3D training free to unemployed engineers
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Free training is being offered to unemployed engineers by CAD developer SolidWorks. The company sees it as an opportunity for expanding its market by harnessing the time available to acquire additional skills. Dr Tom Shelley reports
Free training is being offered to unemployed engineers by CAD developer SolidWorks. The company sees it as an opportunity for expanding its market by harnessing the time available to acquire additional skills.
According to John McEleney, CEO of SolidWorks, since inception of the idea in the US 12 months ago, about 10,000 engineers have been retrained. SolidWorks simply requests a copy of individuals’ ‘termination notices’, and then links the engineers to a SolidWorks dealer.
In the UK, sales and marketing director Simon Booker says: “We have processed over 172 requests for the retraining program, purely on the back of announcing the scheme. The retraining programme can also be a mechanism to allow engineers to take advantage of SolidWorks 3D design tools, and help them bring their ideas to life, and get funding.”
Interestingly, however, McEleney says many engineers signing up to the scheme in the US turned out to be employed, but working for employers locked into 2D.
So to encourage employees to embrace 3D, and push for adoption in their existing companies, SolidWorks has now rolled out a separate Personal Addition Programme, which he says, may also be extended to the UK. In some cases, the scheme leads to users being given their own personal version, validated for 180 days use.
They’re all attractive options from a company that’s looking good and persuasive in 3D. McEleney claims that his company is bucking the recession and increasing average sale prices by 15% in a market he thought had contracted by 5%.
It’s also good to see that he’s not satisfied with that. “Part assembly and part making are still too complex,” he says. “There needs to be a step function advance in innovation. We are better than the rest but it is still too hard. At present, there aren’t any new visions, only new realities. We need new killer applications.”
And although the SolidWorks suite now includes a sizeable slice of Cosmos analysis software “to bring the right problems to people”, that’s merely a useful – and cost saving – advance. Watch out for more from this innovative stable.
