DriveWorks who uses it?
This is the kind of thing that happens with a poor plan regarding DriveWorks. And David even says that they will have the very same problem with how to set it up. I don't know CPQ but the odds that it will drive SolidWorks models as well as DriveWorks does is small. And taking the automation out that can help engineering is a mistake.
We use it a lot. It's really only limited by your imagination.
You must have a really good project plan and stick to it. Roll your project out in phases. Start with a good consultant that can help with that plan and get you to where you want to be. Make your unicorns and rainbows list and the path to get there.
DriveWorks Pro gives additional benefits like Running SOLIDWORKS Model and Drawing macros on Demand or Queued (as per the requirement). With this, DriveWorks can easily execute the Macros on components or drawing created by the DriveWorks. For an instance, if we have a macro that deletes all the failed unnecessary features that should be run after generating the models and drawings from the DriveWorks, Pro will automatically run the macro without any human intervention and save the updated models and drawings in predefined directory. Adding to that, Pro makes running of additional tasks like Auto Balloon, Arrange Dimensions, rescale etc. on the fly.
We are using Driveworks Pro 16 from last 3 years. we work for our key client who are leading manufacturer of metal door and frame. There are more than 50 different products in door and frame. Earlier we engineer door and frame manually it will take 1.5 hour per item. We have configure all the products in driveworks and now to generate single item it will take hardly 5-10 min. Driveworks can use by the company who have a custom product and need drawings to manufacture.
like their slogan says, "it's for designs that are the same but different". i have made countless demos with all kinds of companies. the point is that you don't have to automate the grand scheme of things. automate the tedious time hogging processes that are repetitive. i.e. before working for a reseller, i worked on huge tank farms, we automated many things including ladders, stairs, catwalks all to OSHA code by just specifying a length parameter and where it will be placed. everything else was in the rules I built in collaboration with my structural engineer and compliance teams.
really cool tool. one of my customers even used its ease of making input forms to create a PTO request from for their HR. im not saying to strictly use it for these extra things, but when you have the ability, it's easy to just make a new project. Automating SOLIDWORKS is only one sliver of what DriveWorks can do and organizations quickly find themselves using it for way more than what they thought they would.
Francisco Guzman | CSWS-DMA
GoEngineer
We used to use it. But it took way to long to populate all of our parts into it. Think part of the problem was the way they did it. They made a copy of the parts they were using and attached mate planes to it. So if the original parts were modified those the Drive works parts were not.
Also not sure what they did but for the last couple of months the drawing that drive works created were crashing. They lost their link to the model.
We are going to something called CPQ. But will have the very same problem how to set it up. Sure hope they use the Original parts not a copy. We are going to be hiring somebody to come in and set this up.