It is my pleasure to post my one on one interview with Rich Allen, Product Manager, PDM Solutions, SolidWorks Corporation. Rich brings a lot of experience to the PDM Solutions Team.
Rich: I started out as a Mechanical Engineer. I got to go to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. My passion was actually Alternative Energy; Solar and Wind Power, maybe a little early, ahead of our time, the early 1980's.
Devon: Yeah, that was pretty early alright.
Rich: My first job out of college was as a Windmill Engineer. I got to put up Wind Farms in California.
Devon: I've driven though them many times, very impressive!
Rich: I think they're beautiful, all,very importantly, you know, all within the "green" spirit of things. They're helping to reduce our dependence upon foreign oil and all that.
Devon: Fascinating. I've always been a fan of sailboats, sailplanes, airplanes, airfoils and stuff like that. It's very elegant.
Rich: I agree. It was a tough for the time for this industry,it wasn't well funded, oil was a little too inexpensive still; and we'll talk about now, 20 or 30 years later, obviously, Solar and Wind energy are back in vogue. But in the meantime, to stay employed, I stayed with the propeller theme by making helicopters.
Devon: Helicopters!
Rich: Yes, a little more interesting, complex devices.
Devon: Pretty complex, alright.
Rich: Yes, 100,000 to 1,000,000 parts, whatever goes into a certain model. And I was lucky, I got to learn CAD in the early, early days. Yeah, in 1981, when you were running off a 10 million dollar IBM mainframe, it wasn't exactly CAD for the common man. So, Cadam, CATIA, I got to use those, way back. And I was so smitten by it, after about 5 years, I started my own company, and I had an AutoDesk Dealership.
Devon: Interesting, where was it located?
Rich: That was in Connecticut.
Devon: OK
Rich: So I spent a lot of time learning a lot of CAD systems, Document Management, Networking, and all that went around that.
Devon: I am a Document Management junkie. As a matter of fact, I think I was introduced to you a few months ago back in Concord, MA,at SolidWorks HQ; I was taking the PDMWorks Enterprise Training, taught by Joy Garon. You came into the classroom and she introduced you.
Rich: Right, OK.
Devon: I love Data Management.
Rich: It's been a passion of mine for a long time. I've sold 10 different Data Management packages during the past 20 years or so. And it's good, all good experience, it helps in my current role. Just to catch up, after AutoDesk, I spent a little time with CoCreate.
Devon: CoCreate, I used that at Hewlett Packard.
Rich: Well, that was the Hewlett Packard product; One Space SolidDesigner, ME10. Now it's a PTC product, apparently. I spent some time with IBM, with their PLM Solutions Group. And finally, with SolidWorks these last 3 years, Marketing and Product Management.
Devon: SolidWorks has a unique community that I've never seen at any other company.
Rich: I would agree with that.
Devon: I'm always amazed how they can keep it going.
Rich: Yeah, to keep the passion and to keep people excited and loyal as they are is a real testament to the company.
Devon: Yes, for example, just to take a User, like me, and give me the opportunity to become a Blogger, and offer so many opportunities, it's just amazing. I can't think of any other company that I work with, that I can do that with. All the SolidWorks employees just have this great attitude. I've dealt with AutoDesk, CoCreate, and PTC myself and they don't have anything like the SolidWorks Community, in my opinion.
Rich: Each company has it's own culture and I've found SolidWorks' to be the most unique, dynamic, and rewarding.
Devon: As a Consultant/Contractor, I've seen that Data Management, at some companies, carries a huge overhead. A few years ago, I was able to help a medical device company organize their CAD data. I really enjoyed that experience. I first became interested in SolidWorks Data Management when I met Joy Garon at a SolidWorks Explorer BreakOut Session at 2003 SolidWorks World, Las Vegas. I really appreciated her attitude and willingness to discuss SolidWorks Data Management. This year, I'm giving the 2008 SolidWorks Explorer Hands On Session. So, I really like stuff like that. So, what's your point of view?, from the other side of the fence, when it come to Data Management.
Rich: Well, I think the challenge is to get Data Management to be Mainstream. To do that, obviously, it has to be easy to use, just like SolidWorks, it has to be fast to implement, it can't be too scary for management, it has to show a quick Return On Investment. I think most upper level management is going to be apprehensive about a 5 year deployment and would prefer a 3 month simple PDM deployment. And the good news is that PDM can ,and should be, very fast. We would like to see Users get a ROI within the first year, ideally. And that's good for those that have to sign the checks. So, that's really our trick, to take the fear factor out of it, to not get it confused with perhaps a more complex PLM type system installation, or ERP installation. I think a lot of companies know maybe they're important, maybe they're necessary, but their factor of scale is much more complex, perhaps more that implementing PDMWorks.
Devon: I do a lot of medical device work and I've been trained in Agile and I've seen some of these issues too. And the thing that is kind of disappointing to me is that and that I would like to see implemented is this; I like to think of the SolidWorks CAD files as the starting point to move forward in managing my Data. I like to use the SolidWorks files as Data Containers. And I don't see that point of view from a lot of other people. They say the CAD Files are over there and my Documentation is over here and they don't understand the link between the two.
Rich: Yeah, I agree with that.
Devon: And so I would ask you you; Do you see that? Do you agree with that? Is there a scheme or method to try to bring that awareness that maybe the CAD Files should be a Data Container. Do you agree with that?
Rich: Well, naturally we're a somewhat CAD Centric company And we do see that managing the day to day data, that are tightly integrated with a PDM Tool, like PDMWorks Enterprise, is going to work. It will allow you to manage the Drawing, Assembly, and Part Data on a daily basis. And I think that's what you're referring to.
Devon: Yes, I am.
Rich: And to share beyond CAD network to the entire Enterprise, that's where the PLM or ERP systems are probably more effective. Maybe they don't even use the native CAD files, like you say, they keep them "over there" and they are maybe concerned with say, eDrawings, .pdf files, or .tiffs or something that is a transportable neutral file. So we see our responsibility as the work in progress, the day to day engineers' tight integration, mechanism, that we can share information with these other systems and distribute though out the Enterprise and even though out the Supply Chain.
Devon: Great, now I'm going to ask you a question and that has to do with neutral file formats, do you think that's the answer for storing CAD files? Like in an Agile System?
Rich: Yes, I do. I think that they need smaller, easy to manage, common, formats. .pdf is working well, now there is 3D.pdf, our own eDrawings is good, those are all good formats. I think that's what they should probably be using. Now, they might need the MetaData and the Bill Of Materials and certain things to pass along. But do they need, you know,the 100MB 3D Assembly within the Enterprise? With Agile, I personally think not.
Devon: OK. Well, this is a question I get asked everyday. I deal with these issues all the time. So, that's good to know. Recently, I was fortunate enough to go out on my first PDMWorks Enterprise Implementation. I was really impressed with this implementation. It was at a One Man Machine Shop. Now the thing that was great was that the customer's computer skills were high, he was extremely organized, he knew SolidWorks well, he was an idea candidate for me. It was definitely to his advantage to have PDMWorks Enterprise. To be able to create new Projects, use Auto Numbering, all the new Projects have the same Layouts and Templates, it was amazing. I was really impressed with the results. I think a lot of companies could benefit from PDMWorks Enterprise.
Rich: Oh, I'm glad you feel that way.
Devon: On the other hand, from my point of view, using it everyday with a couple of Clients, They're always asking the question, "Where do we store the 3D Files?" That's a real important issues for most companies. And being able to prove, under Title 21, what we have "over there" is exactly equal to what we have "over here". I'm just sharing some of the questions and some of the things I see on a daily basis. I have seen a lot of progress[in these areas .ed] And, I've seen a lot of progress with eDrawings too. You know, when it first came out it was pretty clunky, and it's much better, it runs smoother now.
Rich: You know, we include eDrawings Professional with PDMWorks Enterprise, 2008.
Devon: Yes, that's great. My next question is; What do you see in the next 5 years? Without giving away any secrets, I know you can't do that.
Rich: Well, certainly the more transparent we can make PDM to the User, the better. In the old days, you had many different interfaces, and the Engineers and Designers had to go back and forth between 1, 2, 3, 4 systems, today that's common. ERP with one interface, PLM with another,and PDM with a third, and of course the CAD interface. I see that changing, a Designer/Engineer can have one portal to access any and all Data. So if they need inventory from the ERP system, they can get it. If they, you know, need to put in MetaData they can do it. So maybe that interface is pure SolidWorks, maybe something else, but the reduction of the number of interfaces people have to learn[will occur .ed].
Devon: Yeah, great.
Rich: So we strive with each release to add more power and completeness within SolidWorks so there is less need to go outside our own interface. Even jumping from SolidWorks to Windows Explorer, say, we like to reduce the amount of time that has to happen. So I think that's our big focus. Another focus is the ease of Data Connectivity. The Bill Of Materials is often the common denominator between all these systems. I mentioned CAD, PLM, ERP. How can we get Data more easily and more uniformly back and forth between them? Because some companies start their BOM in the ERP, some start with the CAD, some start in the middle, some make one 2 or 3 times, it's all over the lot.
Devon: You are exactly right! And, I am so amazed that the companies I deal with, do exactly that. Some start with the CAD, some start with the ERP, some do both...
Rich: And hope they meet in the middle!
Devon: Exactly! A key question; "Do the BOMs match?" [Almost never .ed] And so I what do, is I encourage people to build their BOMs using SolidWorks, because you can leverage the BOM so easy from SolidWorks. And you would be amazed at the number of companies that still manually generate Excel Spreadsheet BOMs even when using SolidWorks!
Rich: As wonderful as a tool Excel is, we're wondering; why that's so prevalent?
Devon: I am too! Even as recent as last week, I'm showing Managers how with a couple of mouse clicks, I can get a BOM out of SolidWorks. They're totally amazed!
Rich: A lot of the Tools are in place today, it's just not common knowledge.
Devon: And then, on the other side, there are companies that start the BOM in say, Agile. Then, it's common to see multiple BOMs for the same Assembly, all different of course. Then the challenge is to try to match them up to the SolidWorks BOM. So, my point of view, let's start with SolidWorks.
Rich: And I'll tell you where you might run into a problem. And you can tell me if you see this in the industry; The Customers that have very long lead times, for their items, so companies have Parts that take 18 months to get: If they don't generate that BOM in the ERP system as soon as possible, they won't get the stuff in time. And, that's what makes it hard. Because I guarantee you, if you can go CAD to PDM to ERP, it's linear, it's nice!
Devon: Exactly, that's why I recommend it.
Rich: But, I think there are a few cases, in this market, where they really have to have to do it on both ends. And we have to make it easier for those people too.
Devon: Now, that's an issue I have not personally run into. When you take about time to market, let's talk about Hewlett Packard. I've see them get stuff on the market in under 90 days. It's incredible.
Rich: So you gotta believe they're doing something to get that BOM before that first day of design. Because, if you wait until the very end, where are you at day 30, 40, 50 before you have a complete BOM? It's too late.
Devon: So, when I worked for HP, we always leveraged the BOM out of the CAD files.
Rich: You did? And it was time enough to do everything?
Devon: Yes, we ordered Parts off that BOM ASAP [even before the Assembly was finished .ed]
Rich: OK, so the BOM had to be shared somehow early in the process.
Devon: We would generate the BOMs in the 3D files, using the MetaData. We would start ordering the Parts, especially any STD Parts right away. We skipped the Drawings all together.
Rich: Well, most companies can't work this way. I would think that if a Part wasn't in there ERP system, they couldn't order it. Especially when they have to use Approved Vendors and all that has to happen.
Devon: Yes, that's true. But we're talking R & D. They totally separate R & D from Manufacturing.
Rich: Ah, OK. So, in R & D, you have a little more flexibility.
Devon: Yes. Some products have a very short shelf life. I loved working in that environment. It was a good experience for me. It was a good system for R & D.
Rich: I see.
Devon: Rich, our time is almost up. I've really enjoyed meeting you and talking to you today.
Rich: I have a question for you; How did you get to be a Blogger?
Devon: Richard Doyle, SolidWorks Corp. asked me. I got to meet Richard by attending the SolidWorks Technical Summits. After Richard asked me, my response was "What's a Blog?" So I got some help, and now I really enjoy the opportunity.
Rich: Thanks, Devon, it been a pleasure.
Devon: Rich, thank you very much for your time, I really appreciate it.
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