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**emilsomekh** · 03-17-2022, 01:51 PM

SolidCAM + SolidWorks vs PTC CREO- a one-stop solution!

One of the interesting market segments for all CAD+CAM vendors is Moldmaking and in our territory, several names are very established. The majority of them use PTC (ProE/Creo), as it was the only affordable option in the Serbian market (another one is Catia V5).

When we approached those customers with the SolidWorks+SolidCAM integrated solution, we found out that there are a lot of places for improvement on the customer side - CAM part preparation, technology choice, reducing cycle time (cutting air moves). These topics were not in the focus of the customer executives, because engineers say that the only way is their way, and business goes as usual. Creo rental instead of perpetual policy was in our favor also.

One of the nice SolidCAM wins was Aling Conel company, which produces plastic parts for electronic switches & sockets. We found out about this company with the usual prospecting process and offered them the competitive SolidCAM solution we have. That wasn't accepted immediately and scheduling a meeting with a relevant person, took some time with sending case studies, reference material for moldmakers, info on the incredible iMachining strategy and cycle times, and reference call from existing customers. When it came to iMachining, we got the customer's attention and we scheduled a benchmark on their Okuma mills.

Initially, the customer didn't want any new people in their production facility, so they asked us to send the G-code via email and they will test it on their own. We had to agree on that + on their example - pocket for mold cavity. Being strong users of CAM, we sent the G-code via email confidently. After a couple of hours, they said they were afraid to machine the G-code we sent, since feeds and speeds are not something they usually work with, so we got their attention, then visited their production premises to prove our case.

There we found out that they are using heavily Creo machining, and that since they are now investigating to replace Creo we have another competitor - TopSolid, that had a complete solution for mold makers. The owner of the company, who is a pragmatic old-school guy, didn't know much about software and IT systems, but when he saw iMachining cutting pocket in 5+ minutes, compared to their doing the same pocket in 40+minutes, he said we work with these guys.

The total solution included CAD+EPDM and SolidCAM (full 5axis seat), as the cherry on top to totally replace PTC and remove TopSolid from the picture. TopSolid and Creo did benchmarks also, but the fact that Solfins had a strong local support team for CAM, that is prompt in replies and always present, really proved worthy of customer confidence. Reference story on our website here.

With companies having their own product design and production facilities, it is not just about one specific solution, but it is about end-to-end efficiency - we offered that with the SolidWorks + SolidCAM portfolio, so the customer liked having us, as a one-stop solution.

After this customer win, this story echoed in the mold-making community, so we received some reference leads and later new orders came out from this success.

Mile Andesilic
Solfins

**Hervé Philibien** · 03-18-2022, 06:02 PM

In 2012, SolidCAM France replaced TopSolid at a worldwide company manufacturing connectors for automotive, aerospace, defence, marine, and rail domain. At this time this company was equipped with SolidWorks at the design department.

They first bought SolidCAM for milling because of SolidCAM integration. Then because of good satisfaction, they wanted to deploy SolidCAM for advanced Mill-turn machines as well - including
INDEX C200, C100, G200 and other CNC machines.

At this time it was quit a challenge, but SolidCAM France successfully provided post-processors and good support. This company became our main Mill-Turn reference.

Several years later, the company was bought by another bigger one, that unfortunately worked with Creo solution from PTC.

Therefore they were forced to abandon SolidWorks at the design department (more than 50 licences) and use Creo instead. Indeed the headquarters in USA provided a network licence to all the worldwide factories - so anybody can use Creo for CAD and for CAM.

But we all know here that a CAM system without post-processors is worth nothing.

So like Asterix and Obelix, the Gauls (old name of French), who still and always resisted to the Roman invader, there are still users in this worldwide group that use SolidWorks.... the SolidCAM users.

And the story became even more interesting, because 2 other factories, from the same group, heard about SolidCAM’s capacity to drive these Mill-Turn advanced CNC machines.

So they bought additional SolidWorks and SolidCAM licences for the other production sites,
even though they already have a pool licence server with the CAM module of the CREO PTC solution.

SolidCAM was accepted by the headquarters and direction team, only because the goal was to drive the mill-turn CNC machines, and obviously it was not possible with CREO PTC solution, because they don't have postprocessors for such complex Mill-Turn advanced machines.

Whereas SolidWorks was abandoned for CAD in the design department, it was kept for CAM and the manufacturing department, because of, and ONLY because of, SolidCAM capacity to drive complex CNC machines and deliver excellent post-processors.

Herve Philibien
SolidCAM France

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