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I need to gripe for a minute.

design-engine

New member
A company I know of in Wisconsin recently stopped using Creo and opted instead to migrate their entire company to Inventor. If you know me you know I can be quite opinionated and I've heard it all. My favorite is 'Bart, you don't understand. Our vendors use Solidworks". "We should be using solidworks" So where am i going with this? Let me try to explain.

I have a few questions. When did the progressive manufactures quit empowering their vendors to take full leverage of the tools we now call Creo?

Lets take for example that you have Creo and your a fortune 500 company. Maybe you don't own all the various modules but if you mature to the point that you realize you need Creo Simulate or Style or Sheetmetal Progressive Die design or any other module that when you first purchased Creo you didnt know you need, at least there exists a module you can purchase. With Solidworks, Inventor and the like your only get what you get. There is no other module that you can purse. This happened to Tesla. They purchased their seats of Solidworks and later figured out they needed more. (smart people are smart because they know they don't know everything) When Tesla matured they realized they needed more out of Solidworks than the two module system that it came with. Like G2 and G3 continuity among about 600 other things that Creo and Catia can do with their hundreds of modules. The same sales person who sold them Solidworks sold them Catia. They should have purchased Catia instead.

Or Creo!

In my classes I like to explain the difference between a vendor and a partner. You tell vendors what to do not how to do it. A partner you invite to training with you. Not to many companies think to invite their design firms for training. Even as it's a day rate it doesn't cost more. Caterpillar purchased Pro/ENGINEER for select vendors converting them into partners in the late 80's. The ones that refused to quit using AutoCAD went out of business quickly as Caterpillar trained the one vendor to be a partner. Trained them to use Pro/ENGINEER and many went for 30k per month of business to 230k per month in business.

Converting from Creo to Solidworks or Inventor one module system is one step short of going out of business.
 
I have just started using Creo since Sept of 2015, I still struggle daily because so many things are hidden and unless you know what you are looking for or where to find it ......you wont. And even if you find them, many commands I cant get to work. When I first started on Solidworks, within a few weeks, I was proficient. SW in my opinion was much more user friendly.
 
I've been using Pro/CREO since release 16. I know tools like ISDX are superior, but I'm nearing the end of my patience with PTC's deteriorating tech support, customer service, and the revolving door reseller situation. I'm also concerned about this new subscription thing they're coming up with. I wonder if it's a back door way to raise prices.

Since the beginning, the complaint about PTC is they're arrogant, not customer focused, only care about the largest customers, don't care about users in the real world, etc. It was all true, but the superiority of their product excused most of that. Now with so many options out there, it's hard to justify putting up with it anymore. Once things finally move permanently to the cloud and software on demand, I bet they'll just get out of the CAD business once and for all.
 
...This happened to Tesla. They purchased their seats of Solidworks and later figured out they needed more. (smart people are smart because they know they don't know everything) When Tesla matured they ...

The more I know, the more I know I don't know. The more I know I don't know, the more I know. This is one of the best quotes that originated from a Yuengling moment I had. I love inspiration.

Cheers
 
Another question is why did they even bother doing a full migration when Creo can now open other systems files and use them or convert them to Creo files if needed?
 
The biggest problems with the sales force is they don't know the product. They only know the brochures. They are trained to sell from the marketing data and when it comes to the tough questions, they bring in an AE to do a demo. However, if a potential customer doesn't do enough research themselves, they don't know what questions to ask. Personally, I have discovered not to put any faith in what any VAR sales rep says. In every case, they don't have enough in-depth product knowledge to really steer a customer to what is best for them. Nor do they really know the capabilities of their competition.
 
Creo in my opinion is too difficult of a CAD program to learn on your own or part of the OJT. I started a new job in Feb and still today I've yet to master the basics. to compound the problem, companies don't want to pay to send employees out for two weeks training and in my case I'm the only engineer using Creo; which mean I have no one to turn to for basic question. My productivity is negative, because I spend most of my day posting questions and hunting and pecking how to on Creo.
 
Creo in my opinion is too difficult of a CAD program to learn on your own or part of the OJT. I started a new job in Feb and still today I've yet to master the basics. to compound the problem, companies don't want to pay to send employees out for two weeks training and in my case I'm the only engineer using Creo; which mean I have no one to turn to for basic question. My productivity is negative, because I spend most of my day posting questions and hunting and pecking how to on Creo.

Did you use a CAD program before this job?
 
I can honestly say that less than 10% of prospective Job candidates that my firm interviews has any Pro-E experience. it's not being taught and employers aren't using it.
 
Yes:
AutoCAD, SolidWorks, Solid Edge, Inventor, Mechanical Desktop, Solid Designer
SolidWorks and Inventor seem to steal each other's ideas. Love both, never needed training, up and running in 1 week, honeymoon phase the whole time
SolidEdge- was in a class by themselves, low to mid range.. I like it not loved it.
Mechanical Desktop-- AutoCAD, for the most part, not a decent program.
SolidDesigner- used in 15 years ago, terribly hard to learn, found out recently PTC bought them out, and now its called Creo, which is near impossible to learn on your own.

Perhaps PTC should buy a seat of Solidworks, figure out how it works and then duplicate it.
 
agree Michael Paul. I work in he same area as PTC corp. and nowhere did I interview uses Creo. If I knew it was going to be this difficult I would never have accepted the job offer,
 
It is being used in many colleges but it the courses do not concentrate on proper use and barely covers the PTC Basic Intro to Creo. Emphasis is pushed towards the project and get it done regardless of the proper modeling technique or methods. Unfortunately SolidWorks and Inventor have been much more active in pushing their products towards education and getting people familiar with it.

Fact of the matter is, a much more versatile tool is more complicated to use and learn. If you want to learn it, there is a tremendous value in taking the PTC courses or at a minimum, subscribing to the PTC-U online courses or other VAR courses and training. Many companies may not have a use for the functionality in Creo. Those that do, would not be well served by shifting to one of the other Mid-market software. Many people think that they all do the same thing. They most certainly do not and there are values to both depending on the product a person designs. Unfortunately, upper level management are not the right people to make that determination.
 
I can honestly say that less than 10% of prospective Job candidates that my firm interviews has any Pro-E experience. it's not being taught and employers aren't using it.

This is the case on the CAD subreddit.

I was reading PTC's earnings call from last week. They only mentioned Creo a few times, and it was only in anecdotes about how it was being integrated by customers into the programs that PTC really cares about for future growth. Creo is really just as an afterthought for them.

Just go to their website. Nothing about Creo on the home page or in any links. You really have to dig around to find anything about Creo. If I was designing their website and PTC asked me to hide Creo as much as possible from the general public, I'm not sure I could do a better job than what they have.

It was mentioned in the earnings call that there's a big increase in job openings for cloud services but their CAD sales positions have been declining for years now. It looks like the endgame will be to eventually integrate Creo completely into whatever internet-of-things or augmented reality application that ends up the last man standing, and then PTC can finally wash their hands of the CAD specific sales channel.

I don't know if there's any company that spends so much effort ignoring their core or who dislikes their traditional core customers more than PTC. The best hope for Creo users is if the new Connected Age (or whatever it is) gets so fragmented that PTC sells Creo once and for all.
 
agree Michael Paul. I work in he same area as PTC corp. and nowhere did I interview uses Creo. If I knew it was going to be this difficult I would never have accepted the job offer,

Here in the Midwest Pro/CREO still has a sizable presence, but we're just flyover country for the Harvard Business Set that runs PTC nowadays.

I'm not surprised about the limited impact in the Boston area. PTC has traditionally sold to big industrial customers. You've probably seen quite a decline in that sector over the years.

I've seen a lot of news about the start-up scene in your area. I'm a big fan of Bolt, an incubator for hardware companies.
 
We as Design-engine often go to colleges to present either Solidworks or Creo. we did this late last year at UIC We offered two hats for a give away. Basically a raffle. We were giving away a one week class in both Creo and Solidworks.

Not one person put a tab into the Creo hat which means no one even knew what it was. Wow. Someone in marketing is not doing their job. I feel like a lone wolf pushing Creo now days.
 

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