Elwin Northcutt -- Fabrico
Elwin Northcutt, an experienced CAD user and engineering manager for Fabrico, had grown increasingly frustrated with his previous CAD application and the company behind it. Poor service and support led him to investigate alternatives. Now the excellent support he has received from Alibre has confirmed his decision to use Alibre Design.
Fabrico is a division of EIS that converts various flexible electrical/electronic insulating and shielding materials into custom designed parts. At the Fabrico plant in Kennesaw, Georgia, Elwin's group also designs and builds the equipment to make these custom products.
Elwin and his team are experienced with CAD systems. "I used AutoCAD for 14 years. One of our guys is active in an AutoCAD user group and on its message boards." Elwin has also used Autodesk Inventor for four years.
After a series of frustrating experiences, Elwin decided to investigate Alibre Design, having noticed ads in several magazines highlighting its ease of use, low price and money-back guarantee. "I never became comfortable or productive with the previous 3D software. In fact, I had been threatening to look at others for weeks. One day I had a problem that was the proverbial 'last straw'. I thought that with the features and potential benefits in Alibre Design, it was a small gamble." Elwin called Alibre and, with his questions answered satisfactorily, faxed in a purchase order within minutes.
Fabrico's positive experience with Alibre continued with the installation process. "Alibre Design was very smooth to install. It installed simply in just a few minutes. Same experience when the service pack was released. It was automatic and very smooth, requiring no reboot."
Once online, Elwin contacted the Alibre Assistant whenever he had questions. This feature in the application connects users to an engineer at Alibre for real-time technical guidance. "One of the good things about the Alibre Assistant is that they seem to really relate to what you're trying to achieve with the software. It's because they have a real engineering and design background. All the people at Alibre have been very supportive, available and really understand what I need."
"Most companies relegate support to the dealer representative, but Alibre gives better, direct support. I have yet to call Alibre and not get a live person," Elwin said. "Alibre seems committed to continuing its support level. With the Alibre Assistant, they have the platform to continue."
Of course, Fabrico's satisfying experience extends beyond service and support to the application itself: "The thing I really like about Alibre Design is the collaborative feature. I've used the Invite an Associate feature to share data and collaborate with people here. If two or three people are working on the same project, doing different sections, they can come together to share data and compare their portions. You can be sure you're not having conflicts as you progress through projects. It makes you that much more productive."
Elwin continues, "Other software companies have collaborative features, but they're different -- they store the data for you on their servers, and you can't store it locally. I don't really feel comfortable with that."
"I really like the document management, too. It's something I'd wanted to implement here for several years. Alibre Design forces you to control documents and that's good."
Elwin, clearly a very satisfied user, is adding seats of Alibre Design at Fabrico for the other members of his team.
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