What can I achieve with a custom SOLIDWORKS development?
As many of you may already know, SOLIDWORKS products include an API that allows, among other things, the development of custom applications to automate repetitive tasks or obtain information and data more easily in the format we need.
In simple terms, it means making the software work for you.
Think of custom development like having a tailored suit made: it addresses the specific needs of a particular company, user, or team, but it does not necessarily fit the needs of others.
That is precisely its greatest advantage: it provides an exact solution to a specific requirement that, due to your industry, workflow, product type, or other particular characteristics, may not exist in another company or for another user.
At first glance, developing these applications may seem expensive or associated with long implementation times. However, the reality is quite different. Applications are neither inherently expensive nor cheap – their value depends entirely on the amount of work, time, and inefficiency they eliminate.
To automate a task or develop an application for a specific operation, there must be a reproducible algorithm or logical process behind it. In other words, it is necessary to define a workflow made up of sequential steps, where each action follows another while ensuring certain conditions are met throughout the process.
What types of applications can I develop?
The types of custom applications that can be created are virtually limitless, as many as the ideas you can imagine.
To give you an idea of some of the solutions we develop at Easyworks:
- Extract information in a specific format or structure: For example, generating a bill of materials that only includes the parts to be manufactured, while also adding mass and thickness data, all organised in a table sorted by quantity.
- Automate repetitive tasks: Every time you finish modelling a product, you may generate manufacturing documentation in several formats and export multiple Excel reports for other departments. Or perhaps you generate DXF drawings for all folded sheet metal parts and complete templates for the quality department. We can develop an application that handles all of this automatically while your engineering team focuses on higher-value tasks.
- Generate models automatically: If you work with modular projects or recurring design structures, we can develop an application that requests key input parameters and uses a reference model to automatically generate part of the work for you.
- Perform validations and checks: Before generating manufacturing drawings, certain checks are usually required, such as verifying that all title block information is completed correctly or ensuring that every part has an assigned material. Here we show an example of this type of solution developed for our client Esypro.
- Load and process data automatically: For example, if every new project starts from a coordinate list used as modelling references, an application can read this data and automatically generate the base geometry needed to begin the design.
- Execute actions within PDM workflows: If you use SOLIDWORKS PDM for product data management, applications can be triggered automatically by workflow state changes (such as approving a design or releasing a project to production) significantly increasing the automation capabilities of your PDM system.
Therefore, there are three major reasons why having your own custom application or tailored development makes sense:
- Reduce modelling and documentation generation time
- Automate repetitive tasks that add little value and that engineers should not spend time on
- Minimise the risk of human error through automation and automatic validation processes
Still think it is not worth it? 😉