0" IT IS NOT ALWAYS DIRECTLY RELATED TO YOUR HARDWARE. PROPER TRAINING TO EMPLOYEES AND THEIR OWN KNOWLEDGE CAN BRING HUGE DIFFERENCE."
Since working in CAD related business for more than 3 years, I have heard opinions of designers and product managers of various companies that solidworks is slow, solidworks hangs a lot in assembly mode and so on. Most of them own workstations which costs around $2200 and above but still face operational problems everyday.
It has been almost 3 years since I am handling very large assemblies in solidworks versions ranging from 2012 to 2015. Although I am lover of Siemens NX (Formerly UG NX), I still praise Solidworks for its immense simplicity. It do not require special training like UG NX. In UG NX, if one doesn't know about proper procedure then forget about designing something. Your employees should get trained thoroughly to get maximum out of Siemens NX. While many thinks that this thing does not apply to solidworks, but it's not the case. It applies in different manner.
I have seen many Indian organisations including giant players use solidworks in very raw stage. Most of the time it is observed that there is lack of professional training session to design departments of companies. Solidworks has got its standard operational procedures which need to be followed when optimum performance is expected.
Let's have quick review on something that many design professionals face everyday with solidworks :
Solidworks hangs often while starting ! Many of users don't know that there are plug-ins in solidworks which need to be disabled. Under Tools menu, there is something listed as Add-ins. Open it and un-tick almost all boxes unless you need specific add-in to be loaded at the start-up. This significantly reduces start-up time and hang-outs.
Solidworks hangs when handling large assembly ! This issue is related to improper design practice being carried out at many places. When any part, sub-assembly and assembly is being designed, it must be confirmed that they have proper configurations without any obsolete sketch / feature / mates. For example: If rotation is not desired, make sure to right click on concentric mate and choose lock rotation option. This trick is useful to fix fasteners at place. Remember that if you leave fasteners under defined concentric mate, then solidworks will try to recompute their orientation and probable rotation every time you open or update the assembly - an extra burden to computing resources.
Solidworks takes too long to load large assembly !! Well even I daily face this problem when I open it in resolved mode. 350 MB assembly file can eat up almost 20-25 minutes to open in resolved mode. But if you have a design team that can follow structured design procedure then this issue can be solved. Solidworks has Speedpack feature in its assembly toolbar. Most of users don't even recognise what this option is. It is rescue option built by solidworks developers to enable user to carry out the work even on low-end computers. What Speedpak does is that it converts your assembly into minimal data mode. User has to choose only outer surfaces or surfaces which are expected to be used for mating in another assembly and speedpak forms light weight model of your sub-assembly / assembly. It boosts performance to highest level. Only thing is that each team member should take care to provide speedpak in his sub-assembly / assembly when transferring it to another member who takes care of whole CAD Assembly. You can update speedpak whenever you want.
Windows 7 and Solidworks : Thanks to Microsoft for making an operating system which consume maximum resources and delivers considerably low output. Windows 7 has long history of criticism since it is being used. This is due to its ability to eat up maximum resources even for simple tasks. I literally hate hanging around windows 7. Windows 8 out-stands windows 7 when it comes to performance. Furthermore solidworks has its own limitations - It is mid-range design program. Even for solidworks simulation, you cannot expect it to work like NX Advanced Simulation or ANSYS. This is as simple as comparing silver with Gold. If you handle very large scale assemblies then NX or CATIA will be good options for you.
NVidia Qaudro yet slow solidworks ! Your graphics card is not always set use maximum resources by default. Tune your graphics card using NVidia properties option to get better solidworks experience. Ensure that solidworks is utilising professional graphics card and not the on-board Intel crap. Enable display scaling using Nvidia options in properties window.
Avoid inserting Toolbox Items in Assembly as it is ! Solidworks toolbox items are famous for their notorious behaviour. When you transfer assembly to other computer, toolbox items get reduced or enlarged or go missing. I agree that it is tedious job to design each and every fastener or other toolbox item. So you can use a trick that I developed over the past year. Choose desired toolbox item, right click it and choose create part. When you are finished with your required part parameters input in adjacent panel, click on save as and choose parasolid (.xt) option. Keep eye on the location where it is getting stored. Now access that location and parasolid file. Cut and paste this parasolid file in your assembly sub-folder and rename the file to make sure that toolbox won't be able to link it again. Now open it in solidworks and save as .sldprt in the same sub-folder. Insert this .sldprt at anyplace in assembly you want. Long but stable method and reduces use of resources resulting in performance boost.
Installing Patches and Updates regularly ! This is the most important step. Solidworks website announces various patches and updates on regular basis to respond to ensure bug removal from solidworks. Ask your IT department to install these patches / updates for solidworks.
And finally do start sharing your views, ideas, problems etc at Solidworks community. There are active solidworks developers over there who bring the change in subsequent solidworks version by responding your queries. You can access it at : https://www.solidworks.com/sw/community.htm
Best outcome of solidworks community can be seen in solidworks 2016 where many users had insisted switchable UI colour theme for solidworks as that of MS-office so as to reduce strain on eyes. Solidworks developers noticed it and now solidworks 2016 has switchable UI Colour facility.
I hope many of solidworks users will start to take different look at solidworks after reading this article.
