Printing and plotting management for Catia users

An INCAT product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jan 31, 2002

ZEH Software has developed solutions for Catia that will reduce the amount of time designers spend printing and plotting, and an exclusive distributor has been appointed for the UK

Incat's UK business has become the latest to join the 'e-partner' programme of ZEH Software, a global company committed to improving printing and plotting efficiency in engineering design offices world-wide.

Although cad/cam software has led to the demise of the drawing board in most engineering organisations, designers still want to print out what they've produced.

Often, however, this seemingly simple task becomes a costly, time-consuming and frustrating chore that can eat into the productive time that engineers can spend doing what they do best: designing.

ZEH's managing director Neil Varty expands on this with a vivid example: "We've estimated that for an organisation of around 1100 people, the preparation, output, tracking and collection of print/plot jobs costs around £82 per person, per year.

That's approaching £100,000 wasted on what should be a very simple process.

Many companies don't realise this.

Their people just tolerate the status quo without realising there's a better way of working." Working closely with Catia software developer Dassault Systemes, ZEH has developed solutions for Versions 4 and 5 that will reduce the amount of time designers spend printing and plotting.

Incat, with its expertise of Catia and extensive customer base of users, has been given exclusive rights to sell and support these solutions in the UK.

Incat UK managing director Lawrence James said: "This partnership is important to us because ZEH's goal is the same as INCAT 's: to help companies achieve optimum efficiency through their use of technology.

However, few companies in the UK realise the significant productivity gains and cost-reductions that can be made from introducing output management solutions like those developed by ZEH.

Together, we aim to change that situation." One of the first companies to benefit from ZEH's printing and plotting solutions is Cosworth Technology in Northampton, a tier one automotive industry supplier.

The company has five major cad/cam packages, including Catia V4.2.2, running on 78 workstations spread across three sites in the UK and one in the USA.

Neil Varty says a successful three-month benchmark of ZEH's Plot Express and Image Publisher has given them the confidence to roll-out the system across the four sites.

"With their multi-vendor cad/cam environment, Cosworth had major problems getting all this software to print and plot.

They wanted one automated drawing archive for controlling and storing all TIFF images, and the ability for anyone to view any drawing using the web, wherever they are.

User feedback has been good and we understand that Cosworth has become faster at tendering quotes, more efficient overall and have made savings on consumables such as paper and ink.

They've also saved the salary costs of having a full-time reprographics co-ordinator, " he explains.

More information on ZEH Software and its printing/plotting solutions for Catia can be found at www.zeh.com.