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SustainabilityXpress Now Available at SolidWorks Labs

24 June 2009 6 Comments

Ssustainability Xpress The free Xpress version of the Sage add-in mentioned at the Wednesday General Session of SolidWorks World 2009 is now available at SolidWorks Labs.

The add-in enables users to perform an environmental impact study of designs by means of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).  The LCA considers all aspects of a products life cycle from drawing board to end-of-life.

The Environmental Dashboard enables tracking of four data points: Carbon Footprint, Total Energy Consumed, Effect on Air, and Effect on Water.  As changes are made to the design, the user can see the potential environment impacts in real-time.

SustainabilityXpress includes a Find Similar Material tool that will enable users to quickly find a similar materials from the built-in SolidWorks material library and see the results.  There is also a publishing feature than enables users to create customized reports to document the LCA.

SolidWorks 2009 is required to run SustainabilityXpress.  I am disappointed that only 32-bit is supported (as of this writing).

I am intrigued by this tool, and am all for lessening the environmental impact of designs.  In my industry, with quick turn-around times sometimes required, the mantra is often, “When in doubt, make it stout!”  I am curious to see if this tool will help.

Do you think that this tool will have a significant impact on your designs?  Will you use it to try to design “greener”?  Let us know in the comments!

UPDATE: SolidWorks SustainabilityXpress allows analysis of parts only.  The full Sustainability add-in will be required to analyze assemblies and compare configurations.  The full product will also work with the new Assembly Visualization tool.  The full SolidWorks Sustainability product will not be included in a SolidWorks bundle; it will be sold separately at a price to be announced later this summer.

Last edited on 06/24/2009 @ 2:28PM CDT.

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  • Rick Chin

    Brian, thanks for mentioning SolidWorks SustainabilityXpress. I wanted to let you know that we plan to have a 64-bit version in the coming weeks. Sorry for the delay.

    Rick Chin
    Direc, Product Innovation
    DS SolidWorks

  • Thanks, Rick. Glad to hear about the 64-bit version!

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  • Asmodeus

    Is this product really necessary? This seems like total bloatware. If you as an engineer or a designer do not understand the impact your product will have on ecosystems or the environment, then frankly you are in the wrong business. I realize that this is a separately purchased product, but this appears to try and appeal to the enviro-green cadre that is currently trying to influence engineering and design work. If that's what you are into great, but outside of a politically correct paper trail this will only make users questions whether Solidworks is taking this tact as a purely political stance as a function of marketing/green hype.

  • Asmodeus

    Is this product really necessary? This seems like total bloatware. If you as an engineer or a designer do not understand the impact your product will have on ecosystems or the environment, then frankly you are in the wrong business. I realize that this is a separately purchased product, but this appears to try and appeal to the enviro-green cadre that is currently trying to influence engineering and design work. If that's what you are into great, but outside of a politically correct paper trail this will only make users questions whether Solidworks is taking this tact as a purely political stance as a function of marketing/green hype.

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