Quality of Software - Survey

I've been involved in a discussion for some time with some people at the executive level with SolidWorks. We don't see eye to eye on what I perceive as ongoing issues with SolidWorks. The executive in question does not feel that my concerns are representative of mainstream machinery designers using SolidWorks and said to me "the preponderance of customers are extremely satisfied with the level of quality of software and service provided by SolidWorks"

Now I'm wondering how it's possible that I'm one of a few that feels that SolidWorks software and service quality is poor. The software speaks for itself. The support service, although usually prompt, rarely actually results in a bug being addressed. In fact there are problems with SolidWorks that have persisted for the 10 years that I've been using the software.

So, I'm looking for some comments to see who agrees or disagrees with the statement "the preponderance of customers are extremely satisfied with the level of quality of software and service provided by SolidWorks".

TIA

Reply to
devlin
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What points in particular do you disagree on?

Service sucks, as it does for all software. I've never had a problem that SW support could solve.

Reply to
That70sTick

I am also one of the dis-satisfied CAD managers along with 10 users. Your case may be similar as we are now pushing the software beyond its initial capabilities. This really has to do with SolidWorks target customers. In my case, we are not them (sounds like you are there beside me). Due to lack of acceptable support i have been looking at other software and up-front giving them a needs and wants listing. i am willing to share mine if you would like. In the CAD review i have

2 mid range cost survivors (wildfire base $5K and Inventor base $5K) and 2 higher cost survivors (Catia base $12K and NX base $12K). All of these go up from there but i am amazed on the Wildfire cost breakdown as it stands today, their high end is about $12K for everything, and the product looks very good and capable. I hate to think that we will have to go through training cycles again but we have to be productive with our tool. The quality of our current tool is less than likeable in many areas and as i see newer releases i cringe on what will not work this time. I am getting closer to a change over, probably around mid year, this year. iQ
Reply to
iQ

The discussion started after upgrading to SW 2008 where I discovered that it's not only slower but buggier and crashes more. From there my rants have included the failure of SolidWorks to address some bugs that have existed for years, lack of true functionality in Weldments (steel profiles missing, inability to resolve weld beads around irregular forms, no means of accomodating material cut size gaps, etc. etc.) Inability of SolidWorks to add to the Toolbox (it's been unchanged in eons), missing standard threads in Hole Wiz (UNEF, Buttress thread callouts, ACME etc.) Ongoing "Failed to Save" issues. Plate steel shape thickness changing arbitrarily in SW 2008, display issues I did not have before, The usual ongoing beefs from ages ago, no parametric link between a view label and it's scale for example. I could go on and on and have. The official SW response is that SW rocks and I'm on the fringe of users if I'm having this many problems.

It bugs the hell out of me that they add crap like the crinkly paper effect in SW 2008 and spend money on iPods for everyone at SW world but can't be bothered to add UNEF threads to the hole wiz or update the weldment profiles. It's clear where there priorities lie.

I myself have never had a true bug solved by SW, I get SPR numbers though which are real handy for nothing!

Reply to
devlin

We are also looking at switching and the two packages that are being considered are Pro/E and Wildfire. A previousl employer of mine that was a larger SolidWorks customer migrated to Pro/E. I'd be interested in discussing this further with you if possible. Drop me a line at devlin at terramax machine (all one word) dot com.

Thanks

Reply to
devlin

I meant to say Pro/E and Inventor.

Reply to
devlin

The old "Silent" majority vs. "Vocal" minority argument....LOL.

I would not classify myself in the "extremely satisfied" group. Over all I am happy with the performance of SolidWorks, it does what I need and reacts how I expect (not many surprises).

There is room for improvement as is the case with any product. I work with large assemblies so "I" would not choose SolidWorks as my preferred CAD software however SolidWorks is the product we have and it works.

There are two reasons "I" would choose not to purchase SolidWorks:

1) Working primarily with Large Assemblies 2) Backwards and forward compatibility

Tom

Reply to
brewertr

The level of quality was extremely satisfactory in 99 (feature completeness was not). Service seems to vary from VAR to VAR. Our first VAR was very responsive... they went out of business.

I think that there must be a large number of users who just go to work and then go home without caring how much of their time is wasted, or else they are only casual users.

I would love to see actual survey data concerning customer satisfaction for all the major CAD players. But a proper survey is probably too expensive to undertake for anyone actually interested in the results.

Myself, I'm sliding more and more toward CAD-quality fatalism. CAD sucks, I'm going back to work.

Reply to
Dale Dunn

Beats standing at a drafting board all day, day in and day out.......

Reply to
brewertr

I've been using SW since version 97 and I have to say.... I really love using it and it really is great seeing just how much it's changed over the years in terms of functionality.

Now, before the eye rolling begins, this is not to say that its without its fair share of flawS. if there's one thing I know form using it more than 10 years it's this. SOLIDWORKS HAS ITS FLAWS!!!! But I have never heard of perfect CAD software of any version by any name. It's the question of how much progression do we want vs stability? I guess the other hypothetical question is how much imperfection along with progression is the perfect balance? Who knows..... everyone has different opinions about this.

Anyways, I seem to be going on a tangent here.

For anyone, including top Sw exectutives that believe there are no ongoing issues\problems, let me say this...

THEY HAVE NOT USED SOLIDWORKS IN A PRODUCTION ENVIROMENT WITH BOSSES, DUE DATES, TIMELINES, CHANGES, REVISIONS,ETC... FOR A LONG PEROID OF TIME.

Sitting down to model a tutorial or work with it for a week means absolutely nothing.

Come talk to me when they have concepted, modeled, designed, detailed, released, prototyped, redesigned, changed, and then updated models and drawings again for release. My point is it's actually using solidworks in a work enviroment is where you'll begin to completely understand where the users are coming from.

Well, I guess I ranted long enough. I have coworkers that have been using Solidworks for years with questions like these sometimes daily\weekly

1) I'm working on this assembly and drawings and get a "A component is in Rollback position" error. How do I fix this?

2) Why am I getting a "Failed to save document" error How do I fix this?

3) Why don't my cosmetic threads display correctly in my drawing? How do I fix this?

4) Why don't my Datums in drawings stay put? How do I fix this?

5) Why can't I reattach a dangling dimension in a drawing? How do I fix this?

6) I get a "No bodies are selected in feature scope" when creating holes. I have bodies selected. How do I fix this?

7) Why is it everytime I load an assembly "lightweight" something doesn't work properly or drawings aren't right? How do I fix this?

8) Why do my hole callouts sometimes not give me the abiltiy to change the precision on certain values? How do I fix this?

9) Why did this feature fail.... It worked the last time I opened this file? How do I fix this?

10) WHY IS IT WE WASTE SO MUCH TIME DURING THE DAY TRYING TO ANSWER QUESTIONS LIKE THESE WHEN USING SOLIDWORKS!!!! ;)

PLZ forward this to any exectutive and I will galdly be available to answer any of his\her questions.

Don Norgren Automotive

Reply to
dvanzile3

Don, I feel your pain with the numbers of other users.

I did want to add one other item.

Why will SolidWorks corp. or VAR's share their expertise in the usage of their software and come out to users sites and see the pain that we are in? A simple trip to a users location could itentify and solve users issues when emails and phone chats will not! I am not talking about the small issues, but the issues that we cannot resolve in a phone call or ten. You need to see how we are using your software and why we are doing it the way that we are doing to provide help. Help is all that we are asking for, not a phone call/email run around. iQ

Reply to
iQ

Very displeased here!

It should be illegal to sell a product under false pretense then charge for the service packs to fix the faulty product.

The upgrades/new releases should have an upgrade fee but not the service packs that fix a faulty product. The fixes should be part of the original purchased product.

Sounds like a good class action law suit to me.

Joseph

Reply to
Joseph

This has been my feeling as you and others expressed. You guys see it a lot more because you have a large crew of SolidWorks users who remind you every day when something goes wrong.

Large software companies often send their people into their customers facilities to work with them for weeks to verify what the actual operating environment on the ground is seeing. I haven't heard of SolidWorks doing anything like that, but I think it would give them enourmously valuable feedback.

I'm using 2006, though I paid for the 2007 upgrade, and I just can't justify starting use of 2008 early on in the year. Experience has told me not to upgrade at least until Summer, as I can't afford the inefficiency.

I hope SolidWorks personnel might take some advice from a few people with better business management sense than me:

  1. Peter Drucker: "The bottleneck is always at the top of the bottle." =2E...........There must be direction from the CEO & Board, or nothing is likely to change.
  2. Warren Buffett: "The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective." =2E...........If there is no willingness to use a simple onsite customer audit, there is likely little change to come.
  3. Steve Jobs: "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." =2E...........If there is no true understanding of "how it works." in real customer's hands, there will be no true Software Design improvement.

I want to see SolidWorks improve in usability. I can easily face a year without new features. I simply think major upgrades every year is too intensive to properly debug before giving it to users and then users having to relearn and do workarounds too much. It is a mess. Neither Apple, Adobe or Microsoft give yearly upgrades to their major software.

Yearly major upgrades appear to me to be an item forced by the Board of Directors demands for increasing sales each year & the CEO and CFO structure "major upgrades" yearly to meet the Board's demands.

I think it is nearly impossible to do a yearly major release and get it bug free enough to be truly a first class product. I would vote for a 2 year cycle, but of course a CEO who tried that would likely cause the CEO to be fired.

Reply to
Bo

My biggest gripe lately is how SW boogered up the search path sequence for finding components. Used to be (pre-2006) that SW went through each folder in the search path list before wandering off elsewhere. NOW SW looks in the first folder, wanders all over the place before getting to the #2 folder in the list. This makes it more likely that SW will find the WRONG version of a file.

I do work for a lot of small companies that need to make do without PDM. A sound search structure is vital for this to happen. All but impossible now.

I'm surprised more people aren't complaining about this.

Reply to
That70sTick

LOL........straight from the mouth of an inexperienced beginner....

"I'm trying to finish The SolidWorks Bible" - Jon Banquer - Aug 8,

2007

"I just spent $600 for the SolidProfessor Professional Bundle SolidProfessor pretty much adheres to a 100 percent hands on tutorial approach. So far I'm very happy with the SolidProfessor video tutorials and feel it's money well spent. " - Jon Banquer - June 25,

2007

"I've been away from SolidWorks for almost ten years. At this point I spend the majority of my day on SolidWorks 2007. The program has changed so much in ten years that I'm still way behind where I need to be." -Jon Banquer - Aug. 26, 2007

Reply to
brewertr

Unlike you Jon, I use the software on a daily basis in a production environment. Since you are a beginner Jon I expect you to have problems and encounter issues that I am long past.

All you do Jon is pose as an expert, parrot what you read, post your crib notes, copy and paste advertisements, buzzwords from others. I haven't seen you post original content so if you're having specific problems or issues post them to this group and ask for help.

Tom

Reply to
brewertr

You lost?

Some SOB (Son Of Boss) who never had a real job other than working for his dad, no experience, no education in CAD or CAM or CAD/CAM that bought into your clueless line of BS.

I have never seen middle ground with SOB's, they are great or terrible. Great SOB's are trained well, from the ground up, education and work experience. Or they are like your's, given everything and earned nothing, an absolute disaster, no training, education or talent. The one that hired you will most likely bankrupt the company if left alone and not closely supervised by his dad.

Tom

Reply to
brewertr

LOL...........

Please post specific examples to support your claim.

Tom

Reply to
brewertr

Where do I work? Who do I work for? I pretend that I know what I do but my enployer soon discover the truth and I am again out the door, do, Brewer. Cliff Huprich also has shown repeatedly that all I can do is lie. Most of the time I am unemployed. I wouldn't dare reveal either my present or past employers (and there have been many).

Brewer, I'm no expert at SolidWorks. My help is often so bad that posters I tried to help e-mailed you because I couldn't explain the simplest concept without confusing them. My comments on SolidWorks have never been published by anyone because I simply have nothing of value / worthwhile to say. Does "being published" mean leaving my comments on a blog? (I think it does.)

Irrelevant:

"Jon, I never forgot any of your postings about SDRC I made the wrong decision in spite of what you said. =A0There have been a number of times that my Wife has told me to be careful in dealing with someone and after words says "I told you so". =A0 She earned the right to say it as well as you have earned the right to say I TOLD YOU SO. =A0I made a decision that went against my better judgment and as usual it turned out poorly." ... a Tom Brewer statement from years ago (but I pretend it is relevent).

Irrelevant:

"I do not purchase programs unless I know before hand that they are what I want and/or need."... Tom Brewer follows his own advice. See above.

Intelligent:

Tom Brewer knowing he and his pals like Joe788 can show that I lie on a repeated basis and suffer no consequences for doing so.

Irrelevant:

"I have shot myself in the foot, =A0not an easy thing to do when it is in your mouth and your head is in your ass."... Tom Brewer admitting that once, many years ago, he made a mistake. (His only real mistake was admitting it to me.)

Intelligent:

Someone who has a proven track record of being able to deal with or accept the kind of change that occurs in the cadcam market... now that's intelligent or should we say that's Tom Brewer.

Intelligent:

Someone who doesn't live in San Diego yet knows there is no shortage of CNC machinists here... now that's intelligent or should we say that's Tom Brewer.

Intelligent:

Someone who criticizes me on SolidWorks but has helped everyone else with specific SolidWorks answers. Someone who is able to answer any questions that "Vinny" had on master modeling or skeletal modeling but chose not to. Someone who has not posted models they have done because there was no need to... now that's intelligent or should we say that's Tom Brewer.

Intelligent:

Tom Brewer understands who Matt Lombard really is. I don't.

Intelligent:

Tom Brewer's able to comprehend what's on the cover of the SolidWorks Bible:

"Whether you're a new, intermediate, =A0...."

Intelligent:

Someone who understands that more than a simple "I love it!" or "I hate it!" type of comment is not always necessary ... now that's intelligent or should we say that's Tom Brewer.

Intelligent:

Tom Brewer implies that because I didn't know that the $25 SolidWorks course covers subjects / topics that the $650 SolidWorks course did that now somehow I am an idiot and got screwed when I decided to purchase the $650 SolidWorks course. He would be right again.

Tom Brewer Writing About SmartCAM:

"I ended up paying a consultant =A0$40.00 per hour for two weeks. It turned out to be a very economical way of getting one-on-one training."

"FYI, =A0when I said "Solid modeling" =A0in reference to SmartCam it was tongue in cheek. What you could not see is that when I was typing that I was laughing to myself. =A0 Anyone that uses SmartCam and Solid Modeling in the same sentence cannot be taken seriously."

Recently Tom Brewer said SmartCAM had no serious interface problems yet the record shows Tom Brewer knows SmartCAM does indeed have some interface problems:

"The only real problem that I run into is that the screen can get cluttered and it becomes difficult to pick and choose elements in Free Form. =A0I just use the utility masking feature to hide what is in the way, that cures the problem but it does add work (I tried the snap filtering and snap options but for me it was not the best way), =A0I have seen other packages that handle picking and choosing in better."

Conclusion:

Tom Brewer knows he's proficient with SolidWorks. A proficient SolidWorks user is someone who shows that I know very little about Solidworks (and almost nothing about everything else).

Jon Banquer San Diego, CA

Reply to
jon_banqueer

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com Topdownbydesign OS Noir Frank Booth, jr dominantjon Mr.X jbtech Clinton Upyers Haywood Jablowme Normand Blais snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com snipped-for-privacy@connix.com jon banquer snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com Brian Winters Johnny Stevenson Joe789 J0e788 Former Heavy Industries Employee, donl517 James Jessup snipped-for-privacy@aol.com Troll Killer

Jon,

Which one of your personalities didn't understand?

Tom

Reply to
brewertr

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