Hello all,
The company I'm at will be switching most of its CAD over to PTC products (i.e. Creo) and I have been looking into our options for electrical CAD. I had not been able to find much info on compatibility between Creo/Windchill and SWE or a suitable alternative in the PTC software suite. However, my manager recently came across elecworks for PTC Creo ... which looks exactly like SWE. After some searching we found out that SWE was originally a white-labeled elecworks. So now I'm wondering if SWE is still the same as elecworks or would at least be easily compatible. Does anyone know how similar they are and how easy it would be to migrate from SWE to elecworks for PTC Creo?
Thank you!
Justin, the answer is both yes and no.
First, TraceWorks created ElecWorks and it was sold as a SOLIDWORKS partner product (some of my customers even had their VAR's come in and do joint demos, etc.) before anyone ever heard about SOLIDOWRKS Electrical. It was 100% a partner product.
Second, SOLIDWORKS "liked the product" and "wanted to have some kind of electrical offering to compete with AutoCAD Electrical, so they did some kind of "strategic licensing" with TraceWorks.
Third, and here's where I'm not 100% certain what's happening, something went sour and somehow SOLIDWORKS kinda took over, basically everything. Louis Feinstein (SR. Manager Portfolio Management : IoT, ECAD and Mechatronic Solutions) told me that they have a team of developers at SOLIDWORKS who re-wrote the application "from the ground up, the right way". If you notice right after SOLIDWORKS "partnered" with TraceWorks it was "sell sell sell!", then things were really quiet for a few years and now it's back to Sell SEll SELL!". SOLIDWORKS knew the product wasn't ready for prime time and did what it took to make it better.
Specific to your PTC integration question, I really don't know. If TraceWorks is still selling ElecWorks, I would be very suspect as I have it on good authority SOLIDWORKS re-wrote the application. I'm doubtful they gave it back to TraceWorks so it could be sold to work in conjunction with their competitors software.
I'm not a user myself, but I have customers who use it, and I'm told the software today is quite good. But it's had a long and rough road. I know SOLIDWORKS has big plans for the platform (being SQL based, no mechanical CAD except for the SOLIDWORKS integration), thinking about some kind of P&ID, pneumatics/hydraulics, etc.
I also know the SOLIDWORKS VAR's are being pushed and financially motivated to sell SOLIDWORKS Electrical, so once it gets a decent reputation for working (which it does not currently have), I suspect you'll see more of a CAD/Electrical integration marketing campaign.