Re: What's the best program CAD-CAM ?

"John R. Carroll" wrote:
>

> This is a good discussion for the group Bob and you didn't rain on anything.
> Learning how to buy software is something that few purchasers understand and
> if this conversation enlightens folks it's a good one to have publicly.

John:

I more than totally agree, that HOW and WHAT to buy in the CAD/CAM
software area IS like shooting in the dark, especially for a small shop
making their first CAD/CAM purchase.
Perhaps something like a 10-15 step list of the important factors that
should be considered before purchasing a CAD/CAM system might be
helpful.


> In most cases "training" comes down to pointing people in the right
> direction on something they are actually working on.
> In the old days when I was using a product, nothing worked as advertised and
> I became the master of work arounds. I frequently knew more about how to get
> a job done that the manufacturer. Resellers were calling me.

Maybe a sideline of printing and selling booklets of documented
"workarounds", could generate some profit.


> My point was that software products are much more alike than they are
> different these days.
> Seat time is pretty portable. How many ways can you cut a pocket or drill a
> hole? The input from the user is remarkably consistent. What is hugely
> different is the degree of automation under the hood.

All that is probably true. I've found that people exposed to CAD/CAM
for the first time have the longest learning curves, assuming normal
intelligence. The most adaptable seem to be those that already know a
few systems.
BUT, you may be making an unwarranted assumption that "Seat time is
pretty portable", especially if someone doesn't HAVE any prior seat time
in any CAD/CAM system. And NOW there may be no reasonable way for you
to judge how easy a CAM system is to learn from scratch, since you
cannot put yourself in the place of someone learning a system for the
first time because of all your existing subconscious knowledge of other
systems.


> >> So is the creeping losses people suffer with products they "know"
> >> but are effectively handicapping there competetive edge ten or more
> >> percent each day. Add that up and you will see where the real money
> >> is. It isn't in software or training.
> >
> > That might be very difficult to accurately quantify.
>
> Not really. You must, however, trouble yourself to make an honest and
> intelligent effort.

Everyone doesn't work exactly the same. For instance, some people work
best and quickest with typed command line input, others are more
efficient with mouse inputs. So even if someone were completely honest,
the results of a comparison between different CAM systems (some systems
don't HAVE the feature of command line input), might differ radically
from one individual to another.



>
> I remember years
> > ago (during one of my "Jon Wars" episodes) doing some objective timed
> > tests for programming certain operations and getting responses from
> > others using different systems. Some sort of independent and
> > objective testing of different CAD/CAM systems would IMO, be very
> > beneficial to the machining trades.
>
> Great, but you would want it for free and that ain't gonna happen.

Ahh now, THAT is the real question. How much would a prospective
customer be willing to pay for an unbiased and objective evaluation of
various CAD/CAM systems. Since it doesn't seem to have been done, I
would assume that no one has thought it would be a profitable
enterprise.


> > The legacy data issue may not be huge one for companies that mainly do
> > new prototype work, but then again it may be a significant issue for
> > companies that do a lot of repeat production work.
> > Geometry can be easily exported, but in my experience tool lists,
> > toolpaths and multiple operations generated in one CAM system don't
> > seem to be easily transferable to other CAM systems.
>
> P&W is a customer and what they purchased from me was designed specifically
> for this purpose.
> Retails for a grand and that's less than I could command for a day of your
> time. Pretty cost effective don't you think?

Is that the "TransMagic" you mentioned to Scott?

> You posted several months ago that you went ahead with your Gibbs maint.
> principally for translation purposes.

Actually, I think I said we were seriously considering it, but the shop
got busy and we didn't follow up on it. So no, we're not on current
maintenance.

> You should have gotten off that
> treadmill Bob. Many companies stay on maintenance solely to have current
> translation capability. They aren't getting a single bit of functionality
> that adds value.

Maintenance, one of my minor irks about the software business. Are you
suggesting this "TransMagic" (or other product) would serve this
translation purpose better? How much is THEIR maintenance? <g>


> > Well, I more than tend to believe any success in your Peerless
> > business experience was due more to YOUR overall influence rather
> > than any particular brand of machines chosen.
>
> Maybe, but my philosophy is that I don't ever want to put myself on the same
> plane with the competition.
> When you do that the best you can do is stay even.

Actually, that's one of the main reasons we bought our Makino
Horizontal ($$$).


> > So what size companies do most of your sales come from?
> >
> > 1-10 Machinists
> > 10-50 Machinists
> > 50-200 Machinists
> > 200+ Machinists
>
> I took two orders so far today for software. One from a two man shop in
> Illinois and the other from Honeywell.

Well, I guess that pretty much covers the whole field.

> They were both going to buy MC and I have met neither. They were both told
> that the smart move was to call me and see what I thought.
> They did, and had I not had what was best for them I would have said so and
> pointed them in the right direction. That's why they called.
> Selling them something was secondary.

Uh oh, now they'll have to come to you for training, since they'll
probably never find a programmer for whatever system you sold them.
Then after training they'll figuratively be held hostage by their
programmer, even if he has to go to jail for a few weeks like that guy
in another thread. <g>

--
BottleBob
http://home.earthlink.net/~bottlbob
.