Alignex Blog

Digital transformation is a hot topic throughout many industries.

There is a real buzz around the introduction of digitalization and how it can help companies be agile, efficient and resilient.

All essential features when moving forward from the global pandemic.

As a result of COVID-19, we have seen a glimpse into a future world – where digital is a key part of every interaction.

Moving into this new era – we have seen that digital transformation is no longer just a nice to have for those in the manufacturing industry wanting to drive productivity and increase efficiency.

With the world changing at an unprecedented speed, we have seen tangible transformation taking place– with technology at its center.

Check out our new library of Design Automation and Product Configuration videos! Each video is 90 seconds or less so you can get up to speed quickly, or pause after each step to learn at your own pace. These 12 Quick Tips videos cover topics from custom properties and form templates to advanced feature parameters and specification test mode.

Moogue uses DriveWorks as a Sales Configurator to allow anyone to configure custom 3D printed phone cases. They are based in the Netherlands and create their customizable phone cases using a 3D printer.

Are you tired of recreating similar projects within SOLIDWORKS? Many of our customers are finding their design cycles decreasing through the use of DriveWorks design automation. In a previous post—How to Reduce Your Design Cycle with DriveWorksXpress—we discussed how DriveWorksXpress can be used to automatically configure a custom part in SOLIDWORKS. But it doesn’t stop there. Your entire assembly can be controlled within the simple to use interface. Fully detailed drawings can also be created for you with the push of a few buttons.

DriveWorksXpress has the ability to greatly decrease your design cycles for various projects, whether you want it to drive just a portion of or the entirety of your assemblies. Either way you will find the process will be the same. Parts can be linked to the DriveWorksXpress forms, their suppression states controlled in the assembly, and the drawings created with pre-defined details. Automating all these processes means your engineers get back valuable time that can be focused on creating new and innovative products.

Would you consider your line of products to be the same, but different? Have you ever found yourself creating copies of your SOLIDWORKS parts and assemblies just to have them as starting points for new designs? Then you may be missing out on a tool that could cut your design cycle by a significant amount of time! I am of course referring to DriveWorksXpress—a design automation tool that is free with every license of SOLIDWORKS.

In today’s competitive landscape our customers are faced with many challenges that affect the organization's profit margin. Some of those challenges include increased engineering and manufacturing costs, pressures to offer customization of standard products and bottlenecks in engineering. The old adage of "throwing more bodies" at a project is just not feasible anymore.

We often talk about how to get your products to market faster than your competition. At Alignex, we have many tools to help with your product development process for new product development. A topic I want to introduce to you today is design automation. In a past SOLIDWORKS poll, 65% of responders said that a majority of their designs are based on previous designs.