Hello,
I am new to SWE and have just over six months experience using the program. Previously my company used Visio, then transitioned to Autocad for all our electrical drawings. Our Mechanical team uses Solidworks so it made sense at the time make the transition to SWE, unfortunately the program is not very impressive. It seems like its geared toward industrial systems, and we deal with mobile systems that require the use of harnessing and connectors (not cable glands or main electrical cabinets!!!). Does anyone use SWE for mobile systems such as automotive or commercial trucks?
I used the system for a year as an electrical designer in aerospace. We installed surveillance equipment onto already built aircraft, including monitors, flight computers, audio systems, cameras, radar, and so on. I used the 2D schematic creation exclusively as we didn't have the aircraft models from the manufacturers to route in 3D.
That being said, I was actually very impressed with the reports tool. I was able to quickly create three key reports, highly customized for their purpose. I created a "build-to BOM", a purchasing BOM, and a wire labels report. It was also very easy to make design changes and to re-use other designs.
But I agree, the tool was obviously created with industrial systems in mind, and therefore has lots of powerful features and capabilities for that specific industry. I feel like I was always creating custom processes and work-arounds as I designed, due to the fact that the tool was not designed with aerospace in mind. It is powerful enough that you can get it to do what you need, it just isn't full of automated features that make life easier for those first setting up and learning the tool outside of the industrial systems design world.
SWE 2016 has added an entire new level of equation control, which should prove to be extremely powerful and functional for any industry. The equations can now be programmed with concepts beyond integers, such as "IF" and "THEN" statements. I can see this being utilized very often, in any and all industries.
If you have any specific questions with SWE and how I used it, feel free to post them here or, if you prefer, you can PM me.
Good luck!