Onshape Cloud-Native CAD and PDM for Arena PLM

Full Transcript Below:

Kat Quinn

Hello, everybody who is taking the time to join us today. I’m really excited for everyone to be taking time out of their day to join us on understanding why it is that we speak about Onshape and Arena together. We’ll give everyone an additional minute to file into the room before we get started.

And if you’re just joining us, we’re going to begin momentarily, just giving everybody the chance to join the webinar.

And I think we’re good to go. Well, hello, everybody. Thank you guys all so much for taking time out of your days to spend an hour with us to better understand why it is that organizations who choose to implement Arena PLM, also choose to implement Onshape CAD and PDM alongside.

My name is Kat Quinn. I’m an Onshape Representative, working really closely with existing Arena customers and I’ll be part of the team that’s going to be leading us through the demonstration today. Jake, do you want to introduce yourself?

Jake Delano

Yeah. Hey everyone, my name is Jake Delano. I’m on the Onshape Tech Services team. So my day is pretty much spent working with Kat, showing off Onshape just like I’m doing today, telling people the benefits of cloud-native CAD and PDM, and I’m excited to be able to show you how that all connects to Arena as well.

Par Svensson

And my name is Par Svensson. I’m the Product Manager here at Arena Onshape. I’m responsible for the Onshape-Arena Connection that Jake and I’ll be doing here, and Kat is going to be talking about it, and I’m super excited about this opportunity to be part of this presentation as well.

Kat Quinn

Awesome. Thank you guys all so much. So typically, when Jake and I are working with organizations who are interested in Onshape, one of the first questions we get is, well, how many people are actually using Onshape?

So for those of you who are not aware, Onshape is the world’s most widely used cloud-native CAD and PDM platform. We’re able to run on anywhere, any device requiring zero IT.

This slide is really just to provide a brief snapshot of who we are in the market and where it is that we exist in the terms of organizations that are using us today. And the reason why we are so excited about a lot of these numbers is because Onshape has really been a product that’s only been on the market since 2013, but quite frankly, our story starts back in the early 1990s, during the early days of SolidWorks.

One of the first ways that people begin to recognize Onshape as Rick… is by calling it out as the platform that Jon Hirschtick and John McEleney went to, after they left SolidWorks with the Dassault acquisition to get started again. Now, Jon Hirschtick and John McEleney are really considered to be the godfathers of CAD in a lot of ways. They’re most widely known for being the two guys that got SolidWorks up off the ground in the early 1990s and back in the day, their favorite thing to do was to be able to go out into the field and directly connect with their customers who were using SolidWorks and better understand how it was they were using the platform and the cool types of products that they were able to create using SolidWorks.

And over time, they were hearing less and less about the cool things that people were making with SolidWorks and more about the issues that their customers were running into, that was preventing them from being able to do their best work.

I think that we can all see that there’s a slide up here that’s kind of crawling out, a few of those problems that we were hearing significantly, but let me know, guys. Put it into the chat. Let me know if this is something that you yourself have ever experienced during your own time as a SolidWorks user. So when Dassault acquired SolidWorks back in the later 1990s and into the early 2000s, when Jon Hirschtick and John McEleney were still part of the company, they decided to take a step back. And think to themselves, how is it that we can take what we did with SolidWorks and modernize that, and take all the feedback that we got from SolidWorks and create a platform that was more in tune with how it is that modern engineering teams are deciding today?

And essentially, that’s what Onshape is today. We’re not just SolidWorks in the Cloud; we’re a fundamentally different platform that’s more in tune with the way that modern engineering organizations are designing product. Companies like Trek, Garmin, and Ocado have moved their design teams to Onshape and they did so because they were fed up with errors, time waste, and hidden costs of outdated file-based CAD and PDM.

Another organization that chose to make the transition to Onshape was Custom Truck One Source. And a lot of their interaction with Onshape started off very similarly to this when they chose to take the time to sit with us through a product demonstration to better understand how it is that their gripes with traditional file-based CAD could be met. Jake, I’ll transition it over to you at this point.

Jake Delano

For sure. If I can add some color to that, Kat. Custom Truck One Source actually started coming to Onshape because they’re Arena customers already. So for a lot of you in the audience it might be a very similar situation. They got to see exactly what you’re about to see now, which is the power of working in a cloud-native CAD and PDM system and all the benefit that it brings you.

And really, the beginning of this journey into understanding how all of this functionality works is just understanding that fundamentally one of the biggest differences, and if you’re using Arena already this will feel familiar to you, is that there’s no installs and licenses to manage. It’s actually just logging in via the Cloud and you immediately have access to your CAD data, and this can be literally anywhere, anytime, on any device. I could even be doing this on a mobile device like an iPad, Android, or tablet of either side.

Now, this is because of Onshape’s fully cloud-native database, where all of your information can be accessed whenever you need to, without having to log into a VPN. All of this is running on Amazon Web Services, so you get the database power of them. You don’t have to worry about the server architecture that comes with traditional PDM and you get the power of the Cloud as well.

So whether it’s opening up multiple designs of different varieties and complexities, whether it’s a med stretcher design, satellite tracking system design. Getting more into the med device space with this breath-activated inhaler or something that is more enclosure and wiring like this heating mantle, Onshape is able to do all of it.

One, because of the power that the Cloud gives us where each of these tabs gets treated as its own instance. So you’re not worried about your computer’s local power, you can use this on any machine, and all of the data is offloaded into the Cloud. Now, what we do make sure of is that we do use your computer’s local graphics card so you get a really great local look and feel of the design, and you’re not bogged down by what some systems might consider streaming because it’s all actually happening locally on your machine.

As part of the way that we manage your data and overall take advantage of the Cloud, one is for the actual power of the Cloud, but two is to improve the organization so that when you’re working in an environment of not just you but the other members of your team, it’s easiest to share data with other users.

Now, one of the ways we do this is with Onshape’s document structure and that’s actually the UI that you’re looking at right here. Everything for this medical stretcher project can be stored in a single location or in a collection of these locations of information; instead of having to manage different files for parts assemblies, drawings, and related components, Onshape can store all of these inside of this document.

These all act its tabs at the bottom of the screen, so you see my top-level assembly for the med stretcher here. I can go down and take advantage of Onshape’s part studio environment, which is like designing in another system, whether it’d be SolidWorks and Inventor or so on, where you still have the ability to create designs with sketches, extrudes.

Go ahead and add fill-its and chamfers to edges and even do solid and weldment and sheet metal designs all in one. However, this is an environment now where instead of being multi body with… multiple bodies inside of a part file, these are already their own parts with their own properties and materials and appearances by day one to make sure that they’re able to maintain references and share features across from them. But it doesn’t come with any sort of extra issues like exporting these parts out when you want to use them on your own. Of course, go along with all of this, we have our engineering drawings that are ready for production so that when you’re sending these components out to actually be fabricated, you’re able to properly communicate with the manufacturing teams that you’re working for.

And most of all, there’s so much more that goes into utilizing Onshape than just the CAD portion of it. I mentioned earlier you can store related materials, so whether it’s a spec sheet or a quality sheet that goes along with your design, using something like Onshape’s cloud-native rendering functionality like Render Studio. Even taking advantage of our cloud-native simulation capabilities and more as well, it’s really meant to be a one-stop shop for everything that your engineering organization needs to create a project.

And a reason why we’ve put this all in one single area is not just for you as an engineer but for the other people downstream that need to use your data.
When you think about how traditional file-based CAD limits sharing of information between just people with those licenses and maybe the occasional person who uses something like an E-Drawings viewer or any sort of lightweight viewer, you’re able to do that, but you need to install a system. You got to make sure that you have the right version compatibility and that people are constantly sending you updates of the latest and greatest files that you’re working on. But with Onshape’s cloud-native environment, we’re not sending files back and forth between users, we actively bring other users into our environment.

Sharing works very much like any other modern-day system that you use. So whether it’s Google Docs, Microsoft Office 365, Miro, and so on, this will feel very familiar to you. And when we think about people who might use Arena, for instance, I can share in people who are on the supply chain team, on the purchasing team, and they don’t need any special licensing to worry about, other than just getting a viewing license inside of Onshape, and I can even choose the permissions that they have available, whether they’re able to comment, export, all in real time. And instead of sending a file through an email or checking in something to a PDM system and then making sure that they have the right PDM license, I share them directly in just with a link.

They get an email and they actually just open this up in real time. Now remember, everything in Onshape is cloud-native and there’s no such thing as file path references that people need. All they need to do is open this up in the browser and they can instantaneously start working with me. Now, you’ll notice here, I just shared in Rachel, she’s on the other side of my screen. She has a red top here and I’ll even throw her in dark mode just to show you that it’s a different side. When we’re looking at the Onshape environment, we’re able to see who’s working alongside us at any moment and these viewers have tons of functionality that’s capable for them, whether it’s just rotating around the model and spinning it.

You can choose whether you share them into the entire design or just a small component using our publication functionality, and they have the ability to come in and take measurements of the system.

They can change configurations if they need to, to understand what the different looks of the system may look like. Again, without needing any special CAD functionality and whether it’s somebody who is on purchasing who might want to understand the bill of materials, they’re able to do so here. They can come in and get the immediate view of this and be connected right with you. Since we are in the same environment, when you think about what this enables not only for reviewers but for design review, because we’re actually in the same environment as one another, Rachel can even turn on what’s called “follow mode” inside of Onshape and follow me around during this process.

As I go from the top level to a sub-assembly, she’s going to follow me directly and it doesn’t matter whether she’s working right alongside of me in the office or halfway across the world, she’ll get the same great experience inside of Onshape.

And what we allow teams to do as well, is keep all of their project-related questions and information in a single location. You don’t have to worry anymore about, “Okay, I have my CAD over here, I have my PLM over here,” but then you think about how you communicate with other users. You either share files around through an email or check in and check out of PDM. You’re sending emails back and forth, communicating with other users, probably getting into some sort of markup system with PowerPoint or Snagit or whatever tool you’re using.

All of that leads the disorganization of engineers. So what Onshape has taken advantage of is actually the ability for users to work and comment directly alongside one another.

Here, if Rachel is reviewing this design, and at some point she realizes that actually in the initial design we had talked about adding some bumper wheels onto this frame, even if she doesn’t have editing access, she still caught this. She can say to me, “Hey Jake, add the wheels here.” Onshape has built-in task management, which he can then assign to me, as well as the ability to actively tag a model in a certain orientation that’ll be geometrically related somewhere and leave a markup, all without ever leaving the platform.

All of this allows teams to better communicate with one another, and again, this can be people who maybe are just PLM users but they’re still able to get view-only capabilities. She can assign that to me as a task, and on my screen I actually get notified when she tells me this. I’ll get a little comment notification. If you use our mobile application, you’ll be tagged on there as well. As well as a task actually gets listed for me inside of our action items capability that’s included with Onshape. And this comment, we saw the markup that she added for me, but what really is best to see here is that this tag will actually zoom, pan, and rotate me to the same view that she had had when she created this to make sure that nothing is ever misconstrued between engineering teams and that exactly where on the model to look at.

Now, I can go in and start to insert these components and what you’re going to see here is that since we’re working in this cloud-native environment, when I add in this new side wheel to the design, there’s no refreshing that needs to happen on somebody else’s end. It just happens the way it should in a modern-day system. I insert that wheel, now Rachel sees it on her side as well. I can go through here and continue to assemble my components and then insert the other ones into my design.

And as this entire process happens, as I’m making these changes, she doesn’t have to worry about getting the latest and greatest file sent by me. I can just have her get updated as soon as this happens. I can use Onshape’s built-in standard content library to insert fasteners and make sure that when we do add this in, that it’s going to be the correct size.

And then, I can go ahead and complete this action by actually replicating these pieces of functionality elsewhere on the model as well. All of this is happening and she’s being updated every moment in time because I want to make sure that, as I go through my design process, that everybody is kept in the loop of all of these changes and now, without ever doing anything, she’s seeing these new real updates in real time to show you the power of working in a simultaneous area inside of Onshape.

So this is great, this brings in people who aren’t part of the CAD process to your design, but more importantly, one of the things that sets Onshape apart, and we’re going to leave Rachel and go to Mark who’s actually part of our engineering team as well, is that this can be a collaborative environment where multiple engineers can have access to the system.

At the same time as somebody else has it, if they want to. This may not be something that teams are used to seeing given that this is just a limitation of what traditional file-based CAD systems have done, but this is one of those things that we’ve seen engineering teams time and time again find benefit in, because of how it really takes a modern approach to doing agile product design.

We notice here Mark is lurking alongside with me now. He’s on the engineering team, he still has edit access even as I’m working alongside of here. He can see where I’m working on a design so we’re not tripping over each other, but if at any point, he wants to come in… and he had actually looked at this design earlier, and using our interference detection, realize that there was some interference between the bellow and the base of this design. He can come in and start to make these changes without having to tell me to check the model back in because this can just happen simultaneously. Now, we can go in and make some changes to the model and I’m going to use Onshape’s in-context modeling capabilities to go and update this design.

And this can all happen just as another user is inside of here. It’s the power of working in the Cloud. And you’re going to see in just a moment here, how we track all this information and make sure that engineers are up to date and notified of when this information happens, but first Mark is going to go in and actually subtract the bellows from the base.

Let’s make sure that all of those changes happen and they happen properly. And I didn’t have anything bogging me down as part of that process.
It’s just been a true way of communicating and collaborating with all other users inside of Onshape. And based on the past couple of years of doing this, I can almost guess that most of you are probably sitting here saying, “Wait, what just happened? How does this work? How do we make sure that nobody steps on each other’s toes?” And that all really lends itself to the way that Onshape does its PDM functionality and therefore, can roll really into working well as part of the PLM process.

Before I go ahead and talk about that, this has been completed, so I’m going to mark that task as completed and it’ll be checked off in the comment functionality, but let’s take a look at how these teams were able to work together with one another. It really comes down to Onshape’s built-in PDM. And this is the true visualization of this on the left side of the screen. This is our version and history tree. And this is actually how we save information inside of Onshape. There’s no such thing as a save button inside of Onshape because we truly just don’t need it. Everything gets saved to the Cloud instantaneously and they get user stamped and time-stamped and tracked so that as multiple engineers can work alongside one another, you’re able to see all of these changes and nobody is left behind. The great thing about this functionality is that at any point in time, if I need to look back at a previous point before any of the changes were made during today’s demonstration, I can.

Now, we see those bumper wheels—they aren’t there if we go back and check—there’s still some interference between the bellow and the base on this model. And this is all stuff that you saw happen live today and this doesn’t require me saving a file and even if I hadn’t made these changes during today’s session, I’d still have access to them.

You can see here that from the very beginning of this document, every single moment in time is tracked and stamped for you, so you never lose part of your engineering process. And these points are not just for show. I can make a note at any point in time here using Onshape’s built-in version control and I’ll just label this as pre-webinar. Now, this becomes a relatable and marked milestone for me in time, just like you saw me going and looking at that previous state in all of those changes.

Now, this is a more outwardly understandable point in time to reference. If at any point in time, I want to go back to this point, I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to go back to a previously saved copy of something. All I have to do is hit Restore. And remember, we’re looking at the most visual change of this is going to be those wheels. And immediately, we’re just brought back in time because of the way that Onshape allows you to work in this agile workflow. And this doesn’t overwrite any of your previous states of your model. It actually just adds new history so that if you need to have an undo of your undo, you can absolutely do it just like that. It’s meant to be something that allows teams to work agilely with one another and really get into a process to help the engineers work better and faster.

Now, all of these iterative processes can really cause a lot of trouble when you think about traditional file-based architecture, but let’s talk about how engineers can work together better in Onshape. We’ve taken a page out of the software development workflow and with this Git-style approach that you see on the left side of the screen where it’s really marking down versions in time, what we’re also doing is taking advantage of what we call “branching” inside of Onshape. For traditional file-based CAD users, think of this as doing a “file save as” or a “pack and go” of a design. If I need to iterate on something and I want to do this in an environment where it’s not going to affect any of the other users just yet, I can actively make another version. I can name it whatever I’d like to, and good news—even if I misspell something, I can go ahead, change the properties of that just like that. And again, we’re not tied to a file path, so changing a file name in another system might cause an issue, but because everything is in this cloud-native database, no problem here for me.

Now, with this branch I can go ahead and physically branch off. And this is going to be essentially a new workspace inside of Onshape. You see how it forks off right there. This becomes a point now where I can make changes to this design and when we start to work here, I’m going to go ahead and I want to start working on this base. I’m going to make a couple of geometric changes, but I’m not sure if I want to use them just yet in the production model. Everything I do here now, you notice that Mark and Rachel, they’re not working alongside of me anymore. I’m just working on my own. I can come in and whether I want to use in-context or just some regular part studio modeling, this is an environment now where I can come in and let’s say, I want to choose one of these lips and get rid of them, on this part.

I’m just going to edit some of these further features, and a nice part that I’m able to see, this is obviously rolling me back in time. But this final button actually gives me reference and runs through the rest of the feature tree so that if I want to see the final state of the model, then I can. Now, I’m going to go through and then, select some new faces to cut out here and it appears actually that I’ve already done that, so that’s great, but I’ll show you even more in real time.

So let’s cut these faces and we’ll split them out based on that geometry that’s happening right there. So I want to split that face and that face with this sketch right there. And now, I can delete these faces out. You’ll see in just a moment here that what we’re seeing as part of this design… Good news, I can actually go make some updates here. So give me one moment to do some CAD. But it’s just as quick as it could be because of the way that Onshape is built to work.

It’s going to be like your regular everyday CAD system. So that I’ll go through here now and make sure I connect these faces with one another, and this will become another cutout for the design. Then, I can go ahead and process that as part of the split. We’ll see that this is now included in part of this. Great.

And my last step will be to delete that face that gets created there. Now, we see the downstream effects of this. I can use that final button again to see if any features will break. Notice here, we have a fill it we’ll have to go fix. That’s totally okay. And as a final point here, I’m going to go ahead and I’m actually going to change the color of this part.

I’m going to edit the appearance, so that this is very much a different component in time, and if at any point in time I need to change any of these references, then I’m able to do so. But this is a CAD environment that’s super flexible in the ways that we do engineering. So it looks like I might’ve cut out more information than I needed to here. That’s totally fine. I’m going to remove those other faces that I wasn’t planning on selecting. There we go. It’s just as easy to fix these mistakes and that’s still one of the best benefits of utilizing Onshape is that these environments now are just built to work with one another.

And I can continue to work as part of this process and split these components out. And the best part is that as I’m going through here, all of the work that I’ve done as part of this process is still being tracked for me. It’s meant to be done in a way that’s going to be easy for engineers to use and to design, and to have all of these happen in real time. And all of this is still happening in the Cloud, remember.

So even as I’m going through and making these updates, it’s happening in a new environment and my computer isn’t being overloaded by any of these changes. It’s just really the way that Onshape is designed to work. And you’re going to see here how this all plays into our PLM environment, in just a moment. So you actually know it’s a live demo, but that’s the best thing about doing this, is that I’m confident in Onshape’s abilities regardless of the changes that I need to make.

So we have here now a fill-it that’s fixed, a fill-it that did lose a couple of references. That’s okay, and I’ll actually edit this because maybe I need a different radius now on these edges. Let’s go with 10 millimeters instead of five. And everything I’ve done here has been done in this environment. You’ve seen me make those handful of changes and even change the color of that base.

And now, when we go back to the original design that we were working on, we see that Mark and Rachel, they’re back, and all of the changes that we made in that environment haven’t been brought over at all yet. This is because these are still parallel workspaces that are connected to one another, but I can iterate and work on these designs. And the way to tell that these two are different is actually to use our built-in compare tool. This lets me understand the differences in these models between point A and point B. And you can do this between branches versions or even some of those micro version changes. You can see here a list of features that are different from one point to another. There’s less edges selected, the radius is larger. And what Onshape does is make this very obvious because as we move the slider from point A to point B, it actually highlights on the model in color, everything else stays gray, but in color it highlights where those changes have happened, to truly show the iterative portion of this design.

And to really complete the iterative process here. I’m going to walk through, and I want to take those changes. And in any other system I have to actually redo that by hand. That would take a lot of time and that’s not something that I want to do. So rather, I can use Onshape’s merge functionality to bring those changes over, but just the click of a button from that other base branch into my main workspace, you have ways of protecting this to make sure that if people do these changes, that there are some checks and balances.

But for today’s sake, I’m just going to go ahead and do that. So we’ve seen a lot of the iterative process today of Onshape, but the true power of working with the two systems of Onshape and Arena comes with Onshape’s release management functionality. And this is built in from the start and we’ve actually connected this to Arena itself. So when I want to go ahead and release this product to production, I can go ahead and I’m going to do both the part and the drawing for this base.

You see here this icon, if I do want to go back to before that merge, I can still do that and I’m going to go ahead and update this with the latest and greatest changes because those cuts have changed, those radii have changed, and I can choose the new references in which those are going to be updated.

So that drawing is ready to go now. That part is ready to go, and I want to release this. I can use Onshape to built-in release management capabilities which connects directly to Arena to start this process. Now, what you’ll see here is the Arena change icon. This is actually searching for a change inside of Arena and this is where these connected processes happen.

Kat Quinn

Timely, timely point in the demonstration, Jake. We just were able to get to… We just received a question about this.

Jake Delano

Awesome. I’m excited to be able to show it then. So now, when I go and I work inside of Arena, I want to actually create a change for this component.

And as a side note, before we create this change, I did already start working between the two systems. So the connection between Onshape’s release management and Arena is great. And what even proceeded before we put out that release functionality was the ability to actively sync our bill of materials directly with Arena itself.

So during this entire time, our bill of materials has been synced with Arena and we do this so that we have early and often access to these designs.
You see here this icon to sync BOM to Arena, that means it was last synced. And that information can be done very fluidly. I know that in this case we have some parts here, particularly in the wheel design, where those have been added since the last time we worked on this. And as I go ahead here, I need to make sure that there’s a part number associated with this. I can actually pull in this part number directly from Arena.

This lets me pull as part of this connection and I can sync that in—as this is syncing in real time though, we’ll make sure the bill of materials is up to date, but I do want to create this release inside of Arena and it does start with a change. So we have the change number that goes with it, and I can choose to have it be an ECO. We can set the actual workflow that’s going to go with this as well. And when I do this, now I have a change order set up inside the system.

So this means that I’m able to connect Onshape and Arena and all it takes is copying and pasting this change number into the same systems. Great. Good news. It told me, “Hey look, this part needs a part number,” and I can go in any part that doesn’t have one just yet. Just generate all the missing part numbers. Now, this will be updated and we can go back and we can fix that another time. It’s already been synced anyways, and the important thing is that we have this change number, because this is going to tie the two systems together.

What we’re doing here is actually setting this up in the connected systems. And I’m going to come back in just a moment here and we’ll go through and do this release process all over again. So the great part about the system in general is how connected these two platforms are. And it’s easy, especially sometimes when you have a couple different accounts and the systems are demonstrating to get access to everything, but we know that everything is going to work out just the way it should.

So I’ll be back in just a moment here, and like I said, we’re logged in and I can go and release this base and that change number that we created before is still going to be relevant to this operation. And now, it’s actually found the change number connected to the email address that I’m now properly using for demonstrating. And we’re able to pull these revision numbers directly from Marina and this Onshape release candidate can choose more components to sign on to as well.

So if I want to add in some of those related materials like a PDF or a spec sheet, then I could, I could add more engineering drawings and more products and even some assemblies if I needed to—it will all be sent to the new system. If anything has any need for a part number, then I can go ahead and generate them here. If it has anything blocking it like the need to update a drawing, it’ll tell you. And as we go through… we can submit that. And now, this is a change order in Onshape being sent over to Arena. So these two systems are connected to one another.

It’ll take a second to transition between the two platforms. But as we’re going through here now and looking at all of the way that this gets set up, it all gets managed just by Onshape’s release management functionality. And I mentioned earlier how easy it is to connect these two systems, all it takes is copying and pasting a web token and a workspace ID and that’s as easy as it is to set up the two platforms and be connected.

So it doesn’t require any integration between different teams and different products. They’re built to connect with one another. We can map all the different properties between the two systems.

And now, when we actually look inside of Arena, we’ll see that in the platform here. And I’m going to pull this out to the other side of my page, that we have some components that need some approval. It’s been transitioned as part of states and I’m going to submit this on my own today, and I can go through the submittal process. And because these two systems are connected, Onshape’s release management works awesome on its own, but it’s also notifying us that people inside of Arena are going to be signing off on this.

Notice here for any teams that need this for med device workflows, this is where Arena will be super helpful to meet all of your FDA compliance because it can be used as a connected system of record with Onshape and get the double password authentication. I know that all the information inside of here is correct, so I can go through and submit that change in Onshape. It’s actually opened as an open and pending change and as this gets approved inside of Arena, it’ll actually transition states between the two platforms.

If we look at what this looks like right now inside of Onshape, that pending change, it shows up on the design. And for something like the base cover drawing, which has actually been in a pending state, there’s a watermark shown between the two systems to let you know it’s getting approved.
And as this transitions between the two platforms, just remember that all of this was built to connect to one another. It goes from a point of being signed off to pending, for these drawings. And you’ll even see this transition happen in a matter of moments during today’s demonstration. All of this will get marked in a revision table on Onshape and this all gets signed off. You notice here, the completed release happened, that watermark went away from the design and that release gets marked with a triangle inside of the Onshape system.

So now, we’ve had a product go through an engineering change. It’s been properly signed off on in Arena and we can even see that release candidate where all of those components were signed off on and all of the properties that go along with it from being signed off with Arena and even see that change order. And when these two systems are connected, of course, a lot of the time for Arena users, there’s going to be information that they need to see within the system. So let’s take a look here now at what this looks like inside of Arena, based on these new parts in Onshape.

Remember when I told you earlier you could sync the bill of materials and look at different revisions? Well, it’s just as easy to open those up inside of Arena, just with our “open” and “Arena” button from these sync designs. Now, when I open this up inside of Arena, we’ll see here that this is going to open up to my 02 revision of this part, but it also includes the working revision and my 01 revision.

All of the information when you’re connected between Onshape and Arena is sent over in terms of metadata. And because these systems are connected, you have the ability from day one to actively have a 3D CAD viewer inside of Arena with a thumbnail as well for these components. If you’re someone who just lives in Arena and only sees the information that’s inside of Arena, you can still visualize the finished product. And if you’re somebody who lives between both Onshape and Arena, you can have an Onshape viewing license to go and open this up in Onshape yourself as well.
And during this transition, not only was this thumbnail sent over, but for people who need downstream access to these files. So whether it’s looking at design revision one, design revision two that we can both look at, all of the information that manufacturers downstream care about will be available inside of the PLM system.

So you get your step file that’s automatically sent over. You get a PDF of the drawing that you’re available and you can view these within the system. You can download them. You can have access all in one single platform. So we’ve gone through an entire product release and product revision cycle between these two systems. It’s been tracked the entire time in Onshape’s release management capability with our PDM version and history workflow.

And this all happened just because of the ease of setting up the two platforms with one another. So what already is a product that’s built to have release management built in with just the click of a button to turn this on, has the same functionality now with just the check of a box inside the company settings, connecting had PDM and PLM all in one single interface.

There’s so much more that we could get into, especially on the CAD details side. But for now, I’m going to turn it back to Kat and we will close up the presentation today. And this is actually me going to keep sharing. So good news, you still get to see my screen, but Kat is going to take right back over.

Kat Quinn

That was awesome, Jake. Thanks so much for leading us through that demonstration. I know that there was a lot that we reviewed here today and we’re going to be moving into the question-and-answer portion of our webinar shortly.

But prior to doing so, I would ask for everybody to take a moment to imagine that you’re an F1 car driver and you’ve come into a pit stop. Using SolidWorks is analogous to you guys being your own pit crew, changing your own tires, doing refuels, doing repairs, but with Onshape, you have a pit crew and you’re focused on doing racing.

Really, what this means is that Onshape is just allowing engineer teams to focus on product development and using Onshape and Arena together empowers everyone within an organization to provide… to get access to the latest models, even those without a purchase CAD license. Really, this level of visibility allows organizations to proactively identify and rectify necessary design changes in order to be able to save yourself some time and money for later down in the process when typically design changes take place.

And at this portion in the webinar, we’ll begin to open it up to Q&A.

Jake Delano

I will say for everybody before we get to Q&A, I will make note that obviously, this is just the beginning of taking a look at these two platforms, but there is so much more that you can see and there are a couple of different ways that you can do this.

Feel free to contact the Onshape sales team. Odds of you talking to me and Kat again are pretty high. But this will put you in touch with the engineering teams that’ll help you understand exactly how you can make the transition to Onshape.

And as well, if you want to get your hands on the product, we have a free version of Onshape, but we also have the Onshape discovery program, which allows users to get Onshape for a free extended professional trial for a specified amount of time. So scan these QR codes and in the recording as well, you can still scan these afterwards and come see what Onshape is all about. I’m really excited to hear from you all.

Kat Quinn

Well, I think that that brings us to our time at this point.

Par Svensson

All right, thank you so much.

Jake Delano

Thanks, everyone.

Kat Quinn

Thanks, everybody.