- Email: [email protected]
Microcomputer-based CAD business
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I
M icrocom p uter-based CAD business Jenny Smith A microcomputer-based CAD vendor company is described. Its background and philosophy towards customer requirements in the CAD field is presented and the views of the CA D Business Manager on the CA D marketplace and trends in microcomputer-based CA D are discussed. computer technology, computer-aided design, microcomputers
COMPANY BACKGROUND Aarque (pronounced RQ) was founded more than 130 years ago as a designer and manufacturer of materials for the design office. It introduced diazo printing technology in the 1920s, and patented various diazo materials, including Ammonax and Unax. It has maintained its interest in supplying the design office, but as technology has advanced, so the products offered by Aarque have altered. Two years ago, Aarque set up a CAD division, with the aim of supplying microcomputer-based CAD systems to its customers. Although the CAD division is separate from the more traditional divisions of the company, its business manager, Mike Sutton, feels that it makes a lot of CAD sales through inquiries from users of the more traditional products. It currently employs 16 staff and has five regional showrooms. The CAD division developed in the UK, according to Sutton because it is a centre of competence, particularly in the mechanical engineering sector of CAD. There is a European branch based in Holland that sells packages to the European mainland. The US division of Aarque is currently not involved in CAD. Aarque is an international company with an annual turnover of £25 million. In 1985 £1 million of this turnover was supplied by the CAD division and Sutton anticipates that this will rise to £2.5 million in 1986.
tial customers in comfortable surroundings and also aid Aarque in its provision of after-sales support and training.
Cadplus Aarque's first product was launched at the CAD84 exhibition in Brighton, UK. It is an enhanced version of a software package developed by Mountford & Laxon Company. Cadplus is a general purpose 2D drafting system. Users range from an architect who uses it for the design of extensions to an electrical equipment manufacturer who uses it for electrical diagrams. Another customer uses it for his bespoke truck design business.
Microsolid Microsolid is a solid modeller developed by Perspective Design to run on microcomputers. Aarque sells it individually or integrated with Cadplus. It was launched at DES84 (the 1984 Design Engineering Show) in Birmingham, UK. When integrated with Cadplus on the Whitechapel MG-1 workstation, the user can swap between packages and use drawings or models created by either in either environment. Paul Page, a salesman at Aarque described one of the key features of the integrated package as being its associativity - so that a change on one level of a drawing will affect all relevant and current versions of that drawing. This feature protects the integrity of a drawing and also saves unnecessary and repetitious actions when changing some aspect of a particular drawing.
Team-mate L3 robot
Linear ~eeders
Jaw rack
f ~
gowlfeeder
Vice
PRODUCTS All Aarque's products run on microcomputers. They have all been developed by other companies and are enhanced, sold and fully supported by Aarque. Sutton said that they are offered many packages for possible inclusion in the Aarque portfolio and that these were all evaluated carefully before being accepted or rejected. He said that the reason for Aarque's popularity with micro CAD developers is that it is the only national distributor with regional bases in the UK. There are five regional showrooms in the UK in London, Bristol, Derby, Glasgow and Rochdale. The showrooms enable Aarque to demonstrate its systems to potenJenny Smith is Assistant E d i t o r o f
342
Computer-Aided Design
Cadplus used with Microso/id to demonstrate the configuration o f a robot cell
computer-aided design
i, III IIIII
I
I
I
IBM PC XT running Cadplus Perfine Perfine is a finite element analysis package. It was developed by Davenport Computer Systems and offers: • automatic mesh generation • analysis of plane stress and strain • analysis of thermal diffusion • interactive control • help facility
Other packages Aarque also offers a package for NC (numerical control) purposes, and a package called PCBview, which has been developed for the design of PCBs (printed circuit boards).
Prices A Whitechapel MG-I workstation with the integrated package of Cadplus and Microsolid costs £I 6 000. An IBM PC XT with Cadplus and Microsolid costs £I 3 650. The FEA package (Perfine software) (for IBM PC XT only) costs an additional £3500. The PEPS software costs an additional £4500 (for IBM PC XT only).
is one of the greatest problems in the microcomputer-based sector of the CAD market. He feels that too many vendors sell a package but do not give any advice or support on how the customer is to use it. Aarque, however provides a package of software, hardware, training, installation, maintenance and support. All Aarque's customers have maintenance contracts, which provide for error fixing and updates. Sutton said that this is important to Aarque: it gives them a chance to visit, train and reassure customers. It also means that all customers are using the same release of the software and this makes support much easier. Sutton claimed that because of this philosophy, its customers are happy and many of them have bought more than one system off Aarque. There are 8 0 - 9 0 customer companies, but between them they have bought more than 150 systems. All of Aarque's staff in the CAD Division come from an engineering rather than a computing background. Sutton feels that this is an important distinguishing feature that separates Aarque from many of its competitors. He said that many CAD vendors were too concerned with the technology and not with what the customer actually needed. He feels that Aarque is able to approach CAD in a fashion more akin to its customers and is able to assess CAD systems on their potential usefulness rather than their sophistication or otherwise as a computing system. Sutton also said that the customers were satisfied because of Aarque's committment to selling only what it can demonstrate to the potential customer, 'Too many people sell futures in this market', he explained and this can lead to disillusionment on the customer's part when what gets delivered is not what was promised.
MARKET TRENDS The CAD market slowed down in the last quarter of 1985, said Sutton, and he suggested several reasons for this: •
A A R Q U E AS A M I C R O - B A S E D C A D V E N D O R According to Sutton, 'Aarque has its roots firmly buried in the micro end of the market'. He added that some products had been taken on to bridge the gap between the microcomputer and the workstation, but that he did not expect Aarque to go further upmarket than that. Some of the reasoning that lies behind Aarque's decision to remain firmly in the low end of the market is connected with the recent advances in the development of microcomputer-based CAD. Sutton said 'It has moved from simple 2D drafting into 3D and on into solid modelling'. He also pointed to the greater range of manufactured software now available for the microcomputer end of the market and to the huge expansion that is still occurring at that end of the market.
lack of faith in high-tech industries engendered by the consumer industry failures • decline in the economy • overemphasis on high-tech aspects of CAD, rather than emphasis on it as a useful tool for industry • overhype based on selling 'futures' leading to user disappointment The decline was not as bad for the microcomputer end of the market and this year the market has recovered, according to Sutton, because: •
business is more optimistic and so more willing to invest in CAD • benefits of oil price drop • CAD is now a recognised business tool
V I E W S ON C A D A A R Q U E'S PH I L O S O P H Y Sutton described Aarque's philosophy as being engineerorientated and service-orientated. He considers that service
volume 18 number 6 july/august 1986
Sutton saw a major difference in the ways that UK and US management operate. Top UK management is more reluctant to invest in CAD than top US executives, but lower
343
I
down the management hierarchy this position reverses itself and UK middle-management is more willing to spend on CAD than its US peers.
I
]
III
II
I
demanded by the office automation industry. Standards will become more widespread, although at the moment they are not actually used very much.
Future trends in microcomputer-based CAD Sutton predicted that packages will get considerably more powerful, particularly in view of the way that the big CAD companies had started to get involved in microcomputerbased CAD development. This would be aided, he said, by the fact that for large segments of the market, a microcomputer is powerful enough. Microcomputer-based CAD would begin to rival minicomputer- and workstation-based CAD systems. The hardware has been developed because of pressure from the office automation industry, which is still pressurizing development towards more power at a lower cost, packed into a smaller space. Transfer of information between microcomputers and mainframes has been made easier for similar reasons - it is
344
CONCLUSIONS It is clear that Sutton feels that the strengths of Aarque lie rooted in its philosophy towards the services that it provides. He said that the engineering background of its staff and Aarque's commitment to selling a package inclusive of after-sales service was what differentiated Aarque from some of its competitors in the microcomputer-based CAD business. It also seems clear that with the expansion of the microcomputer-based CAD market and the growth of microcomputer power microcomputer-based CAD is going to be a major factor in the development of computer-aided design in the future. More engineers, draftsmen and scientists will be using microcomputer-based CAD than the traditional mainframe and workstation based variety.
computer-aided design
I
I
^C^DEM C PRESS I
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I
I
INTRODUCTION TO THE GRAPHICAL KERNEL SYSTEM (GKS) Second Edition F.R.A. Hopgood, D.A. Duce, J.R. Gallop and D.C. Sutcliffe April 1986, 252pp., Paperback I SB N: 0.12.355571 .X, $23.951E15.00 (U K only) From the reviews of the first edition: "The authors -- all members of the British team that contributed to the specification of G KS -- have created a very readable tutorial on the Graphical Kernel System." Computer Graphics, May 1985 "The authors manage to explain abstract concepts with simple yet concise prose.,. The coverage of the GKS international standard is very thorough." Iournal of Molecular Graphics, June 1984 This highly acclaimed introduction to the Graphical Kernel System GKS has now been revised and updated following the publication of the International Standard (ISO 7942) in August 1985 and the draft international standard (ISO 8651) for the FORTRAN, Pascal and Ada GKS language bindings. Contents: Part 1. Introduction. Graphical Output. Coordinate Systems. Segments and their Attributes. Graphical Input Devices. Styles of Interaction. Workstations. Part 2. GKS Environment. Control of Input Devices, Segment Storage. Metafiles. Further Facilities. Individual Attributes. Appendices. Index.
24-28 OVAL ROAD, LONDON NW1 7DX, ENGLAND
.
ORLANDO, FLORIDA 32887, U.S.A.
\
/
Software Engineering Marc Thorin, Chairman of IS-AUDIT Software Engineering is a textbook for undergraduates on computer science courses and a practical guide for those employed in the software industry. Software-programs, data structures, etc - is defined in terms which can be seen, controlled and costed. The book gives the basic facts of program and data structure, but more importantly combines the two. Since no commitment is made to any programming language or computer configuration, this book will be topical for a long time. Softcover
136 pages
216 x 138mm
Illustrated
0 408 01426 1
March 1985
£11.00 in the UK only
For details of other Butterworth Scientific titles, please contact the appropriate office. Orders should be sent to the appropriate office listed below. The UK headquarters serves all UK and overseas markets except where there is a local Butterworths office.
UwatulKIPj.P~
\
Butterworths, Borough Green Sovenoaks, Kent TN15 8PH England luBMmUa & I~IN= New G u l ~ Butterwo~hs Pry Ltd, PO Box 345 North Ryde, New South Wales 2113 Australia
volume 18 number 6 july/august 1986
Cuoteme~ In/role moy chief thmuoh: Butterworth & Co (Asia) Pry Ltd PO Box 770, Crawford Post Office Singapore 9119, Republic of Singapore New Zealand Butterworths of New Zealand Ltd 33-35 Cumberland Place Wallington 1, New Zealand
Sc~udhAllrkm Butterworth & Co (SouthAfrica) (Pty) Ltd Box No 792 Durban 4000, South Africa UL4 & ¢amldo Butterworth Publishers 80 Montvale Avenue Stoneham, MA 02180, USA
345
I
M icrocom p uter-based CAD business Jenny Smith A microcomputer-based CAD vendor company is described. Its background and philosophy towards customer requirements in the CAD field is presented and the views of the CA D Business Manager on the CA D marketplace and trends in microcomputer-based CA D are discussed. computer technology, computer-aided design, microcomputers
COMPANY BACKGROUND Aarque (pronounced RQ) was founded more than 130 years ago as a designer and manufacturer of materials for the design office. It introduced diazo printing technology in the 1920s, and patented various diazo materials, including Ammonax and Unax. It has maintained its interest in supplying the design office, but as technology has advanced, so the products offered by Aarque have altered. Two years ago, Aarque set up a CAD division, with the aim of supplying microcomputer-based CAD systems to its customers. Although the CAD division is separate from the more traditional divisions of the company, its business manager, Mike Sutton, feels that it makes a lot of CAD sales through inquiries from users of the more traditional products. It currently employs 16 staff and has five regional showrooms. The CAD division developed in the UK, according to Sutton because it is a centre of competence, particularly in the mechanical engineering sector of CAD. There is a European branch based in Holland that sells packages to the European mainland. The US division of Aarque is currently not involved in CAD. Aarque is an international company with an annual turnover of £25 million. In 1985 £1 million of this turnover was supplied by the CAD division and Sutton anticipates that this will rise to £2.5 million in 1986.
tial customers in comfortable surroundings and also aid Aarque in its provision of after-sales support and training.
Cadplus Aarque's first product was launched at the CAD84 exhibition in Brighton, UK. It is an enhanced version of a software package developed by Mountford & Laxon Company. Cadplus is a general purpose 2D drafting system. Users range from an architect who uses it for the design of extensions to an electrical equipment manufacturer who uses it for electrical diagrams. Another customer uses it for his bespoke truck design business.
Microsolid Microsolid is a solid modeller developed by Perspective Design to run on microcomputers. Aarque sells it individually or integrated with Cadplus. It was launched at DES84 (the 1984 Design Engineering Show) in Birmingham, UK. When integrated with Cadplus on the Whitechapel MG-1 workstation, the user can swap between packages and use drawings or models created by either in either environment. Paul Page, a salesman at Aarque described one of the key features of the integrated package as being its associativity - so that a change on one level of a drawing will affect all relevant and current versions of that drawing. This feature protects the integrity of a drawing and also saves unnecessary and repetitious actions when changing some aspect of a particular drawing.
Team-mate L3 robot
Linear ~eeders
Jaw rack
f ~
gowlfeeder
Vice
PRODUCTS All Aarque's products run on microcomputers. They have all been developed by other companies and are enhanced, sold and fully supported by Aarque. Sutton said that they are offered many packages for possible inclusion in the Aarque portfolio and that these were all evaluated carefully before being accepted or rejected. He said that the reason for Aarque's popularity with micro CAD developers is that it is the only national distributor with regional bases in the UK. There are five regional showrooms in the UK in London, Bristol, Derby, Glasgow and Rochdale. The showrooms enable Aarque to demonstrate its systems to potenJenny Smith is Assistant E d i t o r o f
342
Computer-Aided Design
Cadplus used with Microso/id to demonstrate the configuration o f a robot cell
computer-aided design
i, III IIIII
I
I
I
IBM PC XT running Cadplus Perfine Perfine is a finite element analysis package. It was developed by Davenport Computer Systems and offers: • automatic mesh generation • analysis of plane stress and strain • analysis of thermal diffusion • interactive control • help facility
Other packages Aarque also offers a package for NC (numerical control) purposes, and a package called PCBview, which has been developed for the design of PCBs (printed circuit boards).
Prices A Whitechapel MG-I workstation with the integrated package of Cadplus and Microsolid costs £I 6 000. An IBM PC XT with Cadplus and Microsolid costs £I 3 650. The FEA package (Perfine software) (for IBM PC XT only) costs an additional £3500. The PEPS software costs an additional £4500 (for IBM PC XT only).
is one of the greatest problems in the microcomputer-based sector of the CAD market. He feels that too many vendors sell a package but do not give any advice or support on how the customer is to use it. Aarque, however provides a package of software, hardware, training, installation, maintenance and support. All Aarque's customers have maintenance contracts, which provide for error fixing and updates. Sutton said that this is important to Aarque: it gives them a chance to visit, train and reassure customers. It also means that all customers are using the same release of the software and this makes support much easier. Sutton claimed that because of this philosophy, its customers are happy and many of them have bought more than one system off Aarque. There are 8 0 - 9 0 customer companies, but between them they have bought more than 150 systems. All of Aarque's staff in the CAD Division come from an engineering rather than a computing background. Sutton feels that this is an important distinguishing feature that separates Aarque from many of its competitors. He said that many CAD vendors were too concerned with the technology and not with what the customer actually needed. He feels that Aarque is able to approach CAD in a fashion more akin to its customers and is able to assess CAD systems on their potential usefulness rather than their sophistication or otherwise as a computing system. Sutton also said that the customers were satisfied because of Aarque's committment to selling only what it can demonstrate to the potential customer, 'Too many people sell futures in this market', he explained and this can lead to disillusionment on the customer's part when what gets delivered is not what was promised.
MARKET TRENDS The CAD market slowed down in the last quarter of 1985, said Sutton, and he suggested several reasons for this: •
A A R Q U E AS A M I C R O - B A S E D C A D V E N D O R According to Sutton, 'Aarque has its roots firmly buried in the micro end of the market'. He added that some products had been taken on to bridge the gap between the microcomputer and the workstation, but that he did not expect Aarque to go further upmarket than that. Some of the reasoning that lies behind Aarque's decision to remain firmly in the low end of the market is connected with the recent advances in the development of microcomputer-based CAD. Sutton said 'It has moved from simple 2D drafting into 3D and on into solid modelling'. He also pointed to the greater range of manufactured software now available for the microcomputer end of the market and to the huge expansion that is still occurring at that end of the market.
lack of faith in high-tech industries engendered by the consumer industry failures • decline in the economy • overemphasis on high-tech aspects of CAD, rather than emphasis on it as a useful tool for industry • overhype based on selling 'futures' leading to user disappointment The decline was not as bad for the microcomputer end of the market and this year the market has recovered, according to Sutton, because: •
business is more optimistic and so more willing to invest in CAD • benefits of oil price drop • CAD is now a recognised business tool
V I E W S ON C A D A A R Q U E'S PH I L O S O P H Y Sutton described Aarque's philosophy as being engineerorientated and service-orientated. He considers that service
volume 18 number 6 july/august 1986
Sutton saw a major difference in the ways that UK and US management operate. Top UK management is more reluctant to invest in CAD than top US executives, but lower
343
I
down the management hierarchy this position reverses itself and UK middle-management is more willing to spend on CAD than its US peers.
I
]
III
II
I
demanded by the office automation industry. Standards will become more widespread, although at the moment they are not actually used very much.
Future trends in microcomputer-based CAD Sutton predicted that packages will get considerably more powerful, particularly in view of the way that the big CAD companies had started to get involved in microcomputerbased CAD development. This would be aided, he said, by the fact that for large segments of the market, a microcomputer is powerful enough. Microcomputer-based CAD would begin to rival minicomputer- and workstation-based CAD systems. The hardware has been developed because of pressure from the office automation industry, which is still pressurizing development towards more power at a lower cost, packed into a smaller space. Transfer of information between microcomputers and mainframes has been made easier for similar reasons - it is
344
CONCLUSIONS It is clear that Sutton feels that the strengths of Aarque lie rooted in its philosophy towards the services that it provides. He said that the engineering background of its staff and Aarque's commitment to selling a package inclusive of after-sales service was what differentiated Aarque from some of its competitors in the microcomputer-based CAD business. It also seems clear that with the expansion of the microcomputer-based CAD market and the growth of microcomputer power microcomputer-based CAD is going to be a major factor in the development of computer-aided design in the future. More engineers, draftsmen and scientists will be using microcomputer-based CAD than the traditional mainframe and workstation based variety.
computer-aided design
I
I
^C^DEM C PRESS I
I
I
I
INTRODUCTION TO THE GRAPHICAL KERNEL SYSTEM (GKS) Second Edition F.R.A. Hopgood, D.A. Duce, J.R. Gallop and D.C. Sutcliffe April 1986, 252pp., Paperback I SB N: 0.12.355571 .X, $23.951E15.00 (U K only) From the reviews of the first edition: "The authors -- all members of the British team that contributed to the specification of G KS -- have created a very readable tutorial on the Graphical Kernel System." Computer Graphics, May 1985 "The authors manage to explain abstract concepts with simple yet concise prose.,. The coverage of the GKS international standard is very thorough." Iournal of Molecular Graphics, June 1984 This highly acclaimed introduction to the Graphical Kernel System GKS has now been revised and updated following the publication of the International Standard (ISO 7942) in August 1985 and the draft international standard (ISO 8651) for the FORTRAN, Pascal and Ada GKS language bindings. Contents: Part 1. Introduction. Graphical Output. Coordinate Systems. Segments and their Attributes. Graphical Input Devices. Styles of Interaction. Workstations. Part 2. GKS Environment. Control of Input Devices, Segment Storage. Metafiles. Further Facilities. Individual Attributes. Appendices. Index.
24-28 OVAL ROAD, LONDON NW1 7DX, ENGLAND
.
ORLANDO, FLORIDA 32887, U.S.A.
\
/
Software Engineering Marc Thorin, Chairman of IS-AUDIT Software Engineering is a textbook for undergraduates on computer science courses and a practical guide for those employed in the software industry. Software-programs, data structures, etc - is defined in terms which can be seen, controlled and costed. The book gives the basic facts of program and data structure, but more importantly combines the two. Since no commitment is made to any programming language or computer configuration, this book will be topical for a long time. Softcover
136 pages
216 x 138mm
Illustrated
0 408 01426 1
March 1985
£11.00 in the UK only
For details of other Butterworth Scientific titles, please contact the appropriate office. Orders should be sent to the appropriate office listed below. The UK headquarters serves all UK and overseas markets except where there is a local Butterworths office.
UwatulKIPj.P~
\
Butterworths, Borough Green Sovenoaks, Kent TN15 8PH England luBMmUa & I~IN= New G u l ~ Butterwo~hs Pry Ltd, PO Box 345 North Ryde, New South Wales 2113 Australia
volume 18 number 6 july/august 1986
Cuoteme~ In/role moy chief thmuoh: Butterworth & Co (Asia) Pry Ltd PO Box 770, Crawford Post Office Singapore 9119, Republic of Singapore New Zealand Butterworths of New Zealand Ltd 33-35 Cumberland Place Wallington 1, New Zealand
Sc~udhAllrkm Butterworth & Co (SouthAfrica) (Pty) Ltd Box No 792 Durban 4000, South Africa UL4 & ¢amldo Butterworth Publishers 80 Montvale Avenue Stoneham, MA 02180, USA
345