You Must be Committed to Implementing Upfront CFD

We in the vendor world are committed to our products and services. We take great pride in our capabilities and we strive to provide first class support and training to ensure that our users are successful. Let's face it, a major part of our day is focused on ensuring that our customers are gaining a return on their investment. I take full responsibility on transferring the knowledge it takes to implement Upfront CFD into your current process.

So, if we assume that all vendors have a similar passion in their products and services, why do so many engineers have so many CAE products sitting on their shelves? I live by the statement, that "the customer is always right". But I do expect that the customer is willing to first identify a problem and be open to working together to formulate an implementation plan, but most importantly, the customer has to be committed to the implementation of the plan. Seems like a simple concept, right?

It has been my experience that the customer and vendor have to have a solid relationship and absolutely have to be on the same page regarding the implementation. This is where selecting the correct vendor is essential. Ease of use and the laundry list of features are a given. But as you shop around, you will quickly see that everyone will claim to have essentially the same "laundry list".

What you need to ask yourself, "do I have confidence in the team that I am about to partner with"? Do they have the support infrastructure to help me when I am stuck? Do they understand my business? Do they understand my problem? But most importantly, do they know how to teach me to solve my problem?

Being committed to the implementation is your job. Formulating a clear implementation plan that teaches you to solve problems with our tool is our job. Don't be afraid to ask the tough questions. Whether or not a vendor can match your test data is really irrelevant. Given the correct inputs, every vendor will stick their "Ace" user on it and present really fancy images. The real question is how will the vendor transfer the knowledge to you the user so that you can seamlessly begin solving problems?