GOVERNMENT

One of Mexico's largest national universities has chosen SolidWorks Education Edition 3D mechanical design software as its standard CAD application, SolidWorks announced today. The Universidad del Valle de México (UVM) has purchased 300 seats of SolidWorks software for 10 of its campuses that offer bachelor's degrees in engineering. The university's faculty will use the SolidWorks Education Edition, which includes COSMOS design analysis software, to prepare students for careers in automotive engineering, manufacturing, and other industries that utilize 3D CAD. The university chose SolidWorks after one of its internal technical reviews in 2004 revealed that most of Mexico's small and medium parts suppliers and integrators use SolidWorks as their primary design tool. "Our goal is to give students a background in the tools they'll use on the job to make them as employable as possible when they graduate," said Dr. Eduardo Garcia, head of UVM's Innovation and Technologies Office. "We had been using another CAD software application, but with SolidWorks so widely used in mainstream industry here it made sense to include it as part of our standards." UVM is one of Mexico's major universities, with more than 55,000 students enrolled at 21 campuses throughout the country. It enrolls 5,500 students in engineering bachelor's degree programs specializing in mechatronics (a combination of mechanical, robotic, electronic, and software engineering), industrial mechanical engineering, and industrial systems engineering. Undergraduate, graduate, and continuing-education engineering students began using SolidWorks during the fall semester of this year in courses such as basic mechanics and machinery design. Students will also use SolidWorks' COSMOSWorks finite element analysis software to learn testing techniques that yield higher-quality designs with fewer expensive late-stage errors. In addition to its strong presence in Mexican industry, SolidWorks also offered UVM affordable campus licensing options and a strong faculty training program through reseller Diseño y Manufactura Digital (DMD), according to Garcia. The faculty training program was particularly important to UVM getting the maximum benefit from its SolidWorks investment, he added. "UVM had done an exceptional job in balancing the need to prepare students for the job market with the equally important goal of teaching them fundamental engineering principles," said Carlos Beato, SolidWorks' sales director for Latin America. "SolidWorks software's ease of use enables students to learn 3D CAD quickly so they can spend more time learning to apply engineering principles. SolidWorks' dominance in Mexican industries ensures that UVM engineering students will be rewarded with promising career choices."