Do you know what ice cream has in common with technical components?

It's summer, so how about a scoop of your favorite ice cream? Awesome idea, you think to yourself, as you march off to the nearest ice cream stand. Your mouth starts to water thinking about your favorite flavor, yogurt with amarena cherries. Once there, you realize that there are only three flavors: vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. “Is that really all you have to offer?” you ask. “Of course. After all, everyone likes at least one of the flavors. I think it’s exaggerated to offer dozens of different flavors,” the vendor replies. You turn on your heel and leave the ice cream stand disappointed and without buying anything. You do not want to give up that easy, so you take out your cellphone and search the web for other ice cream stands with bigger selections of flavors. Fortunately, you quickly find what you were looking for and so you set off in anticipation. A few minutes later, your favorite ice cream melts in your mouth. Your day is saved…

What does all this have to do with CAD data of technical components, you ask? Similar to our thought experiment, many engineers, designers and architects are confronted with their planning and designs on a daily basis: They need for their designs as well as planning very specific 3D CAD & BIM models of components and exactly the right one for their respective CAD system as well as the associated version and furthermore with all important metadata, such as kinematics information, end-of-life, weight, color, standards, mass centers, etc. Often, however, they do not find what they are looking for on the manufacturer's website. In the best case, the simplest STEP files are available, which, in the opinion of the manufacturer, would be perfectly adequate and somehow halfway suitable for any user. At this point, engineers and architects find, you guessed it, a simple solution: they simply search the Internet for alternative component manufacturers that cater to the specific wishes and needs and thus save their working day in their own way.

In order to provide customers and interested parties with their product data in multi CAD formats for download, numerous well-known component manufacturers rely on the innovative eCATALOGsolutions technology from CADENAS. Thus, thanks to the Electronic Product Catalogs, the components are available as 3D CAD models in more than 150 different native and neutral file formats of popular CAD systems, such as Solid Edge®, NX™, Creo Parametric™, Autodesk® Inventor®, AutoCAD®, CATIA® or SolidWorks® around the clock worldwide in various languages. With the Multi CAD solution from CADENAS, more than 95% of the available CAD systems and versions are thus successfully covered. And all this without any additional effort. The customer is happy, orders the component and you do the business - just like the ice cream vendor with the large selection of delicious ice cream flavors.

Take the decisive step towards digitalization with your products! Our exclusive survey results among 128,000 engineers, designers & architects provide you with 6 groundbreaking insights on how manufacturers can close this gap through digital transformation and at the same time massively advance their marketing.

You are already a CADENAS customer and offer your products in an Electronic Product Catalog for free download? Our catalog experts will be happy to discuss with you how you can further optimize your existing product catalog. Contact us now by mail.