Boa Systems provides independent design expertise to a diverse
range of industries such as consumer product design, factory automation
and motor sport. Our customers expect high quality results and
the company has always used leading edge CAE tools to deliver
its services. We saw an opening in the market that our services
could fill and it was felt that a 3-D modelling product could
offer us a key advantage.
Time is expensive, and once the decision to go 3-D was made
a survey of the current CAD products was carried out. We looked
at over two dozen products in under 6 weeks. Solid Edge was
one of the first we saw, and impressed so much that it became
the standard against which the competition was judged. We short-listed
5 products, they could all do the job. The final decision was
difficult but Solid Edge appeared best suited to the way we
worked.
It can certainly do the job. We proved that by completing an
electronics packaging exercise within 7 days of receiving the
software (and that's before training). This exercise also proved
the software's productivity and that it would still be useful
after a long break from using it. The latter was very important
as some of our tools will lay idle for several weeks between
uses, especially on large complex projects where mechanical
design may only be a minor role.
Another advantage of Solid Edge was that it enabled us to show
the customer (and the factory) at Barric Ltd exactly what the
product would look like and how it would be built before they
had even ordered the parts for the prototypes. The illustrations
can easily be e-mailed or incorporated into a web page, which
will save us travelling time and costs, even if it does mean
we'll get lazy.
A complex piece of software like Solid Edge will require support
from time to time. It's at these times that a good supplier
will come into their own. Both Cutting Edge and Unigraphics
have acquitted themselves well from the initial discussions.
Now we have Solid Edge in place, Cutting Edge have been there
to answer the few questions that have arisen. We feel confident
that when they cannot deal with a problem directly, or are unavailable,
then Unigraphics will be there as an extra level of support.
This is important to us as some of our customers do expect us
to work long hours to meet tight schedules. At the end of the
day there's no prizes for anyone who fails to get to the grid,
never mind the end of the Grand Prix.
Our thanks to Barric Ltd of Diss, electronic manufacturing
engineers, for allowing us to use their project as an example
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