SolidWorks World 2009 “Tuesday”
Well, today was day 2 of SolidWorks World 2009. I had to ask myself, after yesterday could things get any better? With all the technical content going on in the sessions, SW wouldn’t dare have technical content in the general session….or would they? The session opened with the same really cool video as on Monday an then Fielder Hiss came out and opened up the show. He spoke about how great is was to have Richard Branson on Monday an then he introduced Jeremy Luchini and a video of everyone at the CSWP event from Monday night. Jeremy then introduced Yanack Trembly of Mega brands an they talked about the design intent of the NEO Shifters and how SW played a major part in the quick turn around of the design and getting the product to market. Several annimations of the different characters were shown. Man are those things neat. Fielder then introduced the keynote speaker who happened to be none other than Jon Hirschtick, former CEO and founder of SolidWorks. Jon started out by giving kudos to current SolidWorks management team by saying that they are the best in history of company. John then went on to discuss what he thinks are the future trends in technology.
Touch/motion like Iphone and other touch phones is one trend, the next is online applications such as online banking. He asked the question how about online CAD with hosted server space and applications. Neat futuristic idea. Next trend was video gaming technology such as real time rendering which one type is being used in SW 2009. The last technology trend Jon sees as important is 3D printing. He believes that this trend will continue to grow until engineers are using 3D prints like paper now. After this Jon showed a video excerpt from the new Iron Man movie where Tony Stark is designing Iron Mans suit in virtual 3D space. That would be really nice.
Jon then went into two customer video and live interviews. The first was with NewBalance shoes where their design process for the soles was discussed. Matt Dunbar was introduced and as he spoke with Jon he mentioned that he was wearing prototype shoes made in their engineering department. Really neat surfacing they are doing and especially since the SW tree typically has 1300-1800 features. The next video/interview was with Sony/Ericsson. Vision and market research including trends start 2 years in advance of product release. After they started using SW their design cycle time went down 75% and they product over 4000 rapid prototypes a year. Incredible stories and content. Thanks Jon for giving us what we need to hear.
When Jon left the stage Stephen Endersby was introduced and he started speaking about SW Simulation but was interrupted with game show music and this banner and a Sumo Wrestler:
Jeff Ray then rode out on a pink scooter:
The Sumo Wrestler then rode the scooter and then picked it up and smashed it on the stage:
After the last part of the SW Simulation demo, Fielder spoke about the special event and closed the session. I had several great sessions during the day including one on sheetmetal, an educational session, a PDM strategy session and a working with templates, formats and options session. I picked up several good tips and tricks during the sessions. Tomorrow is day 3 of the main event here at SolidWorks World 2009 and the opening should be good since SW lets the cat out of the bag about SW 2010. As I leave this post I’ll just give you the classic story book conclusion,
The END!
