ANSYS software sales in Russia show annual double-digit growth
The Russian CAD/CAM/CAE/PLM/BIM Market: January 2020 News from isicad.ru
David Levin, isicad editor, LEDAS Founder and Chairman
isicad.ru is the popular Russian Web site on engineering software and related business that since 2004 has issued monthly reports on the popularity of its articles written by a host of authors. isicad.ru and isicad.net are founded and powered by LEDAS.com , an independent software development company, founded in 1999 on the base of academic lab of artificial intelligence (AI).
Using its core competencies in mathematics, computer science, computer-aided design, and a solid expertise in software development, LEDAS provides R&D software outsourcing services in the areas of CAD, CAM, BIM/AEC, 3D digital medicine, and general 3D modeling for desktop and cloud applications.
Here we present in English a part of the isicad January 2020 survey, originally in Russian. In its three sections, we focus on the state of the Russian CAD/PLM/BIM market:
Updates on Russian CAD Firms: ANSYS-CADFEM, Top Systems, ASCON, C3D Labs, Nanosoft
BIM: How to Overcome State Expertise Successfully
Russian CAD Market 2019 Statistics.
I think that some of the Russian companies mentioned, such as Top Systems, ASCON, C3D Labs, and Nanosoft, are already well known to English-language readers. Information about them can be easily found on the Web, in particular in notes written by Ralph Grabowski, such as these:
1. Updates on Russian CAD Firms: ANSYS-CADFEM, Top Systems, ASCON, C3D Labs, Nanosoft
ANSYS-CADFEM
I have been observing the growing activity of ANSYS in Russia through its primary Russian partner CADFEM Group. In January, isicad.ru presented two articles about them.
Firstly, this long interview was given to isicad.ru by Artyom Avedyan, deputy CEO of CADFEM, and his colleague.
Artem is a prominent specialist in the Russian industry of engineering software. He graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute with a degree in Design, Construction, and Production of Aircraft, defended his Ph.D. thesis in CAD domain, began his career as an engineer at TESIS CAE company, and then landed leadership positions at SOLIDWORKS Russia, PTC Russia, Dassault Systèmes Russia, and Microsoft.
Artem notes in the interview that the global CAE (computer-aided engineering) market is developing dynamically in several areas. The annual growth rate is 10%, new technologies are arriving, there is a transition to cloud solutions, and consolidations are occurring through acquisitions. Reviewing the situation of the Russian CAE market, including ANSYS, is especially interesting:
In 2014, software sales halved; since 2016 the market began to grow gradually, but has not yet fully recovered
Against the background of the Russian government’s campaign to substitute the foreign software with native solutions, competition between Western suppliers and between Western and Russian ones has intensified
In 2017-2018, Russian companies stocked up on imported software to fulfill future contracts, which for the manufacturing industry is always a priority, compared to fulfilling the software substitution campaign
During 2017-2018, ANSYS software sales in Russia grew by 20-30% each year
All aspects of ANSYS software are involved in the aviation industry of Russia in one way or another
People in Russia are getting used to the cloud, and so to work with ANSYS software, CADDEM launched the eCADFEM cloud service
Digital Transformation Factory (a division of CADFEM) is developing a platform that combines ANSYS software with digital twin technologies and PTC’s ThingWorx IoT (Internet of things) software
Digital twin of a pump unit
The second article was a detailed review of the new ANSYS 2020 R1 release, which adds new functions to ANSYS Mechanical, ANSYS Fluent, ANSYS Electronics Desktop, ANSYS Discovery, ANSYS SCADE, ANSYS Workbench, ANSYS medini analyze, ANSYS Meshing, and ANSYS ICEM CFD -- as well as a new licensing system.
It should be noted that Russia has its own competent and experienced CAE company, TESIS, which works in close cooperation with Dassault Systemes.
Top Systems
Top Systems is preparing to release the 17th version of its flagship product T-FLEX CAD, and showed the capabilities of its MCAD program by designing a business jet. The aircraft model contains 49,000 components, and took 40 weeks to design. The engines on their own took six weeks to model. See our article Aircraft Design in T-FLEX CAD 17.
Another January article about Top Systems is T-FLEX PLM: How We Work with a Digital twin of a Product in Virtual Reality. In it, we learn that the T-FLEX PLM system makes it possible to work within a framework of the digital twin concept by organizing a unified environment for design and technological workflows, as well as design and preparation of production. The set of T-FLEX CAD / CAM / CAE / CAPP / PDM / CRM / PM / MDM / RM systems underlying the T-FLEX PLM environment allows you to effectively organize the design work at all stages of a product’s life cycle.
The article focused on the T-FLEX VR module for working with virtual reality models. The module is fully integrated into T-FLEX CAD and the article emphasizes the advantages of this integration. The interactive interface of T-FLEX VR is shown in this video:
ASCON and C3D
KOMPAS-3D v18 was released more than a year ago and so has probably already been mastered by domestic users here in Russia. This month’s release of the MCAD program in English is an important event as it expands the potential market to much of the world outside Russia. Here are the section headings from the press release ASCON Group Releases KOMPAS-3D V18:
New User Interface
Significantly Improved 3D Modeling
New Versioning Capability
Miscellaneous Updates (BOM, Add-Ons Configurator)
Pricing and Availability
By the way, the picture below shows the new user interface alongside the list of countries in which ASCON has resellers. Both are taken from the English site, https://ascon.net.
Since last year’s V18 release of KOMPAS-3D, ASCON has developed the MCAD program further, such as adding a “Flexible hoses” function. The new module is available to users with version V18.1. Flexible hoses are used whenever it is not possible to install a rigid metal conduit or pipeline. These can be, for example, high-pressure hoses used by the hydraulic systems of excavators and fork lifts. Hoses are also used to transport fluids, such as welding gas or fuel oil.
In January, isicad.ru published a case history of applying the new Flexible Hoses module to models. In this particular case history, the new module helped to reduce the time needed to design a hydraulic system for a ladder truck at the Fire Systems company.
One of the components to KOMPAS-3D’s success is C3D, ASCON's own geometric kernel. C3D Labs, a subsidiary, has been successful in introducing the C3D kernel to the international market, including global companies like Altium. For the last several years, the C3D kernel has been further developed by C3D Labs to meet the needs of external customers.
In addition to technological achievements and publications, C3D Labs is known for its attention to team building and promotion of the personal achievements of its employees. This effort includes a series of articles titled “The History of C3D from the Perspective of Team Members.” In January, the latest such article in the series was published, highlighting Alexander Maksimenko, who participated in the development of three geometric solvers: the 2D and 3D solvers in C3D Solver and the parametric solver in KOMPAS-3D.
Nanosoft
Like Nanosoft’s larger competitors in Russia (ASCON and Top Systems), Nanosoft follows market trends and improves its nanoCAD platform with multi-purpose applications. Without using the now-nearly-obsolete term “PLM,” Nanosoft released in January what the company called its nanoCAD 20 engineering ecosystem, which consists of 20 modules, including MCAD verticals, BIM-friendly components, and so on. The Corporate Governance module is especially noteworthy, which likely allows NanoSoft to market itself to large enterprises.
In the picture below, the 20-sided polygon is the new logo for the NanoCAD 20 collection, alongside the NanoCAD 20 team, which introduced the ecosystem during a three-hour session laid out here.
By the way, it is my opinion that the English web site https://nanocad.com/ is implemented in a much more modern style than that of most other Russian CAD companies:
2. BIM: How to Overcome State Expertise Successfully
Artem Durasov is the head of his private BIM lab, winner of the Autodesk 2019 BIM Leader in Infrastructure award, and an Autodesk Expert Elite certified teacher. His article How to Never Receive Comments Like “Eliminate Variations in the Explanatory Note and in the Drawing” became the most-read isicad-article in January, which is not surprising. Artyom gives valuable advice and real-world examples from his experience in the design of infrastructure facilities, such as for automobile and railways. It’s expensive for those who, in the process of passing state examination, are faced with revision comments likes “... eliminate the discrepancies ..., the parameters do not correspond ..., bring it into line ...”
For specialists in the field, the final paragraph of his article is probably of key importance: “Using a set of programs that include Autodesk Civil 3D, Dynamo for Civil 3D, Excel, and Word, you get the opportunity to constantly reliable documentation and data. Changes automatically make corrections to the design documentation and undergo state examination the first time." And here is a short illustrative video:
(Over the course of 14 years, Anastasia Morozova moved through key positions at Autodesk Russia and Autodesk CIS, from marketing director and head of the BIM department to CEO of the Moscow office. Thanks to her creative contributions, she became one of the brightest and most effective players in the Russian CAD/AEC market. In November 2019, however, Anastasia left Autodesk, as we learn in her isicad interview . This interview, along with other articles on Anastasia, was one of the most popular isicad articles in 2019.).
The Autodesk brand continues to dominate as it not only retained, but strengthened its leadership position, being mentioned in 30% of articles in 2019. Unexpectedly, Revit came in at second place, pushing SOLIDWORKS out of its traditional position.
The dynamic of Revit brand mentions in our publications over the last three years can be traced by the diagram below. For Autodesk, AutoCAD is its third-place brand, but which ranked seventh last year in terms of frequency of references. Although the SOLIDWORKS brand has been squeezed to third place, Dassault Systèmes holds the lead when all its top brands (four of them) are counted together.
We note that of the domestic brands, ASCON remained in the top five and Nanosoft for the first time entered the list of top ten most-mentioned brand names.
At isicad Top-10 you can see both isicad’s Top 10 for January 2020 and for 2007-2019. The most popular article ever was “Revit is Great But Without AutoCAD It is Money Thrown Away” published in 2013, and #2 was “Comparison of TFLEX CAD 12, Solidworks 2012, and Inventor 2012” published in 2012.
Artem is a prominent specialist in the Russian industry of engineering software. He graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute with a degree in Design, Construction, and Production of Aircraft, defended his Ph.D. thesis in CAD domain, began his career as an engineer at TESIS CAE company, and then landed leadership positions at SOLIDWORKS Russia, PTC Russia, Dassault Systèmes Russia, and Microsoft.
Artem notes in the interview that the global CAE (computer-aided engineering) market is developing dynamically in several areas. The annual growth rate is 10%, new technologies are arriving, there is a transition to cloud solutions, and consolidations are occurring through acquisitions. Reviewing the situation of the Russian CAE market, including ANSYS, is especially interesting:
Artem Durasov is the head of his private BIM lab, winner of the Autodesk 2019 BIM Leader in Infrastructure award, and an Autodesk Expert Elite certified teacher. His article 
