Use Multiple Years of Swks? Why?

What are your reasons behind use of prior years of SolidWorks
releases?

Bo

 

Customers requirements mostly

 

"What are your reasons behind use of prior years of SolidWorks
releases?"

We often modify our customers files. If the customer does not have the
latest version of SolidWorks it's often easier for me to use their
version so they can review the feature tree.

 

Yep,
Customers, I got 1 client who uses SWX 2004 and another on 2006, the
rest are either on 2007 or don't have CAD

Kev

 

Performance.
You take a hit in performance with each new release. If you have
thousands of legacy files and find it impractical to convert them you
take a performance hit. If you create new files you may also find a
performance hit.

Customer's needs.
The customer is always right. If you can't deal with the customer's
files you won't get very far with them unless you can do something
nobody else can.

If you work a few years back it is no problem to move a model forward
for the customer and for you. By working in an older version you can
cover a larger spectrum of customer's unless you are doing bleeding
edge stuff.

Training.
I find that the majority of SW users simply don't take advantage of
the new features in each new release. This is more true of long term
users and less true of new users. If you go through essentials
training there is very little from release to release that is new,
i.e., from the latest release and not in previous releases. Given that
most users are on the level of Essentials users there is really not a
big motivation to move up.

 

I might say "Right on TOP!"... No one else mentioned the performance
issues until you raised it.

There are also indeed the vast majority of work that doesn't need
bleeding edge features as you noted. Machine design and a great lot
of consumer product design doesn't really need the latest surfacing.

I found it very interesting that the Apple iPhone (which was derided
by many "journalists" & well known CEOs of competing companies from
Microsoft to Palm) looks, feels, and works like I expect a cell phone
to do, and does everything it does darn well, and could still be
modeled (as I did) in an early release of SolidWorks with no problem.
With a Bluetooth earpiece (noise cancelling), I rarely fiddle with the
phone itself.

Good design is design that works.

Bo

 

We're too busy working on the new designs to go through the often painful
process of converting the old designs to the new software.

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems
"take the garbage out, dear"

 

Jerry, indeed that is the proverbial "Quality Control/Quality
Assurance" problem that plagues some companies today when trying to
meet FDA or other stringent traceability & guarantees for
compatibility. Change something and then we have to guarantee
"everything" is perfect.

Unfortunately it doesn't always work that way with 3D CAD file
updating.

The time required to verify can be enourmous. I have even given up a
couple times and remodeled some parts from scratch to make them work
right.

Bo

 

"The time required to verify can be enourmous."

How much time would be saved if the SolidWorks Feature Tree made
understanding a model that you didn't build easier to dissect?

 

Perfomance changes from one release to the next are a mixed bag. Some
things aare slower, some things are faster. For example, working with
drawings took a jump in speed for us on 2006. Insertion of library features
took a speed jump for 2007.

Not all of the enhancements are focused on surfaces. Enhancements in 06/07
wrt to annotations in models and drawings have been beneficial to me in the
broad category of "machine design". I think the issue of performance and
enhancements from one release to the next needs to be evaluated on a per-
user basis. I have not seen a release since starting in 99 that did not
have more positives than negatives.

 

Well, SWks plans to drop some of the extra items like Mold Flow
Express soon, as I recall, so there are some items than may go missing
as we go forward with releases.

Bo

 

Absolutely. One man's meat is another man's poison

We were happy to upgrade at every chance from 98+ through 2001+. We then
held out till 2004 and then 2006. Now we seem to be back in the groove with
2007 and expecting to switch fairly soon after 2008 comes out.

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems
"take the garbage out, dear"

 

Basically,...
Each version has features which each client either can tolerate or
fits needs for their use and we as designers/groups have to support
their needs. (some clients are smart with staying with the stable
releases and some are not.)
And, then, there are the new clients or should I say, new start-ups
who buy the latest release (because they want the latest version to
brag to someone they have the latest...blah, blah,..) and we support
designers/groups have to support their needs. (NOT always FUN! And, I
have total proof on at least 2 projects using SW2007, which I lost a
lot of time/money!)
This is the way it has always been,.... it just gets worse when
software becomes chaotic buggy BLOATWARE and the QA around that
software, like SolidWorks, becomes a next release promise company
fixing and breaking code. (GREAT BUSINESS MODEL!!!!!!!!???????)

... (that is, it's time to look at alternatives to stay alive..)