Expert Pointers and Insider Strategies for Peak CAD Performance

My name is Mark Potrzebowski. I’ve been in the CAD industry for nearly 20 years. I started off in high school, learning basic CAD and using things like SolidWorks and 2D AutoCAD. I have a degree in computer graphics, specifically in the CAD world. I started working with CAD and manufacturing CAD systems straight out of school. I was hired during the recession and traveled as a trainer, doing mostly automotive and aerospace training.

I work with CATIA and Creo and a few other CAD systems and PLM systems as well—so, database management. Around the time of COVID, I ended up transitioning to the Ascent side of things, which is our courseware development side, where I started updating and writing new material.

I don’t travel as much as I used to, where I used to go and see different industries and meet people that were part of the CAD industry. Now, I’m mostly working from home. I get to update the material and look at all the changes and research information.

Anticipate and Respond  to Shifts in Behavior as CAD Updates Occur

Where I’ve been positioned, whether it’s been training myself or updating material, I’m usually dealing with either new users or users that are transitioning from one CAD system to another. New users are bright-eyed, trying to take everything in, trying to understand what’s going on and trying to get the information as quickly as possible so they can get to their actual job.

CAD users that are transitioning are usually trying to quickly get it to work the way they know in their old CAD system and to figure out what the differences are. And they try to do that as quickly as possible.

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When I’m asked questions, or I’m looking through updates in the material I'm looking for, I consider: What’s going to make that easier for those students? There’s a lot of bells and whistles that are added to every release of whatever CAD system it is, and you can go through the release notes and see the functionality or features added. Usually, it’s not groundbreaking. It’s just a little nuance to make life a little easier, which is great. But it means going through it and updating our training materials and documentation.

What I’ve seen in my 15 to 20 years of experience is a push towards data management. Tracking all of this data and being able to figure out where it is going: Who has control of the permission structures? Who is in charge right now? Who is supposed to sign off?

Figuring out how to get those permissions is a constant struggle, especially for new users. It doesn’t matter which industry or which company I’m working for, but it seems like that’s their biggest struggle. They pull us in to try to figure out how to manage all that data and how to get their users up to speed as quickly as possible.

Continuously Monitor and Stay Aligned with Industry Standards and Regulations

I don’t necessarily focus a lot on the standards. I’m aware that they’re there, and I’m aware that we need to make the users understand that they’re important. But…standards change from one industry to another, or one customer to another, where they’ll create their own user standards or standards within the CAD world.

Usually, they’re based off some universal standard, but each company has their own...We try to be as neutral as we can. Sometimes in the material we create we will say that it’s based on the standard. But really, we’re just trying to teach them tools. This tool can be used to meet any standard; here’s how you make those changes and make it work.

Navigate the Realities Behind CAD Software Transitions and Industry-Driven Change

From my experience, it takes corporations time to transition into new CAD software, even if it’s from one release to another. Some are better than others, but when you’re dealing with automotive, it’s mostly driven by their own internal standards.

In aerospace it depends on the customer they’re dealing with. If they’re dealing with Boeing, for example, they drive the market and make all decisions, and all their suppliers have to fall in line with that. If you’re dealing with government-related projects, they seem to lag behind a little bit, and they may be using a release that's five years behind or six years behind, just because they haven’t had the driving force to be pushed forward.

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And companies don’t necessarily want to be the first to adopt it, because there are growing pains. There may be issues and bugs they have to work out, and it’s easier for them to lag a little bit and have somebody else figure out all those problems before they're forced to move forward.

We do try to keep up with the releases of the CAD structure that we’re dealing with or the CAD software, whether it be Creo or some other CAD system. We try to stay with the current release year. Sometimes we’re better at that than others, but we’re within usually a year release cycle of when it was released. As an example—and it’s not limited to Creo—we’re finishing up Creo 11 updates and releases for our training material. Creo 12 is out this month. So, it’s always an endless cycle of just trying to keep up.

Ride the Next Wave in CAD and AI Breakthroughs

With new emerging technologies, we’re driven by demand. AI is the buzzword that everybody is using. It is a huge concept to try to wrap around and apply to many different things. There are a lot of things people call AI that may not necessarily be what everyone else is thinking of.

It could be used as a tool to help us better understand and utilize the software. But not everybody is thinking the same thing—of a completely autonomous intelligence that’s running everything for you. Sometimes it’s a tool that just assists with certain tasks.

AI assistance is the next step [in CAD iteration]. I don’t necessarily think it’s going to do everything for us, and that we’re going to be completely removed from the equation. I do think it will be easier for a new user to be able to go in and say, “Where is this functionality?” And not only does it come up with where it is but it can give you a tutorial on how to use the basic steps and guide you in the right direction.

It’s going to be interesting to see how it can manage and analyze large amounts of data and give you results quickly. Whereas before, when companies dealt with large amounts of data and they were trying to track everything, they needed to manually key in information.

Metadata, describing all these features and aspects of it, to some extent will always be there. But with AI, the AI algorithm can capture a lot of that information and remove a lot of redundant tasks that slow things down in the process.

AI will be helpful when your overall goal is to do an approval. All you have to do is sign in and say, “Show it to me from a different vantage point,” or “Give me this information in the background.” It’s running that information and has it downloading while you’re doing something else. Then you can pull that information up and quickly say, “Yes, I approve.”

And it automatically plugs in all of the extra information about what project it is associated with, who is supposed to receive it, and you can also figure out the status of something more quickly, instead of having to dig through all the material.

Having the ability to have the assistant find that information for us in a much more productive timeframe can only help.

What's New in Creo Parametric 11.0

By Mark Potrzebowski

Creo Parametric 11.0 is packed with productivity-enhancing updates, and sometimes the smallest changes make the biggest impact on your daily workflows. We’ve put together three short video demonstrations that showcase some of the newest functionality—from improved surface modeling tools to smarter file management and model tree navigation.

Check out these videos below.

1. Extrapolate: A Smarter Way to Extend Surfaces

The Extend command in Creo 11 now includes a new sub-type: Extrapolate. This enhancement offers more flexibility when working with surfaces, allowing you to extend and replace geometry past its original boundary in a more controlled and efficient way. Watch how this works in action in our brief video demo.