Welcome to the 4th episode of our Meet the SOLIDWORKS Super Users Series

We continue to feature Q&A with some of the incredible people that have been using SOLIDWORKS for years...and for some: decades!

Get to know them as they share their experiences, what they find to be valuable to their ongoing success, valuable pieces of knowledge and advice and how they are even engaging within our SOLIDWORKS communities here on 3DSwym.

The 4th Super User we are unmasking today is @AV.

Fresh back from a well-deserved vacation, catching up on work, Alin kindly took the time to Zoom connect with me to answer questions about his super hero secrets and the powers he has thanks to his knowledge of and use of SOLIDWORKS.

Without further ado, I present to you in Audio and Transcript:

Member Spotlight

Interview Transcript:

Matthew HALL  0:02 

Hello, everyone, welcome to our next superhero unveiling of one of our great SOLIDWORKS users who's always in our community active be at the digital communities in person joining us at 3DEXPERIENCE world. You probably know him you probably even attended one of his sessions that one of the world's Joining us today is Alin Vargatu. And he's works for TriMech Solutions, and he calls himself - which I really love the title - Large Assembly Wizard. And hopefully we can get into exactly what that is all about a little bit as we go through the Q&A here. So welcome. And thank you for joining us today.

Alin Vargatu  0:39 

Thank you very much for inviting me to be here, Matt.

Matthew HALL  0:41 

Alin, what exactly is a Large Assembly Wizard? Do you put on a hat? Or you have a wand? what is it all about?

Alin Vargatu  0:50 

Actually, I have a staff!

Alin Vargatu  0:53 

You know, it's kind of funny - throughout the years, I've had difficulties explaining in a few words, what my job is all about, what I'm doing...Sometimes on the plane, somebody would ask you: "What's your title? what you're doing?" And I had a lot of difficulty putting in just a few words.  The various things that application engineers for SOLIDWORKS resellers are doing, and especially in my case - that I'm doing so much more than a typical AE would do. So in the end, I decided to pick one of the activities that I enjoy doing. And also, they're taking a big chunk of my time; I'm going to say about 50 to 60% of my time taken by assisting my clients with theirLarge Assembly Performance, Large Assembly Efficiency.  It involves, first of all: learning from the client, how they're using the software, understanding their challenges and their goals. And then partnering with them to dissect existing assemblies to learn from them what are the major factors of slowdown, then get extra time to formulate solutions, tailor individual solutions for each and every one of those factors. And then guess what we need to package all these lessons learned in procedures and also in tailoring specific training courses, using their own models that can be delivered to everybody in their team. This is what I'm doing. I have been doing a lot in the last I'm gonna say five years. I just picked out this label for my position. So I kind of it's easy to explain.

Read and learn more - Large Assembly Drawings:

Matthew HALL  2:34 

And it's a great conversation generator, I guess on an airplane as well.

Alin Vargatu  2:37 

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Matthew HALL  2:38 

And so you're learning while you're helping your customers selling solutions? And I'm guessing you're using SOLIDWORKS in those solutions. How many years have you been using SOLIDWORKS?

Alin Vargatu  2:51 

The first time I saw SOLIDWORKS in action...I think it was '97?  A long time ago. The first time I got professional training in SOLIDWORKS was in 1999. And that's actually a very interesting story. At that time, I was working for a high-tech company, like in office furniture industry. So, it's kind of funny to put the two together -  office furniture + high tech, but that's the type of company I was working for - Teknion Furniture Systems. And at that point, most of the departments were having a 2D solution for CAD design and they were looking to move on to a 3D solution. So, they picked up people who already had the exposure to 3D from various departments. And they created a crack team that went and investigated all the 3D solutions out there. And because the company was pretty big, and we would purchase quite a lot of seats, we were treated like VIP's by pretty much everybody and I can throw names, but one of them was SOLIDWORKS. So, we got training in  12 different software's and like full training. Well, long story short, we picked SOLIDWORKS as the solution for our company. But as a byproduct of this, I got my first exposure to SOLIDWORKS.

Alin Vargatu  4:15 

Right after we bought SOLIDWORKS I changed jobs. So I went to a different company where they didn't use SOLIDWORKS for a couple of years. And then again, one more time I changed jobs. I went to a company who was using the 2D system for designing tooling; it was a tool and die shop and one of my conditions of employment I told them, I will join you if you buy SOLIDWORKS because I really liked my previous experience with SOLIDWORKS. So since that was like 2022 I started using SOLIDWORKS professionally and yeah, I never looked back,

Matthew HALL  4:51 

Never looked back.  So you had two years of difficulty without SOLIDWORKS but hey, come back. That's great. So a moment ago kind of laying this whole large assembly with your title and everything, but let's get into a little bit of the nitty-gritty, you know, for your superhero powers here. So how are you leveraging these superpowers? And what are you doing at work on a daily basis?

Alin Vargatu  5:14 

Well, actually, the interesting thing is that another title that I have that I like to use, especially when I talk with children, or teenagers, or with my son, my son knows that his dad is a Superhero Trainer. So I consider myself a Superhero Trainer, just because SOLIDWORKS allows regular people like me and you to step into a virtual universe where you get superhero powers. And I'm not talking only about things that you see in Marvel movies or X-Men movies, I'm talking about that multiplied by several degrees of magnitude. Now, let's explain how that works. I partner with probably the most intelligent and creative people in the world to ensure that they transcend the SOLIDWORKS user role. Now, what is a SOLIDWORKS user? We use this label all the times, many people call themselves SOLIDWORKS users. For me, the label this SOLIDWORKS user label is not necessarily a good thing, it's not something that I would brag about the fact that I'm a SOLIDWORKS user.  Because that implies being hired to use SOLIDWORKS. Or thinking that your job is to use SOLIDWORKS, to move the mouse on the screen, and click on icons and do things like that. In reality, you were probably hired to be a designer or an engineer or another type of professional role. And SOLIDWORKS is just a tool.  The moment people start using SOLIDWORKS, quite a few of them, I'm going to say in my experience, most of them, unfortunately, they turn into SOLIDWORKS users just because the software is so intuitive; it's easy to pick up, it's easy to become productive, it's easy to be able to do something together to get the job done, but not necessarily the most, most efficient way.

Alin Vargatu  7:05 

And think about your design process, right you want to build this product. Well, as you are going through your design flow, you get interrupted continuously by having to think how to operate in the SOLIDWORKS universe, you need to go and try to find a certain icon. And then you have to click a few other options in order to get the job done. And then you move on to the next design step and you interrupt yourself with clerical work in SOLIDWORKS. My role is to take you from that state, the state of a SOLIDWORKS user and promote you back to a designer or engineer status where you no longer think about the steps that you have to do in SOLIDWORKS, you no longer hunt for icons on the tree, you simply design; you just think about the next steps in your design. And SOLIDWORKS kind of guesses what you want and everything flows, we call that "being in the flow", allowing you to focus just on the model. And making sure that use the interface the most, most efficient way possible. And if you talk with your managers, probably they would agree they didn't hire you as a software user. The goal is to eliminate as much as possible this clerical work and focus just on what we can do in SOLIDWORKS. Because if you look at it this way, SOLIDWORKS gives you access to a virtual universe where you can be a superhero. And I can give you just a couple of examples of superpowers that you have in SOLIDWORKS.

Alin Vargatu  8:44 

First of all, you can create and destroy matter. I hope that nobody would get upset if if I use the word God, you are almost like a like a demigod in SOLIDWORKS. You can time travel, right? You can go back and forth in the feature tree you can you can do many things. You can even change history. You can move things around. You can do teleportation. And you can even do - I'm not sure if the software does mind reading - but many times SOLIDWORKS kinds of guesses what you want. And also you injecting your design intent in the models, you can make sure that whatever changes might happen in the future, they're going to be done based on your prescription. Like similar to what's on "Foundation" books of Isaac Asimov. You already wrote the future. Yeah, so pretty cool.

Matthew HALL  9:35 

Those are awesome superhero powers. I mean, I would love to have those. And so anyone can become a SOLIDWORKS superhero like you as well. And how do they do that?

Alin Vargatu  9:43 

Absolutely, Matt. Anybody can become a SOLIDWORKS superhero. Just be aware that it requires a little bit more than simply watching YouTube videos. You might need to attend training classes, shadowing your colleagues can help - actually helps a lot. Just be aware, keep an open mind, because some of the things that you will see from your colleagues might be old techniques that they developed maybe 10 years ago, and might not be the most efficient possible. And one thing that I know about the SOLIDWORKS users, all of them have their talents. And each company has their own needs. So, for example, for me, my role is to discover what these talents are, sharpen them in a controlled manner, to match the specific needs of their company of their team. The only way to do that is by forming that close partnership that I mentioned earlier with my clients, because I required to learn about them, probably as much as I can give back after the fact in order to make sure that everything that we do is relevant to them. And it's also tailored for their needs. And the solution can be anything: hardware specifications, software settings, tailored training, mentoring, or consulting, identifying maybe the need of developing specific applications for them. 

Alin Vargatu  11:10 

Also very important, understanding their challenges, analyzing what SOLIDWORKS can do at this moment in time, and what it should do in an ideal world. And taking those ideas as enhancement requests back to Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS. Actually, it's kind of interesting, that allowed me to develop quite a lot of good relationships with members of the product definition teams, at Dassault Systèmes. That allows me to do this connection - to connect my client to the right person in the PD Team, and ensure that, maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but very soon, the things they need, the tools they need, or the changes they need to the existing tools are going to be implemented in the software. And one of the topic that comes in about 90% of these interactions is the Large Assembly and drawing performance, like I mentioned earlier, which allowed me to do a lot of research. And I'm talking about 14+ years of working with clients who are interested in improving their Large Assembly performance. With each partnership, I learn a lot. And I try to give back not only to my clients, but also to the SOLIDWORKS community in general. That's why many of the presentations that you talked about Matt, have the topics of Large Assemblies, and I deliver that to user group meetings, SOLIDWORKS World. Also, they're the topic of many of the articles or videos that I'm writing, recording. And in the end, I distilled most of this knowledge inside new training courses. For example, I wrote a training course called the Large Assembly and Drawing workshop. I also have the tailored version of this course as a Large Assembly Service​​​​​​​ where I work with the clients’ models. So yeah, kind of everything goes around in a circle.

Read more - Alin's 3DEXPERIENCE World 2023 presentation:

Matthew HALL  13:01 

So for all these challenges that you are coming across and leveraging all the superpowers, how are you using SOLIDWORKS to solve the challenges that you face on a daily basis?

Alin Vargatu  13:10 

I guess the most important thing is to define the actual challenge. Allow me to before even I talk about SOLIDWORKS to share my experience as a consultant.  There are three essential things that I need to learn about my clients when I'm partnering with them. First would be what are their goals? And the goals might be coming from people who have no idea about how SOLIDWORKS works. They might be managers, they might be owners of companies - simple things like: we need to double the production, we got this big contract.  "So we got this big contract, we already retooled the plant for that. Now, what do I do with the engineering team? Do I need to double the number of people in the team? Or do I need to work these guys to death?" Obviously, none of them is the right solution.

Alin Vargatu  14:01 

So in order to achieve these goals, I'm going in there and I'm meeting with pretty much everybody: management, the engineering teams, even getting plant tours and talking with the people on the plant floor to really understand how the deliverables coming from the design team are being used. And then I'm actually doing one-on-one meetings with the power users in the team and then with a cross section of the users of with various levels of knowledge, just to really understand what each and every one of them needs. First of all, how they're using the software and then what each every one of them needs. Fortunately, SOLIDWORKS is a very versatile software that allows for tailoring of any solution you can think of and the solutions can also be quite diverse from structuring the environment (make sure you have the right hardware, the right software, the right software settings and  the right templates in the right place), and then adding layers like training, and can be team level training or individual level training depending on the role of each person. One thing again, I'm just going to say, and I cannot say more, I cannot repeat more about SOLIDWORKS is how intuitive it is. And this is a good thing. And also is can be a challenge. Because while you can do the same thing 100 different ways, as a team, as a company, it's a good idea to have consistency.  That's what becomes the most important thing to analyze what the goal is, and how to get there by formulating procedures.

Matthew HALL  15:40 

I asked this question to the other superheroes I've interviewed so far. And I'd like to ask you the same. And I know it's a difficult question, but you are a superhero and you have all those powers. In SOLIDWORKS, what is your favorite feature or best thing that you love about SOLIDWORKS?

Alin Vargatu  15:57 

Can I pick 3 instead of 1?

Matthew HALL  16:00 

You can pick as many as you want as @JM I think has 6 Number Ones, so no worries!

Read more - Super Hero John Matrishon:

Alin Vargatu  16:04 

Yeah, we can talk about that for hours. But let's see, let's focus just on three of them. Let me repeat one more time. So Number One is the versatility. And the intuitivity -is that such a word? - of the user interface, it's seems to read your mind. The User Experience team at SOLIDWORKS is doing wonders. And every year, the software becomes easier to use, reads your mind better. I think we have artificial intelligence in SOLIDWORKS. From that point of view, even before ChatGPT came a thing. Maybe it wasn't really artificial intelligence, but it seems that it reads my mind. Whatever I'm doing, it already predicts my next move.

Alin Vargatu  16:48 

The other things since we're talking about Large Assemblies, I really love the large design review mode in SOLIDWORKS; the ability to open any assembly almost instantaneous, and do a zillion things in it that many people have not discovered yet.

Alin Vargatu  17:03 

The third thing is the detailing mode for drawings, the ability to open any drawing, again, almost instantaneous, without having the assembly loaded into memory. Both these modes allow unbelievable collaboration models between companies and their contractors. So imagine you can send an assembly - just the assembly file - to a contractor, you don't send them part, you don't go pack-and-go, you just send them the assembly file, they should be able to open it in large design review mode, and insert in there their own sub-assemblies, their own parts, save it and send it back to you. And you should be able now to open in the resolved mode - and guess what?  Not only your old parts are going to be there but also their new parts are going to be included. Same thing for the detailing mode for drawings: you can email the drawing to somebody else, no other file needed. And they should be able to add most of the secondary drawing views - like detail views, break views, and also all the dimensions that you require, all the notes that you require, send it back to you. And guess what  - your drawing is done. So it's pretty spectacular from that point.

Matthew HALL  18:16 

Wow. Makes it very easy to use.

Alin Vargatu  18:19 

Yep, absolutely.

Matthew HALL  18:20 

As one of our SOLIDWORKS superheroes, what advice do you have for someone who's just starting out with SOLIDWORKS? Who wants to become the next year, The Next Generation of superheroes? What would you share with them?

Alin Vargatu  18:33 

First of all, to treat SOLIDWORKS as an alternate universe.  I mentioned that earlier.  Whatever you can do in our world... So think about manufacturing processes, I want to take a plate I want to cut it, I want to mark the location of of the center holes and then drill the holes - just an example you can do in SOLIDWORKS. So the first thing is to feel comfortable that you are going to use the tools and the processes that you're familiar with. Now, how do you ramp up? I guess that's the most important thing How do you ramp up yourself to become a SOLIDWORKS professional or a professional who is using SOLIDWORKS in a professional manner. Many people are starting to learn SOLIDWORKS by watching YouTube videos.  Like YouTube is the New Academy that everybody can access. The problem with YouTube material is that the quality varies wildly. The other one is that it's good at providing you answers to your questions. But what about answer to things that you haven't asked yet? Right? Because we don't know what we don't know. In my mind,  the gold standard for getting up to speed with SOLIDWORKS the right way, is actually taking training courses with your local reseller. And that's because the material that is used in these training courses is actually written directly by SOLIDWORKS. They are the best manuals in the industry and the best courses.  When I talk with my students that, let's say they just have taken the Essentials Course, which is a five-day course only, at the end of the course, many of them are coming to me and say, "Well, I had actually four semesters of learning SOLIDWORKS in university, and I watched the videos, and I did all kinds of things. But I learned in this five days, more than I learned until this moment." So take these professional courses.

Alin Vargatu  20:31 

Take advantage of my.solidworks.com. Again, this is probably one of the best portals containing interactive videos, not simply watch a video, but watch a video, stop, "click here" is going to show exactly what you need to do in order to learn and having everything structured in a course like environment. my.solidworks.com is a great resource.  Another great resource is SolidProfessor, where, again, video-based learning, but both my SOLIDWORKS and SolidProfessor, I would say use them as top ups of the training classes that you have taken with your reseller, that would be a good way to ramp up knowledge.

Alin Vargatu  21:17 

The other one, be very, very curious.  Try to learn from your coworkers. And don't try to don't try to think yourself as one user doing a job; try to work with multiple people, or at least brainstorm with multiple people.  You might be the only SOLIDWORKS user in your company. But that being said, there is a whole community of users on the SOLIDWORKS forum, for example, that you can brainstorm with. And guess what you most likely, the challenge that you are facing has already been solved by other users. So feel free to ask the questions and you're gonna get answers.

Matthew HALL  21:58 

That's a great segue. Because you know, they can do this studying on their own, go to classes, speak with you. But you know, hey, they're ready to go, they might have a question. And there is the User Forum where you have people asking very similar questions; maybe the same exact question that you have for the challenge you're facing. And it's a great spot to ask those questions. Get them answered, we have 1000s of people coming there every day, every week. I got to meet you digitally first through the user forum. We've since met face to face, which was great. But you know, you engage in the SOLIDWORKS User Forum, and I see you there active. At the end of the day, what is the value you get as a member of this very dynamic community in our 3DSwym environment?

Alin Vargatu  22:41 

I'm getting a lot of value, I'm going to say that without the SOLIDWORKS forum, I wouldn't be in the position that I am right now. And that looks like a big statement. But it's absolutely true. When I started using SOLIDWORKS, in production in 2002, that was the second place where I start asking questions, the first being my reseller, the second would be on the forum. One thing that surprised me is that I would get very good answers very, very fast. And that allowed me to browse the forums. Okay, I got my answer...What else is there? Right, I became curious. And again, you don't know what you don't know. And by seeing what other people are asking and seeing what the solutions that are being provided by other users very, very quickly, you learn; you learn things that you can use in, in production. Then, as I became a little bit more experienced, I started to participate also in providing answers to those questions. And there is no better way to learn something other than trying to find solutions for challenges. So in order to provide a good answer, you need to research and the last part, probably the most important is brainstorming where somebody throws a challenge out there. And then you have not one user, not two users, but 10 users asking each other and collaborating in getting the job done. It's kind of very interesting. Nowadays, I'm getting notifications, because somebody started the conversation. Three other people providing an answer. And the fourth person said, "Well, let's also ask Alin and Eric" and they kind of tag us. So we get dragged in these conversations, a lot of value.

Matthew HALL  24:31 

And you come in and help so it's really changing that dynamic from, knowledge is power to sharing is power. And you're doing that right now in the community. That is great! And thank you for everything you're doing in there.

Alin Vargatu  24:40 

Just one more thing. One of the most important things is to see how other people are using the software. So the use cases for SOLIDWORKS are mind boggling. And this is the best place to find little gems. By finding out that a solution for a sheet metal problem, it's actually a surfacing tool and the opposite.

Matthew HALL  25:00 

Besides falling you in 3DSwym, which is a given, you have in your experience and engaging in the forum, who else do you recommend as an expert, a guru that people should connect with look to for, you know, as a trusted source of knowledge and information and help?

Alin Vargatu  25:17 

One thing I like about the new SOLIDWORKS forum, is the fact that more Dassault Systèmes employees are participating. So that's, that's the number one thing - you can follow, let's say the product definition manager for assemblies, or the product definition manager for drawings, or the product definition manager for pipe and tube routing - whatever it's relevant to you. And you can engage in conversation directly with the people who are defining the software. So that is spectacular!  I don't remember that happening that much in the old forum but in the new one, it's so much, so much easier. And then you have this role model. So for me, I remember when I attended the first SOLIDWORKS world...if I'm not mistaken, was in 2010. In in San Antonio. And I attended Ed Eaton's presentations, like the first time I saw Ed Eaton in action, it changed my life. Just seeing, first of all, the type of things that he was presenting. So I think it was a presentation about how to break things in SOLIDWORKS, in order to get the job done. It was mind boggling stuff like that doesn't exist in books, doesn't exist in SOLIDWORKS, manuals. And also inspired me to become a presenter. And then you have some of the most active users on the forum like @DG. It was a time a few years ago, when I don't think Deepak was sleeping. And I'm not talking about time zones.  I'm talking about the fact that anybody can could ask a question at any time in, say, the 24 hour period.  And usually, inside five minutes, Deepak would provide, not just an answer, but the answer to the question. Because it was it was it was crazy. And then working with other stars in our forum, and I think everybody singles out, @EB - everybody loves Eric, because I think in a way, he's, he's the new Deepak; he's active in all the communities that that we have. He's helping Makers, he's helping Students, he's helping experience users like me, it's unbelievable. He's a great role model also, from, from this perspective.

Read more: Super Hero Eric Beatty:

Alin Vargatu  25:21 

The other person that I'm following a lot is @DL. One thing that Dave is really good at is one great thing that Dave Laban is, is very good at is analyzing how the software works. And the software can be anything can be the Swym software can be SOLIDWORKS. And then looking for improving efficiency of the tools that are available. I think he created with some of the best enhancement requests for the SOLIDWORKS community that I have seen is probably one of the those people that should be maybe hired by Dassault Systèmes to help with improving the interface.

Matthew HALL  28:32 

Dave contributes a lot similar to even you Alin and Eric who joke or not, he sleeps fast enough to get the job done and everything...Sharing your opinions, your thoughts, your knowledge, your voice in our communities inside of our 3DSwym communities. It's being heard it's listened to, and it's making an impact. Thank you very much for all the contributions that you make, and to all the others that you've mentioned, as well.

Alin Vargatu  28:58 

And there is one more that I really need to mention, which is @TB, right? He's the one who started SLUGME: SOLIDWORKS user, the largest -  what's that....? SOLIDWORKS Largest User Group Meeting Ever, which was, which started as a very ambitious project. And it morphed into an event that results to a day at SOLIDWORKS world.  It's pretty spectacular what he achieved and how he was able to bring together resources from both Dassault Systèmes and the user community to make this a reality.

Read more - SLUGME 7:

Read more - Super Hero Todd Blacksher:

Matthew HALL  29:46 

And I want to wrap things up, because I know you're busy and you got a lot of people to help out with your superpowers. So final question today. Is there a quote that motivates you?

Alin Vargatu  29:57 

Yes, actually, I have many quotes but one of my favorites I believe it's very relevant for solver superheroes is:

“Always think of the solution, not the problem. If your mind was filled only with thoughts of why you are going to lose, then you could not think of how to win”  - taken from The Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. So again, a Wizard 🧙‍♂️!

Matthew HALL  30:25 

Bring it back to the wizard! Great quote and something I will have to remember in my daily life. Thank you, Alin, very much for joining us today for this interview and for allowing us to unmask you – one of our super heroes! We look forward to seeing you continue to interact, share and engage in our community and suggest everyone to keep an eye on what Alin is up to. At a future 3DEXPERIENCE World, if he is presenting, you should sit on one of his sessions – it could be life-changing for you.  Thank you very much, Alin!

Alin Vargatu  30:54

Thank you very much, Matt, it was a pleasure – thank you.

Super User ​​​​​​​SOLIDWORKS Super Users Stories ​​​​​​​Q&A