Justifying PDMworks?

Our budget is pretty tight as far as little extras like software and
stuff goes, but we're going to try to get PDMworks for SWX to make our
lives at work a little more managable.

But, our "VAR" is offering one day “on-site customization and training”
for $800. In Solidworks sales literature they claim a “minimum of
techincal support and virtually no customization effort".

Just how big a job is it to set up PDMworks? How can I justify to the
higher-ups $800 for what they're going to do? What *are* they going to
do for $800?

This $495 add-on is going to cost almost $2400 for two people with
training and everything!

Thanks

 

If you don't have a real good idea of how you manage files the one day
customization might be a waste of time. I would read what I could from
people like Matt Lombard and from the help and SW forum before ever
having the VAR on site. Once you know what you want it to do, give the
VAR a heads up on what you expect. Oh, and also peruse the SW PDMWorks
forum real good.

And of course find out from others whether the VAR is any good at PDM.

 

If they know what they're doing, that's a bargain. But if they knew
what they were doing, they'd charge twice that. I would charge you
$1000/day, but it would take two days to do installation, admin training
and walk you through the decision making process as well as some basic
end user training.

Helping companies implement PDMWorks is one of the things I do. I've
done quite a bit of it and have experience with other PDM packages. It
sounds to me like these people may be doing a "this is how you turn it
on, this is how you get stuff in it" sort of drive-by approach. You
probably need at least some administrator training and best practice
type of advice, particularly if you've never used PDM before.

By the sounds of your grumbling about these very low prices, I'd guess
you don't have much exposure to PDM.

PDMWorks is pretty basic to install, and easy to configure. The problem
is, if you don't have experience with it, you may have to learn some of
the finer points by trial and error, which is usually 10x as expensive
as just getting someone who knows to show you.

And then there's Toolbox, libraries, templates, etc. And what to do
about Lifecycle. You have to make sure you have a filenaming scheme
which will fit with PDMW, and network/server/storage space. And a rev
scheme that you can boil down to rules which PDMW can handle. What do
you do with custom properties? How is your data organized?
Permissions? Any non-SW users need to see the files? Want to store
non-SW data? What are the main problems you're trying to solve by
getting a PDM product?

Yeah, pushing the buttons is simple, but you have to know which buttons
to push, and most importantly why.

In the scheme of things, that's money well spent.

Matt Lombard
www.dezignstuff.com

 

If you look @ www.proxicad.com you will have everything you need to
manage yours Solidworks Files and more,...
You can create in real time
PDF's, E-Files, DXF's, Revision Folders, you never replace the fine you
will need in a future...
You got see SolidReflection, is very easy and you can run overnite or
in realtime...

 

I *think* we have a pretty good system in place, considering, and it looks
like our scheme will fit into pdmw, but...

Are the Help files available anywhere? I looked around the swx site, but
didn't find anything.

Thanks

 

I don't begrudge a person noting his product, but if you are going to
discuss add-ons for SolidWorks software, being with a vendor, there are
some things you must do to look & sound professional.

1. Get someone to represent your company who can write GREAT &
complete English sentences.
2. Stay on topic in the newsgroup and don't blather advertising bullet
points.
3. Be able to explain the subtleties
4. Become a SolidWorks Partner to gain credibility
5. Don't release anything until your website is up and running
professionally
6. Be prepared to tell us where the company is located & why we should
believe in it. You certainly do not tell us on the website.