The following is an email that I received from Jeff Mirisola who had contacted the VP from the company he previously worked at about writing a testimony of sorts about the benefits of sending your employees to SolidWorks World. Please read the following and feel free to use it in the presentation you are putting together for your bosses.

Why a manager should send staff to SolidWorks World

By Bob Jordan, PE

Every manager looks for an “edge,” that ability to get more with less, and today to get yet even more with yet even less. This edge is becoming increasingly mandatory as innovative companies are springing up all around (and they are attracting top talent) and global competition is now a fact of life (inefficiencies are more glaring, and the lack of cost competitiveness is crippling).

Three things are required of a manager or a staff member: intense personal will (“guts, determination, persistence, etc.”), competency, and character. The manager has the role of executing the will of the organization through the people he has the privilege of leading. To do that requires that his staff be competent. Competency comes at a price (investing in training). The lack of competency comes at a higher price (missed opportunity, low morale, frustration, even the closing of a business). Specific to SolidWorks, it is clear to anyone in manufacturing that SolidWorks is the #1 method of communicating technical details between manufacturer and vendor. Whether you manage a manufacturing organization or are a vendor to one, being sharp in the modern uses of SolidWorks is a must-have. The vendor who is inept at this skill (especially the modern applications) demonstrates that their organization is sub-par and that he, the SolidWorks user, is not at the varsity level. This is a competitive disadvantage. The manufacturer who is not using the modern tools of SolidWorks looks poor to the vendor who is expert in the current tools.

Any manager can say “no, no, no,” and many (most) do. The professional manager will assess his investment in the ongoing training of his staff in modern manufacturing processes and say yes to those things that contribute to business value. This is what separates a good manager from a great manager. The good manager keeps the department reasonably productive, cuts costs which impress the brass above him, and has some morale problems and turnover issues (because the excellent people leave), but not too excessive. He gets product out and does what he’s told. The excellent manager has a highly trained, highly motivated staff that has creative ideas, are eager to learn, and stay with the organization. They can build on successes and don’t waste time redoing, or doing inefficiently, that which can be done once right and then they move on. Excellent managers focus on building people, and those people build product, good product. Great managers see farther than the good manager – the great manager raises the level of those around him by building his staff and his staff’s competency. There are not many great managers around, so one can be mediocre or even fair and make if for a long time (if his company stays in business).

I have sent my CAD Administrator, Mechanical Engineers, and entry-level CAD technicians to SolidWorks World. They come back with knowledge of the modern features of this key industrial tool. They develop systems for document control, for transmitting drawings to vendors, and for teaching and training others to use the tools. Our down-time was nil because they know installation and upgrade procedures forward and backward because they were taught this. They learn of time-saving third-party add-ons that save hours and hours in the workplace. They network with other users and have a rapid source for problem solving; they are motivated to attend users groups (after-hours and on their own time). In short, they are professional users of the language of manufacturing – SolidWorks.

The investment I make annually in SolidWorks World pays for itself in annual productivity, getting things done, keeping morale high, zero turnover of staff, and contributes to a culture of personal and professional continuous improvement and a performance culture. My CAD users did amazing things with SolidWorks – and that wouldn’t have happened without my investment in their development. Investing in SolidWorks World for my CAD users gave me an edge in my industry.

Bob Jordan is a licensed professional engineer and has been a manager/VP in manufacturing organizations for over 10 years, serving in regulated industries (aerospace, medical device) as well as non-regulated industries (industrial equipment, car racing). In his tenure as manager he has never had a staff member quit on him, and has often inherited low-morale departments, only to transform them into the department people wanted to be a part of. Bob has developed new product development systems, quality management systems, manufacturing processes, and educational programs for over 20 years.

Again I would like to personally thank Bob Jordan for providing this for us and Jeff Mirisola for setting all of this up to use. The way that this testimony transpired through Jeff is the exact reason why I love the SolidWorks Community so much. Thanks again and I am always open to more of these testimonies.

P.S. - 35 Days until the Early Bird Cutoff #1 and 150 Days until SolidWorks World 2008

I am finally back again! I apologize for the lack of posts in the last week, I have been battling some problems at home that have surfaced because of the excess rain that we have gotten in the Midwestern states. In the previous posts that I have written I discussed some different sources of information that you could use to put together a presentation of some sort to give to the management at your company that would convince them that going to SolidWorks World 2008 in San Diego is worth the time and money. In my last blog entry I talked about having previous attendees write a testimony of some sort about why they feel that attending is so beneficial. I received a comment from that post that suggested having the employers that have sent people write a testimony and how that might pull some more weight than having the attendees write something, I agree with this suggestion 100%! If there is anyone that reads this blog that has sent someone or can get someone from their management to write something it would be extremely appreciated and very beneficial for anyone that is attempting to put together a presentation for this coming years SolidWorks World.

Now that we have covered some of the information sources and tools we need to start putting something together something that will make our bosses drool with excitement about sending us to San Diego. There are a lot of different ways to do this, you can put a bunch of print outs in a binder and give it to them as a presentation of sorts that way so that they can review it however many times that they would like, you could do a Powerpoint presentation or you could just have a meeting with them a to give a verbal presentation of why you believe this trip is necessary. I will probably go the route of putting together a binder so that they can review it and it can stay in front of them on their desk until they make a decision. One thing to be sure to point out to them is the Early Bird Special that SolidWorks offers, they could save as much as $200.00 if they sign us up before September 29, 2007. I will try to give you a better idea of what I am going to include in my presentation in my next post. Until then, stay safe if you are in the path of the hurricane and stay dry if you are in the midwest.

P.S. - 36 Days until the Early Bird Cutoff #1 and 151 Days until SolidWorks World 2008

Well here I am again, I am still trying to convince the management at our workplace that SolidWorks World is worth the time and money. In parts 1 & 2 I discussed the use of hard numbers, using a spreadsheet of some sort, and the use of other users who are willing to write testimonies about why they believe that SolidWorks World is worth going to. These are both great tools to use if you are willing to put some time and effort into putting some information together for the spreadsheet or if you are willing to contact users that you know about writing a testimony of some sort for you. Another tool that is available to you is a item that is referred to as a “Boss’s Justification Letter” that is provided to you on the SolidWorks World 2008 website. There are 5 pre written emails that are available to you that you can send to your boss’s. You can choose what letter best suits the situation that you are in. Below is the list of letters that you can choose from (click on the title to go to that letter).

1. Getting three passes to SolidWorks World for the price of two!

2. Boosting our Design Productivity

3. Advancing our SolidWorks skills development

4. Shaping the future of SolidWorks development

5. Identifying complementary SolidWorks solutions.

After you follow these links it asks you to fill in your name, your email address, your boss’s name and your boss’s email address. These letters clearly identify what the benefits are for going in regards to what topic of an email you choose. These are unbelievably helpful tools but this is not all that this page has to offer. If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the page there is a paragraph and the bottom that is very important. It reads as follows:

Contact Us for More Help

Contact the SolidWorks Worldwide User Community Coordinator with your questions or comments. We might be able to provide additional ideas to help make your case a strong one. If you’ve attended SolidWorks World and have ideas on how to help other users justify their participation, please send an email to usergroups@solidworks.com.

From experiences that I have had in the past I have found out that the people at SolidWorks are usually more than willing to help you in any way that they can, so take this offer up at the bottom if you need to. Now that I have laid out some of the items to use for your presentation or justification you and I will need to start putting all of this together. Please check back in my upcoming posts for my progress in doing this for my management group. Until next time, happy modeling!

P.S. - 45 Days until the Early Bird Cutoff #1 and 160 Days until SolidWorks World 2008

In my previous post about using hard numbers to help present your case to your bosses for letting you to go to San Diego I mentioned a few other items that you can use in your presentation. The next one that I would like to touch on is the benefit of having other users that are willing to share their feelings about SolidWorks World. As it is with trying to land a job with a new customer it is always a huge benefit to have a positive reference from someone that you have done business with in the past. It is the same with trying to convince your bosses that SolidWorks World is worth the time and money. How much better can you get than to have someone that has been there, knows how everything works once you get there, and can see the positive benefits of being there. In the few posts that I have done so far on this topic I have already received some comments from other users about why they think that SolidWorks World is so important to be at. These comments are greatly appreciated. I highly suggest that when you begin putting a presentation together for your management that you gather some reviews from users that have experienced SolidWorks World first hand. I think these things go a long way in justifying what it is all about to your bosses. There are probably even some users out there that would call whomever is involved in the decision making process to give a verbal testimony of previous SolidWorks World’s. So in closing I would like to encourage all who are reading these posts that have already attended a SolidWorks World to leave their testimonies in the comments section, this way the readers that are putting together a presentation can use these for their bosses to read over. Also if you have any other suggestions for me to use in trying to convince my bosses please leave them also in the comments section.

P.S. - 50 Days until the Early Bird Cutoff #1 and 165 Days until SolidWorks World 2008

In order to begin the journey to SolidWorks World 2008 I have to reflect on some things about myself and the company I work for. If I am going to try and convince the upper management at my workplace I need to decipher what is of the most concern to them. Is it the money? Is it the lost days of work? Is it that they don’t believe that it will be of benefit to the company? Or is it a combination of all of these? I think that at the place I work it is a combination of the cost and not truly believing the true benefit of sending someone. Whatever area that your company values the most is where you will want to focus on for gathering useful information to help convince them. I recently received a link to an old discussion on comp.cad.solidworks from 1999. The forum entitled $450 in ADVANCE for SW User Conf/Exhibition? has a lot of interesting bits of information on it. One section of this forum that I really enjoyed was a break down of if you came back and boosted your productivity by 1% in regards the amount of money / time that you would save over the course of a year. If you are going through the same process that I am, I highly suggest reading through the above stated forum and from this you can start to lay out a plan of “attack” for your proposal. There are also some other things that can assist in your attempt to go to SolidWorks World. These things range from other users to pre written emails or “Boss Justifications” that are on the SolidWorks World website for your own use. I would like to touch on these these in a later post but for right now I want to start laying out some numbers for the management to chew on for a while. To do this I need to determine what my time is worth to them on a per hour basis (my hourly wage) and from this I can come up with a spreadsheet for them to use to run some numbers. I will try to post the spreadsheet that I created to assist with this. The numbers you will need are as follows:

1. Total Non OT Hours/Year

2. Your Hourly Wage

At this point it is a matter of putting some formulas together in order to figure out the savings in money terms in regards to increased productivity. This is probably one of the bigger obstacles for management to deal with when it comes to paying this kind of money. Like I said earlier, I will try to post a spreadsheet that I created for these calculations. In the next couple of posts I will be looking at some other information that can be used to help sway your companies management to send you to San Diego.

P.S. - 53 Days until the Early Bird Cutoff #1 and 168 Days until SolidWorks World 2008

Now that SolidWorks World 2008 has gone live it is once again time to try to convince the “higher ups” at my company that this is a worthwhile conference to attend. As you probably read in my last post I don’t believe that this is going to be an easy task. Over the next few months I am going to start a series of posts (hopefully a couple a week) that will track my steps in presenting the benefits to my boss for going to San Diego, CA in January. I hope that through the process of you reading these postings it will help you also or at least generate some ideas for how you can convince your management to send you there also. I would appreciate some input from you also if you have any ideas for me to use in the process of presenting this to my management. The SolidWorks World 2008 website offers a ton of things that you can use to justify this to your boss and I hope to be able use all of these items for my presentations, piece by piece. My hope is that we can benefit from each other in doing this. I was in a similar position when I was told to present a case to purchase a CAM program for our company. At the time of this we were doing everything in a 2D environment using Autocad, through the process of reviewing different CAM packages I ended up presenting them the option of switching our CAD system to SolidWorks so that we could use it in conjunction with CamWorks. What I am trying to get at is that I had to present a strong case at that time to spend that kind of money on a completely new system, now I am going to go through somewhat of the same process with this situation. But hey, lets have some fun with this and hopefully in 172 days we can all sit down and compare notes and discuss what was the final thing that convinced whomever it may be at our companies that SolidWorks World 2008 was worth the money and time. Check back soon for the first step in MY process to this justification.