Inventor, SolidWorks, or Pro-E

[whteglve]

I work for a company that does a lot of steel frames and sheetmetal for large industrial ovens. We are currently debating changing from just using AutoCAD with one seat of Inventor to something else. The company has used Pro-E in the past but they were burned by it by trying to do too much too fast and basicly wasted about a years worth of time for several employees. Now they are wanting to go with a 3D package and we've narrowed it down to Inventor, SolidWorks, or Pro-E. I've never used Pro-E so I don't know how good it is for doing structural steel and sheetmetal. I've used both Inventor and SolidWorks and I personally like SolidWorks. I think that its easier to use but I'd like to hear someone elses opinions too. My question is should we stay with Inventor or switch to SolidWorks or Pro-E?

[Lazer]

Very hard question is that, I would stick to what you like best, I have never used Pro-E, I have used Inventor and Solidworks, for me IV does what I need.

I would call all 3 and have a Rep show you what each program can do, make sure you hit him/her with work that reflects what you do, not what they want to show you.

[SLW210]

We have Pro E here and it sucks. Not user friendly at all in my opinion. It does some great work, but requires someone with a lot of experience to operate to full efficiency. We had a guy here with 10 years on Pro E and he struggled with some of the things we do that he was unfamiliar with.

Inventer seems pretty good to me. I haven't checked on its ability to do sheetmetal. Seems to be more user friendly to me.

Haven't used solidworks.

[CADken]

Solidworks.

it seems to be a staple for a lot of companies as well.