Product design is a team sport, but for too long, design collaboration tools have kept the players on separate fields. Traditional, file-based CAD systems are notorious for creating bottlenecks and sowing confusion.
Teams wrestle with the rigid process of checking files in and out, constantly wonder if they are looking at the latest version, and live in fear of accidentally overwriting a colleague's hours of work. It's a slow, frustrating, and isolating process that stifles the very creativity it’s meant to support.
But what if your team could work like a modern software team – fluidly, in parallel, and without fear of breaking the master design? That’s the promise of En forme, PTC’s cloud-native product development platform that redefines what it means to collaborate.
Michael: You're signed in Onshape as a person. Right? You know, you sign in, you know, with an email address and a password. You can even have 2-factor authentication, and you have access to the information where you left off.
No need to do use pack-and-go or backup files or anything like that when you wanna work from different devices or anything like that. So here I am. Here's this medical stretcher, and, you know, there's various amounts of information that you can glean without even opening it. Right?
You know, this is a modern system. I can see, you know, modeling activity, who's doing what and when, where things are being accessed from. You can see where Sandeep, Aaron, and I are working together you know, on this.
You know, somebody down here must have been my colleague, Roy down in metro area in New York/Jersey. So let's jump right into that design.
And here's the Bottom Frame Assembly, but let's go right to the first tab. A design in Onshape is usually housed in a document, and a document is where you can store parts, assemblies, drawings, and other related information. You know, think of it as an engineering notebook for your design. You can see I have a drawing, you know, some of the components for the top frame in here. You can, of course, split things across multiple document. But I have this. You notice there's this number 1 going up, right here. If I zoom in, you can see there's some comments here on the design.
And one of the comments is that we need to design a plastic mounting block here with some hardware similar to below to this image here. So this is a screenshot that can be taken actually directly inside of Onshape. Right? You can just kinda draw. We have all the tools inside of Onshape to create a markup. Right? And we'll show you how to do one.
And where is this change? I've actually labeled the actual location and space where that screenshot was taken from. So that's tagged right there. I'll just hide our feature tree here.
And there's the exact same image, you know, that we started with. Right? So what I wanna do is start by designing that, and then I wanna do a design review with my colleagues to make sure that this is gonna be something that's manufacturable. Right?
So let's start. You know, I'm working in Onshape, and this document's been, you can see various people have been in and out of this document since late 2024.
And here's my design history record, if you will, of my medical stretcher. And it's showing me every single change that's ever happened to this design, who did what and when. I can even search who modified something. So maybe I wanna see, you know, what's happened to this that I didn't touch. And I can see Aaron's been working diligently today, you know, on this mounting block right here.
So really interesting, really good information that you have because of its cloud-based collaborative nature. You know, you need to know who did what and when, when working in a system like that.
A Single Source of Truth, Everywhere
The core of Onshape’s power is its architecture, which provides a "single source of truth." Because the platform is entirely cloud native, there are no files to download, copy, or lose. Every member of your team – from engineers at their desks to project managers on their phones, to external suppliers across the globe – is always looking at the exact same, up-to-the-minute version of the design data. There is only one master copy, and everyone has secure access to it.
This simple concept has profound implications:
True Simultaneous Editing
Multiple users can work on the same part or assembly at the exact same time. You can literally see your teammates' changes as they happen. It transforms design from a series of isolated handoffs into a live, interactive conversation.
Michael: Open this up for a design review right now because I wanna get some feedback from my colleagues about this. So turn off the context just to make it easier to to look at. And, you know, I can add a comment.
Remember that comment capability here? I can add a comment and mention my colleague, Sandeep. "Can you look at the model with me."
Sandeep: Sure can.
Michael: Aaron too. Why not? Right? I can even ask one person, you know, one person. So that's pretty much like what you're used to with any other kind of modern SaaS app. Right? You know, that's how you bring people into designs in Onshape and other SaaS apps.
And, in a moment, I should see if we go to the B4 proposed edits, you know, branch in this design, I should start seeing my colleagues join me inside this document.
And drum roll, please.
Just gotta make sure to go into the B4 branch. That might be the only one. I'm getting there. There we are. That's alright. I see Aaron's here. Aaron wins the race. I am in B4.1 or B4 proposed edit.
Yes. There we are. Now we're both together, and I can tell because they're my friends right there.
These are really good images, by the way. I love it.
Alright. Anyway, I can see that they're in the document. And, you know, if they replied in some way to this message, they could reply and text. You know, we could be on a call like this together, just pop open the Team's callers and call or whatever and talk and be in the same document.
You know, there are a variety of ways that this collaboration system can work. Let's say I wanna double-click on Sandeep's head, though, right here. If I do that, it brings me to what Sandeep was looking at in this document. And if Sandeep were to spin the model around and do anything – look, no hands!
Right? I'm not touching the screen. You know, we have Sandeep showing me what he's interested.
No More "File-Chaos"
Say goodbye to check-ins, check-outs, and overwritten work forever. Onshape automatically saves every single change, creating a complete and irreversible edit history. This not only means data loss from system crashes is a thing of the past, but it also provides a perfect audit trail, allowing you to understand the "who, what, and when" of every design decision.
Access from Any Device
Log in from any web browser (Mac, PC, Linux, Chromebook) or use the full-featured mobile apps for iOS and Android. No lengthy installs, no service packs, and no high-powered hardware required. This frees design and review work from being chained to a specific desk, enabling you to review a model on the factory floor or make a critical edit from a client’s office.
Michael: By the way, all of this stuff works on mobile as well.
Let me just go to something like that. Right? So, like, I can open up the medical stretcher on my phone, and we're gonna you know, this is my phone right here, and I can spin it around, do all the same stuff. I can follow Sandeep from my phone, and that's what Sandeep was looking at. Yeah. So all that stuff works.
| | Traditional CAD (File-Based) |
| Real-time, simultaneous editing | Serial work via file check-in/out |
| Built-in, automatic, infinite history | Separate PDM, risk of conflicts |
| Any device with a web browser | Requires specific, powerful workstations |
| Single source of truth in the cloud | Duplicated, insecure, at-risk files |
| Integrated comments & markups on the model | Disconnected emails, meetings, & PowerPoints |
Traditional CAD (File-Based)
Real-time, simultaneous editing
Serial work via file check-in/out
Built-in, automatic, infinite history
Separate PDM, risk of conflicts
Any device with a web browser
Requires specific, powerful workstations
Single source of truth in the cloud
Duplicated, insecure, at-risk files
Integrated comments & markups on the model
Disconnected emails, meetings, & PowerPoints
Collaborate Fearlessly, Innovate Freely
Onshape doesn't just let you work together; it provides tools that actively encourage creative exploration and crystal-clear communication, fundamentally changing how teams approach problem-solving.
Création de branches et fusion
One of Onshape’s most revolutionary features, borrowed from the world of software development, is the ability to "branch" a design. This creates a safe, isolated sandbox where an engineer can explore a new idea or a major change without affecting the main design in any way. If the new concept proves successful, it can be seamlessly merged back into the main branch. If it's a dead end, it can be discarded with no harm done. This empowers teams to innovate fearlessly and pursue multiple solutions in parallel.
Michael: Branches and Onshape. Yeah. You can work on this main branch. Right? You know, this is like, where everything starts, you know, in a design, but you can branch off and try out really cool ideas and proposed edits.
Right? And that's what I'm gonna do right here. You notice how quickly I'm able to kinda swap between those things, and I am going to just kinda zoom in where I wanna start working.
And, yeah, that's essentially what I wanna create another block that looks like this, but it's not quite a mirror image, but it's, you know, I need to draw a few shapes here. So the first thing I wanna do is design in the context of an assembly. This is a complicated thing for a lot of CAD systems to do. But in Onshape, because it remembers every single step in the history, we have some unique benefits that make in-context design way more powerful. All I did was create a little make connector here on this center point of that part. That gives me the new zero point for the next new part that I'm gonna create, and I'm going to create a brand new Part Studio in the context of this assembly from that origin, that new make connector.
And there I am. I can see it's brought me to a part studio where I can actually do part modeling work, but it's given me the context of the assembly. I'll hide these planes just for a second.
And I want to just draw right on that surface, and I can open up a brand new sketch, drop in a center point rectangle, and, yeah, I just want something that's perhaps an 80 by 30. Right. And that fully defines it. Right? Pretty easy to do. And, you know, I would just hit the extrude button.
In this case, of course, I want to extrude it up to a face on another part like that. Right? So now I have this new part in place, and that's creating my geometry between those items. Now, of course, I can rename this and we'll call this the top mount block
And that's essentially the same as going to file, save as C:/ colon, picking a folder to put it in, and storing it. And Onshape, you don't need to go through all that rigmarole. You know, this is a live database where we're doing all of our work.
Integrated Communication
Forget scattered email threads and trying to describe a 3D problem with 2D screenshots. With Onshape, you can comment and mark up directly on the 3D model itself. Tag a teammate to ask a question, assign a formal task, and keep all design-related conversations in one contextual, easy-to-find place. With "Follow Mode," you can even watch a teammate's screen in real-time as they manipulate the model, making remote design reviews or training sessions more effective than being in the same room.
Aaron: There's always in-context communication. So maybe you're working asymmetrically or asynchronously, I should say. You need to just send a message. You need to capture, like, some small bit of feedback, like a design change or some sort of other feedback. This is done through some in-context communications.
The fact that you can access these tools from anywhere shouldn't be a big surprise. I mean, anyone working on Google documents or other items like that, you know that your coworkers, no matter where they are in the world, will be able to access these things and jump in and start giving feedback right away. And then all along the way, in the background, without you even doing anything, you're gonna be able to access all the changes throughout your design history. So this is just a fantastic way of kinda highlighting what it is that Onshape will do for you in this context.
Publications
Onshape Publications provide a secure and controlled method for sharing specific CAD data with external stakeholders. Unlike sharing an entire design document, a publication is a curated collection of specific parts, assemblies, drawings, and files from versioned or released documents. This ensures that collaborators, such as manufacturers or clients, receive only the necessary information in a view-only format, protecting intellectual property by not exposing the full design history or feature tree.
Michael: Maybe you want to just create a quick publication like a quote package, you know, for this purpose. Right? Let's just do that quote.
We're gonna call it 250605-01, and I'm just going to leave it at the top-level company there. And I can insert the released item that we had just created. There is that pedal mount drawing. And it's the mount part studio. I'm gonna look for, what did I call it? Block. Oh, it's the Part Studio name. Here we are.
So, you see I'm dropping in just the information I want my colleagues to see. Right? And this Publication is isolating that part all by itself. It's at rev B. There we are. And I could actually share that with you, you know, Aaron, instead if I wanted him to quote on that. So that's like another way of sharing. Instead of packaging up PDF files and emailing them and all that or setting up, you know, dropboxes and things like that, all I have to do is create one of these publications, and it's sharing just the right amount of information.
The Business Impact: Speed, Savings, and Superior Products
Shifting to Onshape isn't just a workflow upgrade; it's a smart business decision that delivers a clear competitive advantage. Companies that make the switch report dramatic, measurable results:
- Accelerated Time-to-Market: When teams can work in parallel and communication is instant, design cycles shrink dramatically. Design reviews that used to take days of compiling files and presentations can now happen spontaneously in minutes. Companies like Dalkia have leveraged this agility to cut their time-to-market by up to 50%.
- Reduced Costs: Outdated file errors, a common source of expensive rework and scrap, are completely eliminated. Furthermore, with no servers to purchase or maintain and no complex PDM licenses to manage, companies like Cirkul have saved over $50,000 a year in IT overhead, freeing up capital for investment in innovation.
- Enhanced Innovation: When teams are free to experiment without the risk of data loss or disrupting the main project, they produce more creative and competitive products. The barrier to trying a new idea drops from a burdensome administrative process to a simple mouse click, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
The future of design is collaborative, agile, and in the cloud. By removing the technical and administrative friction of old systems, Onshape lets your team focus their valuable time on what truly matters: designing better products, together.
Sandeep: So, very quickly, design does not happen in isolation. Most of you know this.
People have dialed in either from startup companies or large companies. If you're on the startup side, you're probably investigating tools that don't get in the way. Right? You're on that journey and you're trying to find the toolset that is right for you and you're evolving. If you're a larger company, you probably have toolsets that are probably a little bit older, and you're also looking for toolsets that don't get in the way. You're probably also looking at newer more advanced use cases like predictive maintenance and such.
And the good news is that cloud-native platforms are here today. They're revolutionizing how product design happens and people are achieving outcomes. So, 3.8 times reduction in ECOs, 94 percent improvement in time-to-resolution, time-to-resolution efficiency, 60 percent decrease in cost of quality, 80 percent increase in overall data accuracy. How is this happening? It's really the cloud-native revolution. A lot of data is going on cloud and bringing modern technical stacks to the product development world. Today, we want to put a spotlight on the design aspect of, you know, how products go to market.
Design tends to sit in a very upstream in a complicated cascade of tools.
Imagine, you know, making a mistake at the design level that can propagate all the way down to somewhere in the ERP system. Someone buys, maybe, makes a wrong purchasing decision and has huge implications on your business.
Also, if it doesn't have to be a mistake. People can just worry about changing your design too much, and they don't innovate as much. And you start falling behind competition, essentially. So today, Onshape, would like to put a spotlight on how to work collaboratively in the design phase. OK?
The future of design is collaborative, agile, and in the cloud. By removing the technical and administrative friction of old systems, Onshape lets your team focus their valuable time on what truly matters: designing better products, together.
Créez un compte étudiant
