The biggest announcement made by SolidWorks at this year’s SolidWorks World was the upcoming release of SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual, software that enables users to quickly capture and develop their concept ideas digitally to compress cycle time and get products to market faster.
The concept design phase is one of the most important phases of product development; where the majority of project costs are allocated. It is during this phase that designers–along with many design participants–brainstorm innovative product ideas.
Mechanical Conceptual was designed to simplify and streamline this phase, allowing users to develop, confirm and choose the best concepts before moving them to detailed design.
“I used the Concept Archive to investigate and test different ways of developing my idea at the same time. There are quite a few ways I can develop my concept, but my fundamental constraints remain the same,” said William MacLeod, senior engineer, Kennedy Hygiene. “With SOLIDWORKS Mechanical Conceptual, I was able to rapidly produce three or more concept configurations in the time it would take to produce one in conventional 3D CAD solutions. I can quickly iterate on a design and move the selected concept into SOLIDWORKS for final detailing.”
Collaboration key to improving concept development
One of the benefits of the new software is its ability to facilitate collaboration among key stakeholders in the design process. One of the key advantages of the new SOLIDWORKS offering based on Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE Platform is the online collaboration via its built-in cloud capabilities. The social aspect of concept design and decision making is integrated into SOLIDWORKS Mechanical Conceptual’s capabilities.
The four key elements of conceptual design that SOLIDWORKS Mechanical Conceptual is focused on include:
CONCEPTUAL: Users can rapidly create and evolve their concepts the way they want without design barriers, and can automatically capture their ideas to use anytime in the future.
INSTINCTIVE: Users can design the way they think with agile, instinctive design tools in a structureless modeling environment with direct editing.
SOCIAL: Familiar social collaboration tools in the interactive 3DEXPERIENCE environment allow users to harness the collective intelligence of their company, customers and vendors.
CONNECTED: Collaboration is enhanced with automatically saved design iterations to keep data safe, up-to-date and accessible anytime, anywhere.
Pricing and availability
Mechanical Conceptual will be available on April 2. Pricing will be $249/month with an annual commitment. For more information on SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual, check out the company’s web site.
