Autodesk Plant Soutions in Pune, India

Last week was a busy week with students and staff of Chemical Engineering from colleges affiliated with University of Pune (one of the high ranked University in India) I conducted two training session of two days each; one for the students of final year in Chemical Engineering of Pravara Rural Engineering College, Loni and another training for the staff from various colleges that offer Chemical Engineering under University of Pune. The training was provided on AutoCAD P&ID and Demo of AutoCAD Plant 3D which was followed by a very encouraging response from all.

Autodesk have granted 30 seats of AutoCAD P&ID currently in the process of granting another 30 seats of AutoCAD Plant 3D. Both students and staff found the product very easy to use and showed keen interest in learning it. The staff members could see the potential in the products and wanted their student to learn these tools. They are keen in knowing when they can have hand on AutoCAD Plant 3D after seeing the demo. Two more colleges in the University of Pune have requested for demo or training to their final year Chemical Engineering students, which I will be doing it this week. All this is leading to a strong adoption of these tools by Chemical Engineering students.

Professor R.W. Gaikwad, Head of Department of Chemical Engineering at Pravara have already picked few courses related to plant design and instrumentation/controls where he thinks he can include Autodesk products as Term Work/Assignments and part of final year project work. The Professors commented on saying that this is an excellent opportunity for students to learn AutoCAD P&ID and AutoCAD Plant 3D for piping design package at Undergrad level. Some staff members wanted to learn the details of AutoCAD Plant 3D product and work on Test Cases providing solutions to design problems.

Autodesk University 2009 is over

The exciting week of Autodesk University is over concluded with a AU party in the large arena as usual and was also opened to the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay. It took me the weekend to recover and get back in action again. 

AU Online is the place to look at now. If anyone has missed any classes, you can find them at AU site from tomorrow. You can go online on Autodesk University website and listen to screen cast. The handout of the class are also posted out there. 

Some pictures from AU 2009. 

Welcome @ AU 2009

 

One of the breaks at AU

Plant Solutions at exibit area

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I had a great time at AU this year, meeting so many of you folks and sharing information and learning new things. Hope to see you all at next AU.

AEC Plant Solutions breakout Autodesk University 2009

ACE Plant Solutions breakout session was a place to be on Thursday morning at Autodesk University 2009. There was a unique panel discussion offered by the Plant Solutions team where customers were sharing their thoughts as to how they got AutoCAD Plant 3D in their companies. What challenges they had to face internally to move from existing product to Plant 3D and Why AutoCAD Plant 3D? When asked why AutoCAD Plant 3D, Robert C. Barnes of Wright-Pierce commented; “In our company we do it once and we do it right the first time in 3D and then all the 2D drawing (Iso, plan, etc.) are free”. Another user pointed out, “With AutoCAD Plant 3D we don’t need a database admin, we don’t have to worry about database”. There were lots of comments on how easy Plant 3D is to use and how productivity has increased in their projects with AutoCAD Plant 3D. Some users also liked that Plant 3D is built on AutoCAD platform as they are comfortable with AutoCAD and it makes them easy to get going with Plant 3D.

Plant solutions breakout

Right after the breakout session, the exhibition hall was opened and Plant Solutions booth was visited by many plant users to take a peek at demonstration of AutoCAD Plant 3D, AutoCAD P&ID and Navisworks.

Autodesk University 2009 with Plant products

AU this year has been really too busy and good thing was we have AutoCAD Plant 3D to show to the users who were equally excited to see the products and play with it. For all the plant customers that I have talked to just loved AutoCAD Plant 3D.  Those seeing AutoCAD Plant 3D for the first time couldn’t believe that plant 3D design could be so easy and fast. Some of the user comments were… “There is almost no learning curve for AutoCAD Plant 3D”, “We have been spending three to six months on other products to make people get productive, we will now be looking into Plant 3D”.  The classes for both Plant 3D and P&ID were filled with all the excited customers asking lot of questions and wanted to know how to get their hands on the product.

Talking about classes; the class I was teaching on AutoCAD P&ID customization was filled with enthusiastic users who wanted to learn more about customization. I have kept my session open for Q&A right from the beginning; that made users ask questions as we were going though each section and lot of users were able to ask their doubts. Some attendees in the class even asked to demonstrate some customization issues that they were facing; were satisfied to see getting their concerns demoed in the class itself. With all this questions and comments I was still able to cover all the material in time. Some other question were; How to place annotations automatically? How to customize annotation block that are already in use by editing the format string in block editor? How do the changes take effect? Best way to bring custom components into the project? And lot more. I am thinking of writing a separate blog on all the questions and their answers.  

The time spent at the Plant Solutions booth in the exhibit area and the AEC Plant Solutions Lounge gave ample of time to interact with the existing and prospective users and demonstrating them the features especially Plant 3D and having Navis works on the booth machines was very useful as lot of users wanted to see the Plant 3D models in Navis works. Users liked the fact that it is so easy to modify the Spec, one of the user commented, “I like the fact that I can modify my Spec in the middle of the project and update the existing drawings with the updated Specs so easily”. DVDs for AutoCAD Plant 3D Trial version were on the booth table and many prospective users wanted to get their hands on it and wanted to try it. Some non plant users wanted to try it too and see if it could work for what they are doing.

More updates comming up.

Autodesk University 2009 has started…

Here we are at Autodesk University in Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas. Today is the first day for most of the events with classes going on at full capacity although some already started yesterday. I landed in Vegas yesterday noon and have been on the AU floors until late on Monday, like AU was already started on Monday.
First thing that I was engaged in was the test drive for AutoCAD Plant 3D were the customers were getting a first-hand experience of the existing and new functionalities, which ended with lots of feedback. Most of them were new users to the products and had lots of appreciation, “This product is so easy to use”, “Not much of learning curve”, etc…

Intro to AutoCAD Plant 3D and Intro to AutoCAD P&ID were the classes today were full house. Plant 3D sessions was too exciting with customers asking all kinds of questions to know the product well. There were lots of How to’s questions that customers had and were delighted to find ways to do what they want from Plant 3D product. Customers were excited to see the product and can’t believe it’s just the first release; they will be heading to download trial versions.

It’s about time for me to head to the Exhibition Hall – Autodesk Pavilion. Drop by the Plant booth (#641) and I will be there with some of the Plant Solutions experts to demo the products and answer questions.

Plant Solutions at AU 2009

Autodesk University as usual in Vegas.

Two weeks and we will be in Mandalay Bay Resort, Las Vegas for Autodesk University 2009. Among all the exciting things happening at AU; Plant Solutions have a list of customer engaging events to learn from the experts about AutoCAD Plant 3D, AutoCAD P&ID, Autodesk Navisworks, etc. There are series of Plant Solution classes and labs offered for the plant products. A good place to get jump start on the AutoCAD P&ID and AutoCAD Plant 3D. There will be Plant Solutions booth in the Exhibit hall for the demos and talking to all the customers. A cool AutoCAD Plant 3D t-shirt too. A Plant Solutions Lounge will be there too to relax and talk to Plant folks.

Another place to learn and interact with other users and experts at AutoCAD Exchange Plant Group and see the AU Plant  Industry Sneak Peek Preview Videos.