What is the best software for progression tool design

Bill Beam wrote:

 

I don't necessarily agree that there is a very steep learning curve.

... you could do pretty well with LP3 in a month or two.

You are a funny man Bill.

If it takes me a month or two just to get to pretty well, I call that a steep learning curve.

How long to have Ninja skills with LP3?

Bill, Thanks for you comments. From my research I can fully agree with you.

Management just won't pull the trigger.

I used my very best persuasion skills. Flowers, candy and I even said I love you.

Someday...

I think you got reason..

As you well know Anna, I have much respect for you as do hundreds and yes, perhaps even thousands of people in the SolidWorks community. I don’t recall if I met you first at SolidWorks World (I have attended every single year since 2003 – seventeen years’ worth) or if we first met when I flew down to meet you at Auer Precision and introduced you to Logopress3 roughly 10 or 12 years ago. I don’t have to tell you that the company you work for does some incredible things, some of which can be seen at the company’s home page on the video that starts to show as soon as you get there.

For those that have never met me as Anna has or don’t know me, my name is Ray Proeber and I am the president and founder of Accurate Die Design Software, Inc. My company and my employees have been the face of the Logopress products that are known as Logopress3 in North America since 2005, handling sales, support and training. We started working with Logopress one year before that in 2004.

Much of the work at Auer Precision is beyond the scope of progressive dies and in the third post of this thread you said “…Our strip layout work is typically pretty basic stuff that can be handled with core SolidWorks…” You go on to finish this post saying “…LogoPress3 is who we would go with, if we did...” I thank you for your support Anna.

The fourth post in this thread said: “…one of my previous peers was using Logopress. He loves it still now. It is an add-in for Solidworks and seems to work amazing…” The fifth post in this thread said: “…I've heard great things about Logopress3…” Another post says: “I can personally recommend LogoPress. Their post sales support is fantastic- very responsive … and they are exceptionally detailed in walking through solutions.” And another says: “I can add to the Logopress3 accolades.” And yet another says: “…before I got LP3 I used only solidworks to build dies.  Now that I have LP3 it is absolutely amazing how much time it saves me.”

At the end of this week it will have been exactly two years to the day since you and these other two people wrote these posts with their wonderful comments about Logopress3 that we are very thankful for. In fact, most people would agree that anyone who would have invested in Logopress3 two years ago that designs a fair amount of dies annually, dies of any type, has surely recouped their original investment in the organized system for die design that Logopress3 is. And after that first year or two they will be putting that same money in the bank, year after year.

Skipping ahead two years, in regard to your most recent post that was dated last week Monday, March 11, 2019, I hope you can understand my respectful disagreement with the statement in this post where you say “…this is the major reason we do not use any 3rd party add-ins with SolidWorks.  You may very well end up high and dry when that add-in gets bought out or its creator goes belly up…”

You said this of course in reply to a post that said “Now Logopress was acquired by Autoform....I don't know if it will working with Solidworks on next release.....the reason Autoform doesn't has any solution working on Solidworks (only available for Catia and NX) I has serius [SP] doubt on this fusion...”

Some people might (mistakenly I hope) take your comment to mean that you are suggesting that Logopress may now go belly up or go away since it was sold to AutoForm, a company that is not a competitor to Logopress3 at all. (Their technology is complimentary to be sure, but they are far from having competing products.) Some clarification about Logopress3 running inside of SolidWorks – Logopress3 depends on SolidWorks – it is built on SolidWorks. Logopress3 will not run without SolidWorks.

In fact, later this year Logopress will surely not be belly up but will celebrate its 30^th year in the business of die design software development, which has been their core business since 1989. Logopress was founded nearly 30 years ago by four shareholders:

1) By a die design firm owner
2) By a tool and die company owner
3) By an OEM making press room supplies and equipment
4) By a young engineer with a science degree in micro-mechanical, robotics and CAD by the name of Yves Thizy

After nearly 30 years of the same ownership it was simply the right time for the ownership of the company itself to change hands. For the record, no employees of Logopress have left and I know for sure that there are no plans to get rid of any employees or stakeholders of Logopress. The big thing that has changed is that Logopress now has an even stronger ownership team than it had before, and there is now development knowledge that can be shared back and forth between the developers of Logopress3 and those of AutoForm.

Yves Thizy, the general manager of Logopress (Yves was formerly the managing director/president of Logopress) is a dear friend of mine who, along with a couple of his colleagues just left the U.S. just a couple of weeks ago to head back to France after spending 12 days here in Milwaukee at Accurate Die Design Software. Last month at SolidWorks World I met the new president of Logopress, Dr. Markus Thomma. After knowing Yves for 15 years, and even after only meeting and interacting with Dr. Thomma for only a couple days at SolidWorks World, I know that these are both good people.

Let me share with you a direct quote I received from a die designer that works at a company that is our biggest customer. (The number of Logopress3 die design software licenses that they own is in the double-digits and they also own multiple seats of AutoForm software.) “Congrats! Both very good software.” Weeks later he sent me another unrelated email and he started it by saying “Again I just want to say that the support from both AutoForm and LogoPress3 is terrific!” This customer, as are many others I’m sure, is very clearly excited for what the future will bring!

Finally, I suspect that many if not most that read this next part have not been in the SolidWorks community long enough to realize or hear the facts about the following wonderful company named SolidWorks that was purchased by a much larger company, and what became of it.

SolidWorks Corp. was started in 1993. In 1995 they had a product to sell by the name of SolidWorks. Everyone was very excited. Two years later, in 1997, SolidWorks Corp. was sold to Dassault Systèmes for $310 million in stock. “After only six quarters of product shipment, SolidWorks has [had] over 6,000 installed seats serving over 3,000 customers.” (Dassault Systèmes is and was then a publicly traded company so all of this is public record.) You can read the 1997 Dassault Systèmes press release regarding their aquisition of SolidWorks here.

Everyone was very worried. (Yes, I will admit, even I was worried at the time.) Dassault Systèmes owned CATIA. So of course, it was natural for people to worry that they were buying SolidWorks to get rid of this new direct competition to their CATIA product. Or they were worried that they bought it and would wreck the wonderful thing that was “SolidWorks” that had only been on the market for eighteen months at that point in time.

As of today, SolidWorks has sold over six million seats of software. Last year’s revenue to Dassault Systèmes (again, this is public record) was nearly three quarters of a billion dollars.

I look forward to the future!

Ray Proeber

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For those that want to learn more about Logopress3 there is no better way that to watch some of the dozens and dozens of Logopress3 videos on YouTube at the Accurate Die Design Software YouTube channel or at the videos page of our Accurate Die Design Software web site where the videos are more organized and have more substantial descriptions about what you are about to watch.

I encourage you to check out this page that includes a very complete die design, including strip layout, 3D modeling of the die, all 2D drawings, multiple engineering changes, Logopress3 DIE DEBUGGER, etc.
If you want to see something really cool, then check out several die designs that are running in a virtual press at our Logopress3 DIE DEBUGGER page!

You will likely think these motion simulations (with available dynamic interference detection along with static interference detection) took a long time to set up. They don't! None of this is done with SolidWorks Simulation, it is all done with Logopress3 specific simulation created by Logopress. Check out how easy the setup is for Logopress3 DIE DEBUGGER.

If you only have a minute or two here and there then check out our our many one minute Logopress3 discovery videos.

Michael Fernando wrote:

 

I met Logopress3 team at the SWW19 partner pavilion. They seem to be excited about its AutoForm merge like SW excited about 3DX (3DEXPERIENCE).

Wow, that bad?

I will go to Expomafe in Brasil and talk with people of Autoform, I tried to ask about the future of Logopress and SW or if they are interested on made an add in of Autoform running on SW....