Distributed design and engineering 24/7 – free of charge and with just a few clicks

Posted on September 22, 2021

Distributed design and engineering ensure the use of the best experts and resources whenever necessary – around the world 24/7. Cadmatic CoDesigner is an easy-to-use and effective tool for distributed design and engineering, and it is available free of charge with any Cadmatic design software. It enables the sharing of design information in real time, quickly and reliably.

“Distributed work means sharing and distributing tasks between several employees within one company or between many companies. Employers can design together in one project, whether physically in the same location or in different parts the world,” says Cadmatic’s Vice President for Customer Services Matti Siltanen.

Thanks to distributed design and engineering, the best experts and resources are always available despite their geographical location, and it is more efficient to utilize subcontractors. The software licenses acquired for design and engineering can be used more effectively when used throughout the day in different time zones. This may save up to 60% in license expenses.

“In order to manage distributed design successfully, it is essential that people working on the same project are able to use and share the same up-to-date design information. In addition, the designers must have access to the same design model and 3D environment.”

Man holding 3D image

Included free of charge with Cadmatic software

There are plenty of tools available for distributed working, but they can be a major expense for a company and use plenty of installation resources and server capacity. Cadmatic differs from most design software providers in that it offers an easy-to-use and effective management system for distributed design and engineering projects, free of charge included in its design software products.

“Everybody deserves to use a proper software tool. That is why we include the CoDesigner functionality in our design software. It is the core of a distributed design and engineering project, much like its gear box. Thanks to CoDesigner, all project-related information and updates are always up to date and accessible to all project participants,” says Business Development Director for Cadmatic’s Process & Industry unit Tommy Norström.

The development of CoDesigner’s first version started already 15 years ago. Since the very beginning, it was designed as an effective technology based on modern data management for distributed design and engineering. The system and its development have remained under the control of Cadmatic.

Tommy Norström and Matti Siltanen in Cadmatic office

CoDesigner, an effective system for distributed design and engineering, is included free of charge with any other Cadmatic software, say Tommy Norström (left) and Vice President of Customer Services Matti Siltanen.

Start use with just a few clicks

CoDesigner is easy to implement and use.

“Implementation only requires installation permission and the correct gate opened by the IT department, that is all. You can establish a new project team in the system with a few mouse clicks. Initiating the replication for a new site takes about ten minutes in a smaller project environment and an hour for a larger project. In many other similar systems, connecting a new site to a large design project can easily take days, even weeks, while requiring demanding database operations and significant IT expertise,” says Siltanen.

Optimized replication

CoDesigner can run very large projects that include large amounts of data. In other similar systems, after editing a document, the entire document and all the objects contained in it are always replicated one at a time, which requires a lot from the system.

“In CoDesigner, each object is independent, and when you edit an individual object, only that object is replicated, not the entire document and all objects,” Norström explains.

CoDesigner can be used offline, too. In that case, the files are synchronized when the system is back online. When working online, the synchronization frequency between two sites can be adjusted to serve the project.

“Based on customer feedback, CoDesigner has by far the best functionality on the market.”

Safe to use without conflicts

The biggest advantage of CoDesigner comes to those who use many subcontractors or have plenty of design projects going on at the same time. The system allows export and import of data from other systems in case design and engineering suppliers and their subcontractors do not use the same software.

Read more about CADMATIC solutions 

Read more about CADMATIC's distributed design system and how it can help you gain efficiencies by effectively distributing design work across teams anywhere in the world.