Dear dealers,

This e-mail refers to a common question we get about the truth on the AVEVA PDMS interface with CAESAR http://www.aveva.com/products_services_aveva_plant_pipestressinterface.php

Here are some very useful insights for you:

1) This “product” from AVEVA is not new: they have been trying to sell this since CAESAR II 5.0 was released.

2) Notice they claim a “two-way” interactive interface with Versions 4.50 and 5.00. What about 5.10 and 5.20? Last year during DARATECH Tom Van Laan watched a presentation from AVEVA, trying to bring a model from PDMS to CAESAR II. It didn’t work.

3) Richard Ay and John Brinlee are not aware of any customer using this interface to send data back to PDMS. The interface works going in to CAESAR II because PDMS creates a standard CAESAR II neutral file. But is not as good (in fact there are a lot of customer complaints) as the INTERGRAPH one (see next item).

4) Richard Ay (ray@coade.com) worked in the past with INTERGRAPH people to make the interface from PDS to CAESAR II work using neutral (text) files. According to Richard yes, it is feasible to transfer files from CAESAR II to Intergraph PDS, but customer needs to pay attention to several details during the process. You can read all the details you need about the whole process, from the presentation Richard made during the last COADE User Conference here in Houston. As you know, all the files are available for downloading.

What can you do?
Arm yourself with the above information. Request a meeting with your customer in order to talk about integration between CAESAR II and PDMS/PDS. Demo CAESAR II and show the neutral file export to PDMS/PDS. This is an excellent sales tool, because you can use this meeting to show OUR bidirectional integration Between CADWorx and CAESAR II. You first show them how hard it is to integrate using neutral files, and then you show them our way.

The biggest stumbling block to finding the truth is believing you already know it.

Any input/intel from you about this matter will be greatly appreciated. Let me know if you have any questions.

Best regards,