and started experimenting with it.

Much of our product has a lot of "if-then" dependencies. The number and complexity of the relationships became too much to keep track of. It would be impossible to hold assemblies of every product in every variation (literally millions) and so it was difficult to make sure all components were updated whenever a change was made. I'm sure our technical office would have more to say on the issue.

The AutoCAD reseller went through the whole process with us and admitted that the old Inventor was not capable of doing what we wanted which was why we looked into updating everything. Unfortunately the price was far too high.

Message 10 of 79
JDMather
in reply to: peterm


@PeterM wrote:

Hi Wayne,

Much of our product has a lot of "if-then" dependencies. The number and complexity of the relationships became too much to keep track of. It would be impossible to hold assemblies of every product in every variation (literally millions) and so it was difficult to make sure all components were updated whenever a change was made. ....


If you are doing with AutoCAD - it is not possible that it cannot be done in exactly the same way with Inventor.

And with the right experience, done far more efficiently.

 

I have seen this story many times over.  I know how it ends.
I also know how it could have ended.


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Message 11 of 79
peterm
in reply to: Ray_Feiler

Hi Ray,

 

Yes, we have two seats of 2011 installed. We just don't use it.

Message 12 of 79
peterm
in reply to: JDMather

Hi JD,

 

I agree with you as far as modelling goes, but Inventor 2011 just could not create the 2D production drawings in the way we needed them. Even the Autodesk reseller agreed on this point.

Part of the problem was that the drawing office all work on AutoCAD LT. They produce the production drawings and machine programs for the factory floor. Inventor 2011 couldn't produce a dwg file that could be edited in LT.

From a design and modelling point of view, Inventor 2011 doesn't have the block modelling capabilities that are useful in concept design. It only has the assembly environment which is too restrictive and cumbersome.

I'm convinced that the latest Inventor can do everything we need, but the cost is just too high.

Message 13 of 79
JDMather
in reply to: peterm


@PeterM wrote:

Hi JD,

 

.... Even the Autodesk reseller agreed on this point.

..


Frankly, I have no interest in the Autodesk reseller opinions.

I have read this story a hundred times over.  Cary on with what you know.


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Message 14 of 79
waynefisher
in reply to: peterm

Peter,

Not knowing what it is that you are designing, it is hard for me to comment. However, I can say that I have not found yet anything that was not possible. I think a lot of it has to do with the bad experience you have already had. I know once the mind-set is in place it is hard to change. Case in point, my superiors though it was a good idea to invest in SW. Thinking thay there was some type of "magic" that it possessed. I took the class training, used it on a couple of small jobs and chronically complained about how it was not the tool we needed. I of course was dead set on using Inventor. My mind was already made up before even starting out. I know SW is an equal tool to Inventor, but that did not matter, it was DOA....

Message 15 of 79
peterm
in reply to: JDMather

Sorry if I sound negative.

Even with training and technical support from the experts at the training centre it was not possible to produce drawings in the correct format for the drawing office to use.

Message 16 of 79
peterm
in reply to: waynefisher

Wayne,

 

I'm certainly not knocking Inventor. I think it beats everything else hands down.

The point I made initially is that I believe that Inventor 2015 is the right tool for us and can do everything we need it to do.

Unfortunately we were sold Inventor Series 7 - 2011 which doesn't work for us and the cost of upgrading is beyond our reach.

I just wanted to see if anyone else had experienced a similar situation where software had been mis-represented as the solution to all problems.

 

Incidentally, we manufacture office furniture for the UK market.

Message 17 of 79
JDMather
in reply to: peterm


@PeterM wrote:

Sorry if I sound negative.

Even with training and technical support from the experts at the training centre it was not possible to produce drawings in the correct format for the drawing office to use.


It is unfortunate to make that kind of investment and not see the proper return on the investment.  I understand the frustration.

Even more frustrating, I would wager with the proper support - you would be singing the same praise as the others here rather than lamenting that, "... it was not possible to produce drawings in the correct format ..."

It could have been used in conjunction with AutoCAD.

I know of no real difference in Inventor, (there are significant differences in AutoCAD) from 2011 to 2015 that would impact your story.  The key would have been proper implementation of Inventor (perhaps with AutoCAD).


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Message 18 of 79
peterm
in reply to: JDMather

Yes, I believe the new version of Inventor can integrate seamlessly with AutoCAD. This was not the case a few years ago.

Message 19 of 79
brian.cranston
in reply to: peterm

This started as a response to the OP but morphed into general advice for anyone looking at new CAD software....

 

Resellers are sales people.  Their job is to sell you stuff.  I joke with them that it's just like buying a car..."What can I do to put you in this CAD seat today?" You have to know what you're buying and understand all the options and costs.  Honestly, I don't think it's fair to put this all on the reseller. A pilot project should have discovered the issues that prevented its use. I've done major CAD buys at two different companies and each time we spent months testing usage to really understand what we wanted and what we were really getting. 

 

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.

 

Last word of advice, just like car dealers, CAD resellers and CAD software companies have sales goals and ends to fiscal quarters.  Figure out when that is and you might be surprised at the deals you can make.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Brian Cranston

CAD Admin

LSI Industries

Message 20 of 79
Ray_Feiler
in reply to: peterm

I still have Inventor 2012 and AutoCAD Mechanical 2012 installed and you can create drawings of Inventor models with AutoCAD Mechanical 2012 but I'm not sure about 2011, sorry. Good luck with what ever you decide. Smiley Happy


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