A Workflow for Early-Stage Architect-Engineer Collaboration

It’s the paradox of early design: the most important decisions are made when architects have the least time to evaluate them thoroughly or engage with the broader team. And yet, early collaboration can unlock significant benefits for the client and design team.

Adding to the complexity are the number of parties who should ideally be involved in early decisions. They typically include:

• The architect, who makes most of the early design decisions, and is the primary contact with the client, responsible for communicating ideas and recommending an approach.
• The mechanical engineer. Architects often look to engineers for early feedback on performance. But typical engineering software is not designed for early-stage analysis, so engineers are hard-pressed to keep pace with frequent design changes.
• The sustainability specialist. Most architecture firms an in-house specialist, or team of specialists, with special expertise in building performance. But like the engineer, they struggle to provide feedback quickly enough.

So how can the design team collaborate in these harried early days — without duplicating work or holding up the design? While each firm is different, below is a basic early-stage workflow and division of responsibilities. This workflow takes full advantage of Sefaira’s collaborative capabilities, but is general enough to apply broadly.

Click image for downloadable version.

Early-Stage Workflow

1.) Establish performance goals — architect. The architect works with the client to establish performance goals related to energy, comfort, daylight, energy cost, or other criteria. Part of this step is making the client aware of what’s possible. For example, the client may be interested in occupant productivity, but unaware of the link to daylight and comfort.

2.) Establish metrics and benchmarks — specialist. The sustainability specialist helps to translate the broad goals (e.g. “good daylight in office spaces”) to specific metrics and targets (e.g. “Spatial Daylight Autonomy of 55%”). These are documented in the Owner’s Project Requirements (OPR).

Standard baselines and benchmarks can help establish realistic targets.

3.) Set up the baseline — engineer. The baseline case is the “control” against which design options are compared. For example, the baseline for many energy simulations is ASHRAE Standard 90.1. These inputs can be set up in Sefaira before the architect begins design. Having the engineer or specialist involved in this step ensures accuracy and acceptance of early results. A generic 3D model can be used at this stage to generate initial information about the building’s likely energy profile and potential strategies the design team should consider.

Fig.2 A generic 3D model and baseline inputs can be used to generate preliminary results.

4. Conceptual design studies — architect. With the baselines and targets defined, the architect can freely explore early design moves: building form, program layout, facade design, floor-to-floor heights, and the like. Designers can be trained to quickly create study models that can be used for design, analysis, and presentation. For more complex simulations they can lean on the specialist for support.

A design team at Stantec used conceptual massing models to compare energy and daylight performance for a new high school. Image courtesy of Stantec.

5. HVAC studies — engineer. Once a smaller set of options is defined, the architect uploads the designs to Sefaira and shares them with the engineer. The engineer explores HVAC system options and their interactions with the envelope. Early sizing studies can help reduce size and capital cost of systems — one of the key benefits of early collaboration. The architect and engineer may go back and forth several times at this stage to work out the design.

The mechanical engineer studies HVAC system options.

6. Envelope optimization — specialist. When the schematic design is defined, the specialist can assist in further optimizing and fine-tuning envelope assemblies, shading elements, and facade design. Depending on the project and firm, the architect or engineer may also assist in this process. It can be helpful at this stage to maintain a “smart model” that can be analyzed at any point.

Parametric analysis can be used to optimize various elements of a design, such as the length of horizontal shading devices. 

Design teams that have implemented this type of workflow have reported improved architect-engineer relationships, better communication, and the ability to arrive at a solution more quickly. Architects are better positioned to communicate with their clients about performance.

Who Builds the Model?

Who has the responsibility for creating the 3D geometry for analysis? We’ve seen a few scenarios work:

Architect creates the 3D model. This allows the engineer to respond very quickly, removing one of the major obstacles to early-stage collaboration. It also means that the model can stay up-to-date with design changes. But it requires that architects are able to create appropriate models. (Sefaira’s Knowledgebase and Learning website can help.)

Engineer creates the model. This gives the engineer the ability to ensure that the model is created correctly, but can slow down the feedback process and increase costs.

Architect creates model, and specialist or engineer checks & uploads. This hybrid solution gives the architect freedom to explore, but provides quality control at key points in the process.

Happy CADing with ZWCAD: How to Design a Safe Deck?

An ideal place to spend leisure hours? I’d vote for a wooden deck where you’re free to enjoy the sunshine, tweets of birds, BBQ parties, etc. outdoors while staying close to home. And today, I want to share with you some tips and tricks for designing a safe deck (download the design kit here).

In the following article, the whole procedure, including preparations, CADing, material selection, and drawing plotting will be covered. Besides, a tutorial video is also ready to help you understand the design process better. A surprise is waiting for you at the end of the article as well!

Before you start

To build a safe deck that can better withstand the test of time and bad weather, you need to consider a lot of things like obtaining a construction permit first. Also, please make sure that the soil you’re building the deck on is suitable because that could easily be its Achilles’ heel. So, although we’re not focusing on such considerations today, you must attach importance to them.

Preparing the plan

Before designing, you need to first prepare the plan of your house and its surroundings. Such a top view can help you better decide where to locate the deck and the basic shape of it.

Figure 1. A plan of the house and its surroundings to decide the location of the deck

Then, you can start outlining. At this stage, practicality should be your first consideration. If the ground were noticeably uneven, you should consider designing a multi-level deck.

Figure 2. The basic shape of the deck will be the base of the design

Next, you shall draw the dividing lines on the deck to represent the placement of the wood. Here’s a quick note: add dimensions to your design! Further, to make it easier to read the drawing, you could use the Super Hatch function to texturize the deck with realistic wood images.

Figure 3. Super Hatch can help make the deck plan realistic

Moving on, time to create the layout of the supporting pillars. Unlike a building, a wooden deck is relatively lightweight and the pillars could be small. Still, you should allow for the moving load on the deck, which means the distance between two pillars is usually about 3m to 4 meters.

How to quickly place them? With the convenient Array function, you can do the job in just 2 steps. (Learn more about ARRAY!) First, select the pillar as the basic object. Then, set the distances on the X and Y axes.

Figure 4. Pillars can be quickly placed with ARRAY

Designing the elevation

Now that we have all the plans ready, let’s switch to another view. An elevation is mainly to show the height differences of the deck and its railings. Normally, the deck should be lower than the house floor so that it can prevent the water from flowing back to the house when there is heavy rain outside. As for the railings, it is suggested that you set the height to be 1 meter.

Figure 5. You can easily tell the height differences of the deck and railings with an elevation

Choosing the materials

Whew—we’re now done designing! Let’s talk about the materials you’ll need for the deck. Choosing the right type of wood is vital to lengthening the lifespan of your deck. Antiseptic and insect-resistant timbers are ideal. Depending on your budget, you could select the very durable but expensive ones like red cedar or the fairly durable but cost-effective ones like camphorwood.

Figure 6. Choosing the right type of wood is vital

Apart from the wood, you need to pay special attention to the fasteners. Now, screws are preferred over nails which tend to loosen as time goes by. However, not all screws are strong enough for the exterior environment. Therefore, I suggest that you use rustproof ones. Also, if you chose treated timber, fasteners that are hardly affected by the chemicals will be ideal.

Figure 7. Rustproof screws that are hardly affected by chemicals are ideal

Printing the layout

Finally, it’s time to create a layout. First, you need to insert your title block in the layout space for all concerned to check the necessary information, such as the materials and size. Then, you shall decide on the paper size in the Page setup manager. In this case, I think A3 is just fine. Lastly, you could generate viewports using the VPORTS command and organize the layout.

Figure 8. The final layout for contractors to check

At last, the whole design has been finished, and you can contact your local contractor and discuss it with them. It’s not that complicated to design a deck yourself, right? With a handy CAD program, it’s even easier. Why not have a try with a 30-day free trial of the latest ZWCAD?

Work-from-Home Success: Learning from a Veteran Constructor

While those viral videos of work-from-home fails are amusing, it is not the case when you experience them. From where the statue of the bear and the strawberry tree locates, Miguel Ángel de Mingo, CEO of ZWSpain (MP Scia Ingenieria S.L.) who had years of experience in the construction industry shares his thoughts on how to stay productive at home in this special period.

The Statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree in Madrid, Spain

The Covid-19 has placed us in a situation hitherto unpredictable. It has changed our family life, working practices, and ways of socializing. And in many cases, such unusual circumstance has generated in us a sense of solidarity as well as uncertainty.

As they say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Thanks to this pandemic, we realize the importance of technology in our lives and, of course, in the primary economic sectors, such as engineering and construction. As a member in the construction sector, I’d like to share my experience of how to utilize technology to get used to this new normal and continue my design work efficiently. I hope it will do a little help to you in this hard time.

Technological innovations that accelerate your work

Since my team and I deal with CAD software daily, we know a thing or two about relevant technological innovations and how to incorporate them into work. So, for us engineers, the first thing we need is an efficient design tool. It mustn’t consume a big chunk of your computer’s memory nor require fancy hardware. As one of such systems, ZWCAD is lightweight and runs well on most computers. Moreover, under its flexible network licensing policy, users can borrow licenses at home, which is the same as registering a stand-alone one.

What’s more, ZWCAD fulfills the necessary premises to be a benchmark in the construction industry. One is that its compatibility and flexibility allow you to communicate data effectively among different programs with your team. Therefore, you won’t feel like working alone, but instead connected, creative, and productive. The other is that you can integrate your routines into ZWCAD via APIs like LISP, .NET, VBA, etc. That enables you to continue your daily design work at home.

Haven’t had one? Here is the good news. ZWSOFT is now providing free ZWCAD, ZW3D and CADbro licenses for whoever needs to work at home until May 31st! This is indeed the embodiment of solidarity in difficult times.

Get a better command of innovative technologies

Now that we have technological innovations, the second step will be incorporating them into our work. That is, we keep grasping new CAD skills and improve our work efficiency.

But how to achieve that goal when we have to stay at home? Online learning resources and technical support are always helpful. For example, ZWSOFT global partners are providing various online services to their local users. And just like what we have been doing over the past 10 years, my ZWSpain team offers free webinars (Click to review the one on point clouds and digital topographic models!), open courses, tutorials on different solutions and messages about the latest news in the industry. With direct, prompt, personalized, and highly professional technical support, our users are getting used to a new way of working, and their productivity rises.

It might not have crossed your mind that teleworking could be widely adopted, but that time has arrived. Now, it has become clearer that to get ahead, we must continue equipping ourselves with the knowledge of new technologies. With a useful tool like ZWCAD and the online support offered by ZWSOFT partners, I believe that you’ll succeed in CADing even while working from home!

Have you got some tips from Miguel? If you have any other bright ideas of working from home efficiently, don’t hesitate to share with us in the comment area! Last but not least, we hope all is well with you, wherever you are. Stay safe, stay at home, and stay productive with free ZWSOFT products!

How 3D Printing Is Helping Medical Professionals Fight COVID-19

3D-printing communities worldwide are doing their best to help.

There are many 3D-printing communities working around the world right now to helpfight the effects and spread of the coronavirus. The number of COVID-19 cases continues its upward trajectory, underscoring a shortage of medical supplies. The problem is that medical facilities in the United States, and in many countries all over the world, are in desperate need of N95 masks, face shields and other protective equipment. Individual states in the U.S. are in part contributing to the shortage of supplies in a bidding war over the remaining national supply.

The whole world is coming together to help fill the shortage of medical supplies needed by medical professionals in hospitals around the world. There is a #MillionMaskChallenge trending on Twitter, and the 3D-printing community is rising to the challenge. Some 3D-printed designs are clearly innovative and usable, such as the 3D printed door opener from Belgium-based Materialise.

But there are some questions about the efficacy of one critical medical item that is in very short supply: the N95 mask. Designers and engineers have created 3D files to print out N95 masks, but the mechanics of 3D printers may exclude them from printing truly viable N95 masks with fused filament fabrication (FFF) printing. The mechanics of this type of 3D printing may not supersede cloth in terms of creating a tight enough seal for proper production and use. Layer-by-layer, FFF printing can leave air gaps that are hard to detect. Despite this one caveat, the 3D-printing community around the world is rising to the challenge, globally helping medical professionals in many ways.

CoVent-19 Challenge for Engineers and Designers

The CoVent-19 Challenge is perhaps the most prominent initiative asking engineers and designers to develop ventilators that can be shipped and used quickly. Anesthesiology residents of Massachusetts General Hospital and Stratasys are supporting the initiative and spreading the word throughout the GrabCAD community.

HPIs Collecting and Posting Medical Supply 3D Files

Download HP’s Collection of 3D Files to Fight Coronavirus

HP has designed and printed face masks to donate for the global 3D-printing community to make and assemble. The first products that can get out the door, HP said, include 3D-printed components for face masks, face shields, mask adjusters, nasal swabs, hands-free door openers and respirator parts.

3D-printed ventilator components. (Image courtesy of HP.)

HP also plans to begin testing and validating designs for other applications, including a mechanical bag valve mask (BVM) that is designed for use as a short-term emergency ventilator. It’s also working on validating several hospital-grade face masks and expects them to be available shortly.

3D-printed swabs from FormLabs (Image courtesy of FormLabs.)

FormLabs has 60,000 printers under its command and has designed and printed a swab that will be used for testing the population in the United States. In the last few days, they received a notification from the FDA that the swab will be a Class I exempt product with one restriction: it must be manufactured in an ISO 35-controlled facility.

The European Commission and Cecimo

The European Commission is asking the 3D-printing community to gather information on what medical equipment and components can be designed and 3D printed. There is a European trade organization for additive manufacturing, Cecimo, to organize this task, help bolster medical supplies and brainstorm for more innovative ideas that could help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The European Commission will distribute Cecimo’s 3D-printed medical supplies to buyers that include healthcare organizations and various national authorities. Cecimo’s website contains a list of companies that can print medical supplies and has put out a request to their community, urging them to help in any way possible. The European Commission is taking care to reduce the amount of red tape involved in making designs available without any issues involving intellectual property claims.

(Image courtesy of Czech Institute of Informatics.)

The CIIRC R95 respirator and half-mask designs pictured above were created and printed by the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics. This design is posted on HP’s collection of 3D files. They are in the process of testing and evaluating the design for approval through official medical testing organizations.

(Image courtesy of Stratasys.)

Stratasys Joins in the Effort

The PPE (personal protective equipment) equipment for medical personnel pictured above is manufactured from a 3D-printed plastic frame and a clear plastic shield. For medical professionals, this mask goes on top of a particulate face mask for two layers of total protection. According to Stratasys, a hospital contacted them and stated that 1,500 of these PPE face shields were used in just one week. The hospital in contact with the company also mentioned that they were down to only six days of inventory of the PPE face shields over the course of a regular week.

Stratasys also set up a COVID-19 response page with relevant 3D-printing information. Stratasys Direct manufacturing facilities in Texas, California and Minnesota printed 5,000 frames and attaching clear plastic shields, with support from Dunwoody College of Technology in Minnesota, that will cover the faces of medical professionals working in close proximity to patients afflicted by the deadly coronavirus. They plan to ramp up production in the coming weeks.

3D-printed valves used in hospitals were designed and manufactured by FabLab Milan in Italy. (Image courtesy of FabLab Milan.)

FabLab Milan was called on by local hospitals to design and create 3D-printed valves for use inventilators. A local hospital ran short on replacement valves for respirators while treating patients. After contacting their supplier for more, hospital staff were told that they were none available in the time required. Massimo Temporelli, founder of FabLab Milan, caught wind of the hospital’s need and reached out to 3D-printing company Isinnova, which immediately brought a 3D printer to the hospital in northern Italy. The Venturi valves needed are used to alter oxygen and air flow on respirator masks. Patients using the respirator masks are suffering from shortness of breath, and the Venturi valves are critical components to keeping the respirators properly functioning. Isinnova’s founder, Cristian Fracassi, delivered 100 Venturi valves to the hospital. Now, Isinnova is working on designs to transform snorkeling masks into CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) masks.

Ford

Ford Motor Company has several additive manufacturing systems in place at its factories and is producing plastic face shields and components for PPE gear. According to the company, they will be ramping up assembly of face shields to over 100,000 per week.

Volkswagen

Volkswagen created a task force for transforming its manufacturing facilities into viable production units capable of producing ventilators and medical equipment. This includes 3D-printing medical components from over 125 industrial 3D printers.

SmileDirectClub

Dentistry company SmileDirectClub claims that is one of the largest 3D-printing manufacturers in the U.S. and opened its facilities to produce medical supplies and components (face shields and valves thus far) to help supply workers treating the pandemic.

(Image courtesy of Materialise.)

Materialise

Download Materialise door opener

Materialise designed a 3D-printed door opener that allows people to open and close doors via their arms rather than their hands. The design is available to download for free. Materialise posted a directive for the 3D-printing community to print out its design, which will help stop coronavirus from transmitting itself to the population on this high-traffic everyday object.

Bottom Line

The ongoing contributions and efforts by the global 3D-printing community to help truncate wait times for badly needed medical supplies is a noble and critical mission in the fight against our coronavirus pandemic. The practical and nimble nature of 3D design coupled with 3D printing is helping. Face shields, ventilator valves, door-openers and swabs for testing printed by the thousands will surely continue to make a difference against the pandemic.

Cooling Loop – Your Secret Weapon to Create Cooling Channels

If you are a mold designer working on the injection mold, you must understand the importance of designing a reasonable cooling system, which greatly affects production efficiency since cooling takes most of the mold cycle time.

However, cooling system design can be difficult because it’s at the end of the mold design process, before which, designers need to design the cavities, slides, etc. So when it comes to cooling system design, there will be many “obstacles” in the plate.

What makes it even harder is that the design of cooling loops (also called a cooling channel) is tedious. Usually, you need to go through at least 4 steps.

Step 1: Create a sketch or a 3D sketch for the cooling route.

Figure 1. The sketch of the cooling route

Step 2: Along the route, use Swept Rod to create the basic shape of the loops.

Figure 2. Create the shape of cooling loops by Swept Rod

Step 3: Use Cut command to hollow out the cooling loops on the plate of the core/cavity based on the shape of the rods.

Figure 3. Hollow out the cooling loops with Cut command

Steps 4: Finally, add other cooling components, for example, joints.

Figure 4. Add joints to the end of the cooling loops

So, to finish cooling loops design, you may use commands such as 3D Sketch, Swept Rod, Cut, General (to insert general standard parts), etc. Quite tedious, right? But, the headaches haven’t ended yet. Design changes are inevitable during design process. If you need to change the route or diameters of the loop, it brings more troubles to you.

Figure 5. The tools used to create a cooling loop in the traditional way

Reading so far, you may be unwilling to recall the complex process of creating a single cooling loop. Take it easy, my friend! Next, I will show a secret weapon in ZW3D 2020 to help you speed up cooling loop design.

In ZW3D 2020, cooling loops can be created with one command

Cooling Loop. You can easily create two types of cooling loop — Single object or Two objects. Unlike the traditional method, you can directly generate the channels by continuously picking points at the locations you want, so you skip the steps like drawing sketches and creating pockets on the plate.

Figure 6. Cooling loop types: Single object and Two objects

What’s more, you can preview the position of the cooling loops dynamically during the creation process, to prevent intersecting with other components in the plates.

Figure 7. Create cooling channels with dynamic preview

After creating the loops, you can insert other cooling components like joints, plugs and oil rings by Cooling Parts. It allows you to choose the supplier and the type of parts, and to input or adjust parameters like diameter, thread size and safe distance under dynamic preview.

Figure 8. Insert cooling components based your needs by using Cooling Parts

Just by several clicks, the cooling system design is done. The tricky task becomes an easy job.

How about modifying the cooling loop? First, select “Cooling” in Part menu, then right-click the relevant step in the history tree, and you can easily redefine the position and the size of the cooling loops, and also adjust the parameters of other components as introduced just now.

Figure 9. Redefine cooling loops

So far, I have shared all the tricks about cooling loop design in ZW3D 2020, which can greatly simplify your workflow. Instead of taking so much time to calculate the route or the position of the cooling loop, you can create one in a more flexible way.

Konsystem and ZWCAD Together Contribute to A Better Structured Poland

Konsystem, a Polish company specialized in designing concrete, steel and post-tensioned structures has been trusting ZWCAD to better the structure of buildings in Poland and beyond.

Konsystem Konstrukcje Budowlane Sp. z o.o. (KKB) has been active in Poland and beyond for around a decade now. What distinguishes KKB from others in the industry is that they excel at not only structural design, but also the evaluation of post-tensioned structures.

Also, KKB believes that a team of qualified engineers and the best design tools are indispensable to fulfill their aim of providing the most technologically advanced, most economical and safest projects. Back in 2017, ZWCAD was chosen by KKB to better serve their clients, for example, the reputable Henauer Gugler AG from Switzerland.

What Advanced Technologies Have Played A Part?

Due to the complexity of the concrete, steel and post-tensioned structures, the file size of the construction drawings is usually quite large. KKB was hoping for a solution that is high-tech enough to process the large drawing files in a relatively short time. Therefore, designers at KKB were as happy as clams to find that file reading in ZWCAD 2020 had been 32.4% faster.

In addition, their commonly used commands, for example, DIMENSION, operate faster than they expected. “It is definitely much smoother and faster. We are satisfied with the product and how it developed throughout the years,” Patryk Makowski, one of the assistant designers cheerfully said.

Furthermore, they are very satisfied with the given libraries of blocks and hatches as well as the accurate display of layers and Xrefs, which help enrich their construction drawings. “Recently, we’ve completed the plan for a tennis court and we used many blocks directly in ZWCAD,” Mr. Makowski added. This tennis court covers a net area of 2,000 square meters. With the floor plan attached as an Xref, they were able to generate a multitude of blocks, dimensions and layers quickly and accurately in the structural drawing.

Figure 1. The structural drawing of the tennis court (Image courtesy of KKB)

Better Structured PolandKonsystem, a Polish company specialized in designing concrete, steel and post-tensioned structures has been trusting ZWCAD to better the structure of buildings in Poland and beyond.Poland AEC

Konsystem Konstrukcje Budowlane Sp. z o.o. (KKB) has been active in Poland and beyond for around a decade now. What distinguishes KKB from others in the industry is that they excel at not only structural design, but also the evaluation of post-tensioned structures.

Also, KKB believes that a team of qualified engineers and the best design tools are indispensable to fulfill their aim of providing the most technologically advanced, most economical and safest projects. Back in 2017, ZWCAD was chosen by KKB to better serve their clients, for example, the reputable Henauer Gugler AG from Switzerland.

What Advanced Technologies Have Played A Part?

Due to the complexity of the concrete, steel and post-tensioned structures, the file size of the construction drawings is usually quite large. KKB was hoping for a solution that is high-tech enough to process the large drawing files in a relatively short time. Therefore, designers at KKB were as happy as clams to find that file reading in ZWCAD 2020 had been 32.4% faster.

In addition, their commonly used commands, for example, DIMENSION, operate faster than they expected. “It is definitely much smoother and faster. We are satisfied with the product and how it developed throughout the years,” Patryk Makowski, one of the assistant designers cheerfully said.

Furthermore, they are very satisfied with the given libraries of blocks and hatches as well as the accurate display of layers and Xrefs, which help enrich their construction drawings. “Recently, we’ve completed the plan for a tennis court and we used many blocks directly in ZWCAD,” Mr. Makowski added. This tennis court covers a net area of 2,000 square meters. With the floor plan attached as an Xref, they were able to generate a multitude of blocks, dimensions and layers quickly and accurately in the structural drawing.

Figure 1. The structural drawing of the tennis court (Image courtesy of KKB)

Why Are Their Services Economical?

ZWCAD is good news for KKB’s designers and engineers. Is it the same for their finances? To make their services more affordable, the expenses of software should be reasonable. So, they were always looking for a CAD solution that is economical in terms of both licenses and learning costs. The permanent ZWCAD licenses offered took a weight off their mind.

But what’s really tricky is that the KKB team members are all occupied with their work, leading to possibly high indirect costs of relearning a CAD program. To their delight, the interface and commands of ZWCAD are very familiar to them. Eventually, the switch to ZWCAD worked out favorably for KKB. Besides, when they come across technical issues, SZANSA the Polish ZWSOFT partner and the ZWCAD technical team are always there to help. “The most valuable service for us is the reliable and instant tech support. ZWSOFT always provides the best solutions possible,” acknowledged Mr. Makowski.

How Are the Safe Buildings Delivered on Time?

Before ZWCAD was introduced to KKB by SZANSA, the team encountered crashes when opening DWG files in their old CAD solution every once in a while. What’s even more frustrating was that during their long editing process, crashes would happen from time to time. Since their workload is heavy and the deadline close, KKB longed for a stabler CAD tool with strong compatibility.

Figure 2. Multi-family residential buildings designed by KKB (Image courtesy of KKB)

Ever since they switched to ZWCAD, no crashes have happened when they were opening or modifying the received .dwg files, which has notably facilitated their work. Moreover, no data are lost since the high-quality drawings they’ve created with ZWCAD can be read correctly by their clients in other CAD solutions. So far, dozens of projects have been accomplished smoothly.

Figure 3. During the construction of the residential buildings (Image courtesy of KKB)

As one of KKB’s best tools, ZWCAD has been helping them complete complicated projects and build fruitful relationships with their clients. Such collaboration and professionalism will continue contributing to a better structured Poland.

ZWSOFT CEO Interview – Cooperation > Competition

In this part, ZWSOFT CEO Truman shares what’s the ecosystem of CAx industry in his eyes, and his attitudes towards partners and competitors.

“Ecosystem” is a hot word in recent years. What’s that in your mind?

As a matter of fact, an ecosystem can never be built. For example, if you stack up grasses and trees in a place, it is far from a system. This society itself is a system, which comes into being through a long process step by step. For us, for example, on one hand, countless solutions can be derived from our CAx solutions; on the other hand, our CAx solutions are only a part of a larger solution. In other words, we are in others’ systems, while others are also in ours. As for the ecosystem that I hope to build, it is an all-in-one technology platform connecting 2D CAD, 3D CAD, CAM, CAE, etc. with data flowing seamlessly, and our partners can build all kinds of vertical solutions based on it. It is sustainable and all-win.

Fig 1. Eco System

According to what you’ve said just now, partners including distributors and application developers both play important roles in your dream ecosystem. But I discovered that some CAx providers are turning to “de-intermediate” by connecting with clients directly. What do you think of it?

Personally, I am not a big fan of this kind of fast-paced business model. For the companies which offer typically tool-oriented and very standardized products with relatively low technical requirements, the importance of intermediary may be diminished. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is completely negated; at least that’s not the case for engineering software, which is customizable and technology-oriented. The intermediary not only sells, but more importantly, shoulders the responsibility of providing various service and technical support to customers. So in my opinion, it cannot be eliminated, at least in the foreseeable future. The key is that both of us are clear about our respective role and play it well, and the distribution of benefit is fair and reasonable.

Figure 2. ZWSOFT’s Indian partners were offering technical support to local clients

Here, another question may prompt – how can we reinforce the cooperation and win with our intermediary, or, our partners? The answer is that we should keep advancing our products and providing different solutions. For example, a partner selling our 2D products in the past is very likely to sell our 3D products, and even CAE and PLM products in the future. That is to say, when a specific product is going downhill, we have new ones for our partners. We keep giving them new things, and new possibilities to gain profits. Only in this way can we grow and win together. If we just focus on the one and only product, it will be a zero-sum game. In a nutshell, we will not “de-intermediate”. Instead, what we care about is how to grow and win with them.

Figure 3. ZWSOFT global partners

Figure 4. Truman was awarding ZWSOFT’s partners

Figure 5. Partners who have cooperated with ZWSOFT for over 15 years

It recalls me of the Global Partner Conference, or ZWorld (renamed this year) held by ZWSOFT. What’s your original intention to do this?

Although we always take business trips everywhere, it is quite hard for our partners to have a very clear picture of what we are like simply by talking with a young fellow in his or her twenties traveling there with a backpack. So in 2009, we held the first GPC. At that time, we just wanted to let our global partners to get closer to see what exactly ZWSOFT is like, to see what kind of people they are working with, and to see what software a Chinese company can develop. Up to now, we have successfully held 7 such conferences.

Figure 6. The 1st GPC in 2009

This year, it has been renamed as “ZWorld”, welcoming not only our partners, but also everyone in the CAx industry, to share, communicate, and strengthen friendship. Why we decided to make this change? One of the motivations is that I’ve discovered that the industry chain in the United States is admirable after attending COFES in the past eight years. A variety of professional companies fitting in different points of the chain. They promote, support and learn from each other, forming a competitive and powerful environment for all. I hope that ZWSOFT can also do something to unite a batch of like-minded people and various partners from all over the world, to do greater things. Competition and cooperation will exist forever, but what is more vital is that we hold together and make the industry bigger and better. The reason is quite simple – it will be no use being the leader if the whole industry doesn’t develop well or even doesn’t exist anymore.

After talking about partners, what about competitors? What do you think of the relationship with them?

The world is big, so is the market. Only if you have your uniqueness, you are able to survive well. As a saying goes, the real enemy is ourselves. What may really defeat us has not been, and will never be our competitors; instead, it is ourselves. To take a step further, the players who overturn the market may even not come from the competitors we can see; instead, they may be the ones out of sight. Therefore, we should be more focused on and keep improving ourselves, insist on our characteristics, develop the products our customers really like, connect more tightly with them and go deeper into their production chain to enhance their efficiency. That’s what we should really care about.

Figure 8. Working closely with clients

At the same time, I think that all the players in the filed should cherish each other, since from one angle we are competing, and from the other we may be cooperating. What’s more, the possibility of cooperation is larger than that of competition in the future, because the world is huge, and the market is massive. We may compete in one product line or in a specific market; however, we may cooperate in other product lines or other markets. We actually share many similarities – we are doing the same things and trying to do better; we are providing competitive products to clients; we are finding our own place; we are all excellent. So I am desiring more communications and cooperation with our competitors.

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