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From CAD User Mechanical Magazine  Vol 22 No 2 - FEBRUARY/MARCH 2009

David Chadwick reflects on the words of advice of Sir Richard Branson, keynote speaker at SolidWorks World 2009

It was a suitably flying visit from Sir Richard Branson, the keynote speaker at this year's SolidWorks World in Orlando, who gave us the fruits of his wisdom, spent half an hour in a press conference, and then shot of to New York for a pressing business meeting. From not having been a fan of his, I found myself wishing he had stayed a bit longer - and, like previous keynote speakers, been around long enough for a bit of personal interaction with him.

He actually came across as someone a bit more human than he is usually portrayed - yes, I know his style suggests that, but I cynically put that down to effective marketing. He demonstrated his altruistic leanings by responding positively to two of the inventions that SolidWorks users had come up with in response to the sustainability challenge.

These were a new type of micro wind-turbine for domestic use and - an amazing product this - a design for an incubator, made out of spare parts from trucks in a country where they have plenty of decrepit and rusting vehicles, but precious few incubators. Oh, another throwaway line - he donated his keynote fee to charity! The key soundbites from the interview he had with Jeff Ray on the stage (Sir Richard, surprisingly, is not a big fan of public speaking, something I empathise with and which helped him rise in my estimation) related, of course, to the predicaments that the planet currently finds itself in. First and foremost is global warming. “As an insurance policy,” he said, “assume the worst.

We have to wean ourselves off carbon fuels.” In fact he pointed out that, on a recent flight from London and Amsterdam, one of his 747s used just bio-fuels for propulsion. He also explained that 100% of the profit that his airline makes goes into developing green fuels. That's not as easy as it sounds. Bio-fuels are supposed to freeze at just 15,000 feet and airliners regularly fly at least twice as high as that. A further challenge is that clean fuels have to be capable of being produced cheaper than dirty fuels.

ENTREPENEURIAL VIEW OF THE CREDIT CRUNCH

“The world's challenges will be solved by the world's designers - not politicians." Sir Richard owes a lot of success to setting himself challenges, and rising to meet them. The best way of getting through current problems is to do the same. Solving the energy and sustainability crises will only come about through a radical shift in the technology we use. The industrial revolution in the UK, although not mentioned by Sir Richard, can be classified in the same way - massive social changes accompanied a dynamic upward shift in industry and commerce, changing the UK landscape from its mainly rural society into a city-based industrial workhorse.

Some may argue that we lost much in the change, but a similar metamorphosis will have to be undertaken, led, yet again, by man's inventiveness, to enable us to cope with a burgeoning world with a shortage of materials, space - and now, money!

As for the average small business striving to make ends meet at the moment, Sir Richard advocates that they set an example by expanding out of it, rather than retracting. I know that - most of the time he is able to lay his hands on the resources he needs for each of his 300 plus companies, but he advises that more will be gained, before laying people off, by sitting down with the workforce, and exploring other solutions - such as part- time working, and so on.

The rationale behind this is simple. “The greatest pain is to be out of work altogether. It is important to keep people's minds occupied - but it is more important to keep expertise within a company.”

SOLIDWORKS WORLD 2009

As for the conference itself, the most eagerly awaited statistics were the attendance figures. Would they be decimated by the credit crunch? In fact they were down, but at 4,300, down from 4,700, were well above everyone's dire predictions.

The most amazing thing about SolidWorks World is the positive spirit with which it is always conducted. There was

no diminution in the enthusiasm shown by SolidWorks people themselves, their partners in the accompanying exhibition, and the attendees themselves.

The intro to the conference was given, of course, by SolidWorks' CEO, Jeff Ray. He always comes out with some interesting facts, or news of some worthwhile inventions from SolidWorks' users. Like the stat that 50% of SolidWorks users spend 70% of their time glued to their screens, and that their customer portal had already notched up 1.2 million visits and 10 million page hits.

Besides the incubator and wind generator mentioned above, Ray mentioned a couple of other fascinating developments. The first concerns regenerative technology to regrow bone tissue. The trouble is that the tissue available from donors is severely limited. Cleansing bone tissue makes its structure weaker. If it is milled, instead, using CAD models to define its shape, bone from donors can be used which subsume into the patients own bone structure. The technology even allows the chips and dust from the milling to be pulverised and used as a paste for the same purpose.

A means of producing safe drinking water has also been developed which, instead of using chemicals or chlorines to kill harmful bacteria, bombards the water with ultra-violet light. 56 such units have been deployed outside new York, which together can produce 2.2 billion galleons of clean water a day - that's equivalent to filling an Olympic swimming pool every 30 seconds.

Another fact I found interesting is that the design for the first commercial spacecraft to enter space - Spaceship One - was inspired by the distinctly down to earth shuttlecock! In effect, the swivelling wings turned the plane into a giant shuttlecock. keeping the craft in perfect orientation for a safe descent to Earth.

SOLIDWORKS INITIATIVES

What was the company going to do about the two major issues affecting the World today though - the credit crunch and global warming? (You can't say we don't live in interesting times!). A major announcement concerned sustainability; the ability to lessen the impact of man on his surroundings, and to preserve resources for future generations.

A new application, appropriately called Sage, was launched which, effectively, uses a traffic light system to indicate the level of impact it will have on the environment (see the article in this issue). The second is a scheme to provide unemployed design engineers with the wherewithal to develop their skills to make them more employable, should an opportunity arise.

The CSWP qualification is now widely regarded by employers throughout the CAD world, requiring a good degree of knowledge of SolidWorks and its application. SolidWorks has devised a scheme where its partners could supply, free-of-charge, a copy of SolidWorks to suitable claimants, and assist them in studying up to CSWP level. The system is only up and running in the US at the moment, but I made a strong suggestion to Jeff Ray that it be implemented in the UK, as well.

We also got a taster of what's coming in SolidWorks 2010. I'll leave that for an article in the next issue, when I can flesh the details out a bit more!

Finally, Sir Richard Branson is going to make his Caribbean island 100% carbon neutral. If I lived on such an island I could do that too! I’d have to resort to a Robinson Crusoe lifestyle to do it - but I’d need to produce just enough energy to power a laptop and send the occasional article back to HQ. I wonder if he need a volunteer to put his theory to the test? www.Solidworks.com

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