DriveWorks World Day Three Highlights

Welcome and Recap

Attendees were welcomed to the third and final day of DriveWorks World 2023. The day then kicked off with a panel discussion, recapping the sessions presented on Wednesday. Oliver, Tom, Paul and Philip discussed some of their favourite sessions from the day before, and of course the announcements Glen made during the What’s New.

Throughout DriveWorks World, we have seen lots of interaction from attendees, in the chat section of the live broadcasting, the Q&A, polls, or using the #DWW23  hashtag on social media. Oliver, Tom, Paul and Philip also picked out some of the questions and messages we’d had from our community.

Documents & Integration

The first technical session of the day was about Documents & Integration. Our experts discussed the different ways DriveWorks handles, shares and re-uses data to provide seamless integration with other company systems.

Integration Product Manager, Adam, joined Oliver live to take us through a project run through. Adam told us why he thinks the CPQ DriveApp is so useful and why it is such a good feature for those who are wanting to create their own CPQ solution.

This was followed by an expert panel discussion where they were joined by Thomas and Jake from the DriveWorks Systems Team. Jake and Thomas shared their knowledge, answering questions from our audience and highlighting some top tips for integration.

Deployment/Reporting & Diagnostics

Some more familiar faces from the DriveWorks team joined us back in the studio for a the Deployment/Reporting & Diagnostics overview.

They talked about the built-in reporting & diagnostics tools in DriveWorks that make it easier to set up and maintain your own DriveWorks configurator.

This was followed by a Deployment/Reporting & Diagnostics panel discussion. Ollie P talked about troubleshooting and the best ways to take a step back from a project, and use the method of ‘Rubber Ducking’ – of course he brought a rubber duck into the studio for this session!

Forms & UI

In the next session focusing on our core technologies, we explored Forms and UI.

This was accompanied by a special workshop looking at Before & After of Forms & UI with DriveWorks’ Technical Marketing and UX Specialist, Rob. In this session, Rob opened up one of our old configurator examples and highlighted some areas that weren’t very clear. Rob explained some of the quick and easy changes he would make to improve the user experience. He also shared how he approaches planning and prototyping and some of the tools he uses. Rob shared lots of tips and tricks on improving usability and aligning DriveWorks form design with existing company branding.

3D

As the final technical overview of the event, Oliver shared some information about DriveWorks 3D. He was joined by Will, to host a Before and After Workshop, showing some of the features you can use to make 3D scenes and models more realistic.

This session came just after the final What’s New. Glen had shared the new features added to DriveWorks 3D technology in DriveWorks 21, so Will took the opportunity to open DriveWorks 21 and show DriveWorks 3D models before and after using the new features.

Dave and Ian from the DriveWorks Technical Team then joined Oliver and Will for an Ask The Expert session where they answered questions from attendees about DriveWorks 3D technology and the new features in DriveWorks 21.

What’s New in DriveWorks 21

Of course, it wouldn’t be a DriveWorks World without DriveWorks CEO, Glen Smith announcing What’s New in the latest release of DriveWorks.

On Thursday, Glen shared parts three and four of all the exciting new additions and functionality added to DriveWorks 21.

Attendees shared their delight at the new features coming in DriveWorks 21, and in particular the features announced in part four made DriveWorks users very happy. There was a lot of well earned praise for the DriveWorks Development Team in the live stream chat.

Technical Roadmap

We ended DriveWorks World 2023 with a DriveWorks Technical Roadmap panel discussion, hosted by Oliver, Technical Engagement Manager and DriveWorks CTO, Phillip. They talked about the incredible features added in DriveWorks 21, the work that had gone into them for this release, and past releases too. They discussed what these features mean for the future of DriveWorks software too.

They also took the opportunity to take a look at the Enhancement Suggestions submitted throughout DriveWorks World 2023. They discussed how the features suggested might behave and how they might be used by the users requesting them.

Extronics

UK based Extronics specialize in developing and manufacturing equipment for use in hazardous areas. They serve customers all over the world in a range of industries such as oil & gas, chemical, pharmaceutical, and mining.

Nick Saunders, Operations Director, explained how the company are using DriveWorks technology to improve their business processes. He shared how they began using DriveWorks to automate CAD as a first win, before implementing a DriveWorks product configurator for Extronics’ highly configurable range of products. Nick also took us through how they have integrated DriveWorks software with their ERP and PLM systems.

Twin City Fan

Twin City Fan is an industry leading designer and manufacturer of fans, ranging from heavy-duty industrial process fans, to OEM fans. They create customizable fan solutions and have a wide range of product offerings.

Shawn Pantzke, Principle Engineer, told us about how the company are using DriveWorks and how it has benefitted them. Shawn explained some of the technical detail about how they are using hash in DriveWorks to hash the parameterization of their parts into a single string to store in their database, and how it is also integrated into their PDM add-in to get a serial number to give parts a numeric name.

Tool Alliance

Based in California, Tool Alliance manufacture a range of cutting tools. Wade Anderson from SOLVESHOP and Dave Dewey from Base 10 Consultants, who both supported Tool Alliance through integrating DriveWorks, took us through how they are using DriveWorks. They were also joined by Mathieu Tapp, Director of Business Development at Tool Alliance.

Wade explained how they used DriveWorks to create a platform for Tool Alliance to deploy Speeds and Feeds Calculator online, using DriveWorks to solve and deploy complex solutions.

Jackson Electrical Industries

Based in New Zealand, Jackson Electrical Industries are a supplier of industrial power applications and portable power solutions.

Christopher Siriphone, Project Engineer at Jackson Electrical Industries was welcomed to the event by Ahmed Lasheen, DriveWorks Technical Territory Manager for AsiaPac. Christopher shared how Jackson Electrical Industries is is using DriveWorks 3D technology on their configurable electrical boxes.

Christopher took us through a demo of their 3D product preview and how changes can be easily implemented into the design.