A Gartner study on collaboration among manufacturers found cloud-based tools to be the fastest growing category of collaboration tools—both for internal collaboration as well as working with external partners.  Another recent study found that 50% of makers “make things with others,” while 41% indicated that “others use what they make.”

Together, these studies underscore two things: 1) how commonplace collaboration has become when it comes to making things; and 2) how the tools that aid collaboration have evolved beyond the project management and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems of yesteryear, and migrated to the cloud.

Autodesk is keeping pace with these trends with updates to A360, its project-based collaboration tool, and making A360 Team available in North America.

The A360 dashboard gives you a view of recent activity streams for all active projects.

“Our customers are in the business of creating things – machines, roads, buildings, products – and they organize people and data around their business and their projects.   Autodesk continues to deliver on the vision of creating a single, integrated experience for product development,” said Scott Reese, vice president of cloud platform, Autodesk. “Today, the complexities around everything that is involved in taking a project from concept to reality are nearly impossible to manage. Products like A360 make it easier for customers to work together on projects with collaboration that works the way they do.”

Ideal forhardware starts-ups, small and medium sized business professionals and students who need a way to work together more efficiently, A360 is a tool that brings together people, design and project data, ensuring everyone is informed and involved.  Unlike other collaboration or communication tools, A360 is the only design and engineering collaboration solution that puts the project at the center, enabling teams to work together effortlessly.

New features in A360 include the ability for users to view more than 100 2D and 3D design file formats within their browser without downloads or plug-ins, and an advanced search that goes far beyond text search and lets users easily locate components embedded within models, assemblies and designs.

Viewing, sharing and editing large 3D files of nearly any kind is quick and easy with A360.

With the A360 mobile app, you can view large 3D and 2D models, easily track what's happening on your project and collaborate with other members of your team anytime, anywhere from any device.  A360 mobile supports both online and offline workflows, allowing teams to stay on track with recent changes and updates.

Over 10,000 people have already experienced the power of project based collaboration with our A360 Tech Preview.   Now, Autodesk is introducing A360 Team in North America for $10/month/user (free for students), as well as a basic free version of A360 for individuals.    

Projects Involve Dispersed Teams with Lots of Stakeholders

Autodesk has targeted mostly designers and engineers, but there are all kinds of other people who contribute to making the whole project successful. What's been missing is good infrastructure to manage everything.

Autodesk is attacking this problem in a new way.  And why now?  The technology is ready, business is ready, and people are ready. 

"A360 has been a really accessible tool for us,” said Calvin Domenico III, president of DGF Technologies. “Team members that were not previously involved in design are now coming on board and beginning to not only contribute to existing projects, but to take on new initiatives and expand our entire team’s skill set.” 

A360 provides benefit for all stakeholders involved in a project – content creators, collaborators and consumers.  Some of the main pain points that A360 addresses for project teams include:

• Project coordination: A typical employee is involved in 5 different projects at a time; larger projects can have upwards of 50 people from the same company involved in a project
• Change tracking and design rework: Designers and engineers need to be able to perform quick iterations, keep track of changes, and maintain version control – ~60% designers and engineers recreate models due to incompatible software or miscommunication
• Scattered communications:  Communication is largely informal and disconnected – A typical employee uses an average of 2-3 communication tools (does not include f2f meetings, instant messaging, and phone)
• Sharing project information and viewing design data: Not all contributors to a project are designers or engineers, and therefore all these people use different tools and those tools create different outputs and types of data.
• Mechanism to give and provide feedback easily and effectively: It can be a challenge to share large files – According to a recent customer survey, 77% of designers and engineers rely on PDFs for red marking and commenting on designs
• Finding data and information in complex design assemblies and archives: Not all data is available through basic search and important details are often inaccessible or extremely hard to find. Results of that same survey showed that designers spend 43% of their time on finding and aggregating information

Sign up for a free trial of A360 Team today to see what project collaboration looks like when all your people, data, and activities are in one place.