Interview with Aaron Kelly, Senior Director for Product Development from SolidWorks at 3DExperience World 2020

We recently interviewed Aaron Kelly who’s the Director of Product Management for SolidWorks at 3DExperience World (formerly SolidWorks World) in Nashville, TN. SolidWorks Corporation was founded in December 1993 by MIT graduate Jon Hirschtick. Hirschtick recruited a team of engineers with the goal of building 3D CAD software that was easy-to-use, affordable, and available on the Windows desktop. SolidWorks released its first product SolidWorks 95, in November 1995. In 1997 Dassault Systemes acquired SolidWorks for $310 million in stock.

Jeff Rowe: Joining me this afternoon is an old friend, Aaron Kelly, who’s the Director of Product Management for SolidWorks.

Aaron Kelly: Jeff, it’s great to see you because we’ve known each other for a long time.

JR: And can you discuss how your role has evolved at SolidWorks and what your role is today?

AK: As you know I started SolidWorks back in 1996 and at that time it was about migrating people from 2D to 3D; That was kind of the emphasis there. 3D was new, 3D was disruptive at that point so if we fast forward let’s say 25 years, everybody has 3D now.

JR: Yes, that’s very true.

AK: Companies who compete against each other, they all have 3D. Back in the day you’d get 3D, you get that productivity advantage, you could beat your competition to market and now since everyone has 3D, customers looking for more. Whether it be simulation, whether it be managing data, reducing mistakes, whether it be things like to help you collaborate so that you can make more innovative products to where now it’s not just focused on mechanical design but electrical design, software is now included in most products, interfaces are included. So now companies need to work together to get to that next level and so what I would say is about 25 years ago, we’re talking about 2D to 3D, right? We’re talking about empowering engineering design and now we’re talking about empowering entire companies.

JR: The big buzz this week has been about 3DExperience Works, can you talk a little bit about that?

AK: 3DExperience Works is revolutionary. So, like I said before, we were talking about empowering, design and engineering departments with our software, we have a great portfolio of software at the desktop, there’s over 47 products in there and spanning from mechanical design to electrical wiring design to simulation to CAM. And now with 3DExperience Works, we’re talking about an expansion of that portfolio and the expansion of that portfolio includes technology that not only can do the job today but can extend and expand for your needs for tomorrow.

Today, let’s just say on the desktop side of things, we have PDM Pro, and PDM is for the managing of files for engineers and designers. When we talk about the expansion which is going beyond engineering design, we’re going to the whole company. So we have offerings, specifically, we’ll talk about the ENOVIA offerings, that’s gonna enable people to collaborate in that design data beyond engineering design. So whether it’s marketing, whether it’s quality, whether it’s manufacturing, what have you, now they can come together and that data or let’s call it information.

When I think of data, I think of data as static, disconnected. It’s almost like a static report is data. Information to me is much more powerful, it’s interactive, it’s inclusive and to some degree, it’s immersive. You can dig down into it.

I think with the 3DExperience Works portfolio we’re able to include everyone at a company and it can start from the design data but can it extend to other information like, for example, product specs.

JR: what other types of information could be accommodated?

AK: Competitive information, feedback from customers, all of that now can come in and everyone can share it and make better products.

JR: Okay, now can you back up a step and talk a little bit about that integration with ENOVIA? You talked about this morning.

AK: We’re talking about the 3DExperience platform first of all. That’s the enabling technology that allows all of the DS brands roles to work together. We all come together and we work together on a platform. So SolidWorks as you know has an API and you can do all kinds of great things with it and so one of the things that we’ve done is we’ve extended SolidWorks to the 3DExperience platform. One of the roles that you just mentioned is ENOVIA. Collaborative design for SolidWorks connects the SolidWorks interface with the ENOVIA interface to either save or do revision management, you can also change out files, you can do all of that, that you can do with PDM plus more. All of the files that you work with SOLIDWorks become information as part of the 3DExperience.

JR: Yes, true information makes a huge difference.

AK: Information on the 3DExperience platform that you can use with all of the products that we offer. So SolidWorks can now work with DELMIA. SolidWorks can now work with SIMULIA Roles, SolidWorks can now work with DELMIAWORKS roles, SolidWorks can work with all of the brands roles on the 3DExperience platform because of some of the ENOVIA technology we talk to that bridges the gap between desktop, data and 3DExperience Platform information.

JR: How do you get SolidWorks customers excited and engaged about this transition from a SolidWorks as a product to SolidWorks as a platform?

AK: You know what, what’s great is when you talk to customers about challenges, right? Time to market, quality, innovation all of these challenges that all these companies have and in fact, these challenges are not new. The same challenges they had 25 years ago, they have them today although some of the product types have changed, right? So maybe there’s more connected products than there were was 25 years ago so the challenges are the same. When we talk to customers, they understand where we’re going. They get it. And when I talk to, especially senior managers, they’re seeing things about what’s coming in the future. They’re worried about what’s coming in the future, they’re worried about competition years from now, not just what’s happening today.

When you talk to them about the platform and you talk to them about breaking down silos between departments and their companies, they’re all in. They get it. They know that when a change happens to something in design or a change happens from manufacturing, everybody can know about it. They understand that now I can take the engineering data from the mechanical side, the electrical side, software, wherever it is and come together, and know where everything is at, any with a glance of a dashboard, they get it. They get it. It’s not a paper report, it’s not an email update, it’s not another meeting, it’s all there. So when we talk about a platform, it’s not about the platform itself, it’s about the platform delivers, and the platform delivers information that people gonna act on to make better products and get to market faster.

JR: Would you consider this platform concept the one thing that differentiates yourself from the competition?

AK: I will say it’s an additional thing. So I think we’ve done pretty good against the competition, I would think we have some great products today. I don’t think there’s a question about that. Our competitors certainly have great products too. I will say that going to the future, yes, this is going to be a clear differentiator for us, so that customers will understand how we wanna solve the problems of the future. I think we have a plan, I think it’s a clear plan and I think it’s an inclusive plan with both our partners and our customers to know where we are today with some of the best technology there is. And then tomorrow when they want to expand and need that higher level capabilities, whether it be simulation or machining or collaboration or even data management.

JR: You have certainly talked about a lot of brand new things, but where do you see this all leading to in the future?

AK:: I really believe that CAD is super important. And that is, I think, what we’re known for. And I think in the future, it’s not gonna be just CAD that we’re known for. And so I think that’s what’s gonna happen. We’re gonna help people, entire companies and maybe the tip of the spear is going through the engineering design department, but we wanna transform companies. We wanna help them make experiences and that’s where I think we’re going.

JR: Okay. Super. Now, where is the one place we can point our viewers to, to get more information about all of this?

AK: You can go to 3ds.com. From there, you can go to any of the brands that we have or any of the applications that we have.

Tags: SOLIDWORKS

Category: Interview

This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2020 at 12:55 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.