Often with the manufacture of physical products tooling up can make or break a project. Imagine creating the jigs and constructing the custom machines for a new car such as the Chevy Volt, and you can easily see where a large portion of the estimated US$750M development costs are destined. The cost of tooling up serves as a huge barrier to entry for the car market and it is one of the main reasons that there are relatively few car companies producing cars for the masses. OK, but what does this have to do with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tooling up?

Flexible CFD Tooling Up With Caedium

Problem

Engineering consultancy has become increasingly software-based (think CAD, FEA, CFD, etc.). The software tooling up required by engineering consultants is analogous to the hardware tooling up faced by manufacturers. Consider the scenario where you want to make a bid on a aerodynamic design contract, but you are going to have to use the latest CFD tools to be taken seriously. Ideally you'd like to tool up and pay for a short period of CFD software use - just enough to prepare a credible bid. If you lose you've minimized your costs. If you win, you will want the option to tool up again, likely for an extended period.

However, typical CFD software licensing is stubbornly inflexible. Instead you often have to commit to a relatively large upfront tooling cost where you purchase at a minimum an annual license irrespective of your usage requirements. This stands as a substantial barrier to entry in the provision of engineering consultancy services. Worse still, it imposes an artificial limit on the potential innovation that could be unleashed if only CFD software licensing was more flexible.

Solution

Symscape provides flexible licensing periods (monthly, quarterly, annually) for Caedium add-ons to match your usage patterns. There are no strings attached, no initial signup fees, and no re-signup fees. Also with Caedium's add-on architecture you can select and purchase only the software features you need, all within a familiar, integrated simulation environment.

Start now with a free trial of Caedium Professional and I'm sure you'll see that the advantages of Caedium's flexible licensing trumps the inflexible tooling costs that have previously hobbled small engineering consultancies from achieving their full potential. Before long you'll be saying 'What CFD tooling up costs?'