AdvancedTek AE Pro Tips: What is GrabCAD Shop and Why Your Shop Needs it
If you work in a shop or lab that supports product development or manufacturing you are likely juggling multiple work orders from more than one requester, each with its own requirements and deadlines. And in order to receive and relay the necessary information about these orders and manage the shop’s workload, you are likely using multiple applications for tracking and communicating purposes. Anything ranging from whiteboards, Google docs and SharePoint to complex ERP systems are being used today.
While these applications may be helpful and appear to “get the job done”, none is a solution designed specifically for managing a shop’s 3D printing workflow. Operators are wasting valuable time having to track down work order requirements, communicate status updates, and bounce between multiple email chains, network drives and other order tracking tools.
To simplify and streamline a shop’s workflow, Stratasys has introduced GrabCAD Shop, an easy-to-use shop management tool geared towards medium to large shops with multiple pieces of equipment and part requesters. This new solution enables operators, programmers, designers, and engineers to spend less time on administrative tasks and more time producing results.
So why does your shop need GrabCAD Shop?
- Centralize Your Work Order Management. With GrabCAD Shop you can upload more than just CAD files and drawings. The operator can upload their build files, photos, spreadsheets, etc. all into one secure AWS cloud storage solution for easy access. In addition, each order allows for threaded comments with chat-like features and manufacturing notes to ensure the correct order is achieved every time.
Example of a project in GrabCAD Shop with multiple part requests
- Technology Agnostic. Although GrabCAD Shop is a Stratasys product, it’s not just for managing Stratasys 3D printers. Easily configure the platform to reflect your internal shop’s offerings of any 3D printer brand, technology and material, as well as traditional manufacturing equipment like CNC machines, lathes, and laser cutters. You can even create multiple shops for different departments, teams, projects or locations depending on your company’s specific needs.
Example of multiple machines managed with GrabCAD Shop
- Keep All Parties In-the-know. One of the best features of GrabCAD Shop is the automatic notifications. Whether it’s a new order, a status update or a change to an order, an email is automatically sent to the relevant contact to keep all parties aware of the job’s progress.
Example of shop orders and their statuses within GrabCAD Shop
AdvancedTek has been using GrabCAD Shop since July and has found it effective at streamlining our internal work flow around producing 3D printed parts. We produce our own sample parts and machine benchmarks for our clients. We used to use a network drive for file storage, Excel spreadsheets for quoting, and email chains for conversations and feedback around a project. Now with GrabCAD Shop, all our files, quotes, and communication are in one place. This makes my job much easier and I can easily point people to a single resource like GrabCAD Shop when they have questions regarding a work order.
Interested in trying it out for your shop? GrabCAD Shop offers a free 30-day trial! Sign up here >> https://grabcad.com/shop
Written by David Kadlec, AdvancedTek Application Engineer