student inventor

[R2K2D2]

Well, when it comes to packages, there are different Tiers of software packages out there. Your Catia's are your tier one type software packages that take you the user (company) from engineering the product to the design, production, finite element analysis, shipment etc. Those are the types of software packages that really allow the user to go w. the designed product from the brainstorming and design phases to the distribution of the product to the customer. They allow the user to do a great deal of analysis on the product so on and so forth. Then you kind of have tour Tier 2 software packages such as Inventor. It has good design capability and takes the user through the process, just not as much as your Tier 1 packages. Then there are kind of youe Tier 3 such as IronCAD or some programs like that. Remember along w. the Tier system, comes the price system. Tier 1 packages cost the most amount of money, then Tier 2, and then Tier 3. It would be benificial for a small company who may not have as huge and global customers to use Inventor which is cheaper yet offers great design capability in comparison to global companies such as Honda, Toyota, Boeing etc who have a huge global customer.