W H I T E P A P E R
How SolidWorks Speeds Consumer Product Design
SolidWorks Corporation
S U M M A R Y
SolidWorks® Office
Premium bridges the
gap between industrial
design and engineering
by providing powerful
surfacing capabilities,
the ability to easily import
geometry from dedicated
industrial design tools,
and the industry’s top
mechanical engineering
environment – all rolled
into one package. In this
paper, you will learn how
SolidWorks software
provides a complete
modeling environment
for taking designs from
concept to manufacturing.
Life would be much simpler
if industrial designers could
use the solid modeling tools
used by mechanical
engineers.
H O W S O L I D W O R K S S P E E D S C O N S U M E R P R O D U C T D E S I G N
no. 1
The consumer products industry faces a unique set of challenges because it
must quickly bring new products to market with cutting-edge designs, market-
leading functionality, and competitive manufacturing costs. One of the most
critical demands is managing the transition from design to engineering.
Today, consumer products designers use specialized tools to define the flowing
surfaces that often distinguish state-of-the-art industrial design. Mechanical
engineers, however, use different tools to turn the designers’ creations into
mathematically precise, functional, and manufacturable designs. Unfortunately,
these individual tools have separate interfaces that require a time-consuming
and error-prone translation process or that involve starting over when moving
from one world to the other.
As an industrial designer you may use sketchpads, modeling clay, foam, and
specialized software tools that are fine for conceptualizing complex surfaces.
But when the design process is completed, these tools provide only a fraction of
the information needed to fully define the design. For example, industrial design
software doesn’t generate the parametric history that is crucial to efficiently
managing the engineering change process. Because the software only defines
a surface mod