Observations from IAtools’ trip to Chengdu
Thread Content
Arrived in Chengdu in the early hours of July 22 to attend the Southwest Chemical Automation Forum held from the 23rd to the 24th. To be honest, the entire trip was rather rushed; from the 25th to the 31st I visited several design firms in Chengdu and encountered many problems. Many of these firms still relied on manual drawing – they didn’t use CAD for their work, but actually drew by hand. Good heavens. Most of the work relies on CAD and Office, and they still complain that they can only take on small tasks and projects – whose fault is that? Blame us for not showing up earlier? There are also some large companies that only use SPI; I’m puzzled by this. According to information from people within these companies, the SPI utilization rate there is less than 30%, meaning it’s basically not being used at all. Yet they claim to use it extensively, perhaps because they don’t want to waste millions of dollars, and having such claims gives them confidence to brag about it. Here’s the problem: Sweden, which acts as a lackey of the United States, can easily order Hek to stop banning Chinese companies when necessary. Moreover, the headquarters of Eagle is located in the United States. I have no intention of slandering foreign brands; it’s a competition among all of us. However, considering the international situation as well as political factors, foreign software is not reliable. Of course, I won’t beg domestic companies to use my software either. But I would ask these industry leaders to take a look at the domestic market – it’s no worse than foreign markets. I won’t dispute the fact that there may be a gap in technical expertise, but when it comes to familiarity with domestic design engineers, we are stronger. Don’t be fooled by foreign software companies that constantly promote in their official accounts various software solutions for building such platforms and carrying out related processes; in reality, it’s all the same old stuff with no real innovation. When looking for promoters, it’s the customers who have to pay; training is provided not very thoroughly either, and yet money is still required. I wonder why so many “leaders” fall for these fancy gimmicks. Convenience and efficiency in use are what truly matter. Feel free to ask! Thank Haichuan, don’t delete my post, hahahahaha
In our small design firms, we still rely on manual CAD drawing, with data analysis done in Office. Many useful plugins are hardly used at all; the more useful ones are in the hands of middle-level managers, while those at the lower levels continue to work manually and use Excel formulas for calculations. Things have become even more competitive these days, with a greater tendency to create barriers. If it weren’t for seeing this information online, one would never be aware of such practices. In domestic small design firms, the bosses ignore the day-to-day details and focus on building relationships to secure projects, while internal conflicts among middle-level employees create chaos. It’s not that domestic software can’t be used – it’s just that no one cares about it. There’s no talk of innovation or efficiency improvement; in fact, there’s a firm refusal to allow lower-level employees to know about or use such tools. First, installing such software requires approval, and second, your requests need to be signed off on. Any mistake is considered an accident, and no one wants to take responsibility for that. If lower-level employees had the necessary skills, they could handle things better, but who would stay here if they did? Those with insufficient skills are always looking for reasons to cause problems. I suggest posting more short videos on platforms where people gather, such as Toutiao, Bilibili, Douyin, and Kuaishou – make them look nice – so that ordinary people will be amazed by these videos and then reach out to you on their own. Everyone knows that industrialization has advanced to such a degree; these software tools should have existed long ago. Unfortunately, those who want to learn about them cannot get access to them, while those who do have access don’t want others to know about it.