| Jumping on the CAD Wagon |
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| Written by Administrator |
| Friday, 10 April 2009 14:39 |
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INFORMATION TODAY About 10 years ago, Thomas research indicated that industrial buyers were asking suppliers to provide CAD drawings for parts—such as bearings, motors, and valves— they were considering, according to Peter Mooney, product manager of CAD Solutions for ThomasNet. "They would say, 'Look, I'm thinking about using a cer¬tain size bearing in this machine I'm designing. If you could give me a drawing of a bearing in a CAD format, like actually something that works inside my tool that I use to design, that would be very helpful to me. So helpful, that any¬one who gives it to me, I'll likely buy it from them,'" he says. Based on this research, Thomas decided to hop on board by distributing CAD drawings on CD-ROMs. According to Mooney, Thomas compiled drawings from many companies on one CD and then distributed them throughout the industrial sector. "Ten years ago, not many industrial companies even had websites," he says. "This was way back when, before the in¬ternet was used. So we recognized this as an opportunity for suppliers before the internet use was very high at all." Now more than 800,000 drawings have been downloaded or inserted by clients on ThomasNet.com, according to the website. However, Mooney says ThomasNet not only makes CAD drawings available on its site but also helps industrial suppliers create drawings and offer them for download on their own sites. ThomasNet does this with its Online CAD Solutions, part of its Web Solutions suite. According to Mooney, when a company signs up for the CAD Solutions, ThomasNet helps them solve two major problems: how to create drawings for every product in a cat¬alog of thousands and how to make those drawings usable in any CAD program, including SolidWorks, Autodesk, Pro/ENGINEER, and Solid Edge. ThomasNet developed the complete technology solution that handles this problem for them," he says. "We create all of these drawings for the customer, and we have technology so¬lutions that make sure that no matter who the user is that wants it or what CAD system they're using, they can always get the part. It always comes in nice and clean to their system." Industrial suppliers can then use the trio of Online CAD Solutions—CAD Viewer, CAD Publisher, and CAD Media Solutions—to integrate the drawings into their own web¬sites so potential customers can view and download them, insert them into their own designs, and place an order if the product fits. According to Mooney, offering CAD drawings in this way increases the likelihood that customers will buy a part and helps suppliers lower internal costs by decreasing customer requests and eliminating the need to fax drawings for custom products back and forth with buyers. Companies that want to use the Online CAD Solutions must first sign up for a free listing on ThomasNet.com and then get in touch with a ThomasNet representative or visit ThomasNet.com, Mooney says. The solutions are available for an annual fee that varies based on a company's needs, according to Susan Orr, ThomasNet senior director of strategic marketing.
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| Last Updated on Friday, 10 April 2009 15:32 |
