Interview: OFFROAD
Lucie P-L: "Could you please introduce yourself?"
Valentin S: “My name is Valentin SCHWARTZ, and I’m a mechanical engineer by training. I spent four years at the COLAS Group as an innovation project manager. And since September, we’ve been working on the company OFFROAD with Pierre-Adrien.
So, Pierre-Adrien Nadal, I’m an engineer by training, specializing in computer science, computer vision, and artificial intelligence. I first spent five years working in the medical field on embedded systems with a strong focus on artificial intelligence, as well as 3D medical imaging systems. Then I completely changed industries and joined the COLAS Group as the innovation director for one of its subsidiaries. Together with Valentin, we worked on modernizing the company’s public works operations, specifically, modernizing its systems. Following that, we founded the company OFFROAD.
Our goal is to help transform the public works sector, which remains largely traditional, by providing new solutions in 3D digitization and robotics. Our first products will enable the digital 3D mapping of construction sites (to better track progress, monitor quality, and facilitate the work of surveyors by providing them with both these digital twins and tools for automatically generating plans).
On SOLIDWORKS, we have computer science, electronics, and mechanical engineering. So 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS ”It mainly involves the last part. Overall, we need to do 3D design, but also mechanical sizing based on the operational constraints of our systems, the integration of electronic components, and a bit of 3D rendering for marketing purposes."
L: "Why did you choose 3DEXPERIENCE?"
V: “Actually, based on my past experiences, I had quite a bit of experience with SOLIDWORKS (I knew it was software I was proficient in and that met my needs).”.
So I naturally turned to SOLIDWORKS to purchase a license, and that’s when I heard about 3DEXPERIENCE and its cloud solution. That seemed interesting to me, because it’s true that we’re working more and more in the cloud (if only with Microsoft 365) and we’re actually pretty open to remote work (it seemed like an interesting solution).»
L: "What results and benefits have you observed?"
V: “First of all, for now, I’m on my own when it comes to the mechanical side of things. We have an intern who’s coming in about a month. So as far as teamwork goes, I haven’t really been able to benefit from it yet (though I know that will change once the intern is here or when we hire more people for the mechanical department).”.
”But there's already one interesting feature, one that SOLIDWORKS didn't allow before, regarding version control: we can create revisions for different parts and truly track the design from start to finish."
L: "A few words about your user experience?"
V: “Yes, for me, it’s file management. It’s true that before, everything was stored locally, so we had to copy and paste every time we edited a document if we didn’t want to lose the rest, and so on. It was pretty cumbersome and complicated. It also took up a lot of space in terms of data size, and now, with the 3DEXPERIENCE Being able to revise parts and keep a history of all the changes made to each part and each assembly is really interesting. And it will be even more so once the collaborative aspect is added. We’ll be able to work, and even have multiple people working, on the same assembly and actually see who did what and why.
This also makes it easier to”to have and better link systems deployed in the field with design status checks, and consequently speed up development because at any given moment we’ll be able to directly link a part in the field to a design status and have more time between mechanical updates."
L: "In your opinion, what are the two or three aspects that best characterize the platform?"
- “File management and data management: more flexible and simpler"
- The collaborative aspect
- The 3DEXPERIENCE Simulation Software ”is much better than what we had before in SOLIDWORKS"
L: "A few words about your experience with XDI?"
V: “Well, I had quite a few problems getting it set up. On the other hand, XDi And even some people at Dassault were actually quite, or even very, helpful, attentive to my needs, and responsive. The community-based problem-solving aspect is nice, it’s good, but it’s true that sometimes you also like to have a dedicated contact person on the phone.
I also know that if I have an urgent or very troublesome problem, I can call my account manager at XDi. ». Overall, when it comes to support and service, we're doing pretty well."
L: "Anything else to add?"
V: «That would mean taking file version management even further. It’s true that this is something we’ve talked about quite a bit because it’s really important to us right now, and even more so going forward, to be able to iterate quickly on products while maintaining a very high standard of quality control.”.
And then, the more features that are developed for this, the more we’ll be able to do, for example, by taking an old file, we’ll be able to directly view in 3D the changes that have been made compared to a previous version, as well as the features we’ll use in the design phase.
That’s what we were saying earlier, it’s true that if Dassault, or at least the developers of 3DEXPERIENCE, were to draw inspiration from file management and version control, it might be what’s already being done in the IT world. That aspect is very advanced there, and it would be really interesting to see it applied to the fields of mechanical engineering and 3D design. There’s been a first step in that direction with 3DEXPERIENCE, and it’s true that we’d be interested in seeing it go further.”
