Here at GrabCAD, we want to fight the status quo of the manufacturing industry. We see how technology has driven innovation in industries like IT, travel,and e-commerce. This kind of disruption is desperately needed for the people in our Community, engineers and designers who develop and make the physical products that we all use in our everyday lives.
You need better tools
Some people tell us that the tools engineers use today are ok and that they get the job done. These folks do get one thing right. Engineers are amazing people! They never complain and always find a brilliant workaround to complete a design. This is one of the reasons why I am, personally, so passionate about improving engineers’ lives.
Despite their ingenious ability to make "just okay" tools functional, okay is not good enough. Engineers' impact on the world is tremendous. The waterfall impact of saving time for one engineer could, in the end, help improve the experience for every person that uses a product he creates. And, they create all the products around us.
We can help you build products faster
That is why GrabCAD is here. It is our mission to build innovative tools that connect people, content, and technology. What good are designs and easy access without the engineers and designers who create everything? What good is an engineer that has no ability to connect with her manufacturers and clients? We work to bring all these people together to help build products faster.
GrabCAD believes that first and foremost, engineering needs to become more open. Open companies use web-based tools, share knowledge, and access communities to get work done at every step of product development from idea generation to manufacturing.
Use the tools others have built
Get ideas everywhere and know when and how to crowdsource ideas. Companies like Shelby, NBDnano, and Layered Labs have all been inspired and benefited from our Challenges.
Do not recreate existing parts. They use existing models, like the ones in our Library, for their standard parts or as props to create scenes around their work. We receive emails every day from members thanking us for saving them time because they did not have to model something from scratch.
Workbench is secure
We understand that some projects need to be private and secure. Our members asked us to create a product that allowed them to share their work with a select group of collaborators. They wanted something that could help in the detailed design part of the process through manufacturing. So we did. Sure, they were using FTPs, Dropbox, screensharing, and email to get stuff done but these tools weren't built for engineers or CAD.
Stop wasting time
The world is your help desk. Use Tutorials and access the knowledge of engineers from around the world to overcome problems. Speed up the feedback cycle with clients and allow your team to work in parallel by keeping communication with your content. Web-based tools and mobile access make this easy just like 3D printers and easy access to manufacturers make rapid prototyping easy.
Stop wasting time. Find an open, web-based tool that works for you - there are ones for each step in product development. Our new product, GrabCAD Workbench along with our Community, can take you through the whole process.
Then, put it to good use and spread the word! You can start by sharing this post.
Hardi
CEO and Founder
grabcad.com/hardi.meybaum
