One of North America’s leading water treatment providers, U.S. Water Services is the largest independently owned water treatment and service company in Minnesota, and the fastest growing water treatment company in the United States. The U.S. Water Engineering and Equipment Division was formed to address increased demand for consulting services related to water treatment equipment development and installation.

The division’s primary goal is to work alongside water treatment engineers in the design, implementation, and programming of equipment manufactured by U.S. Water. Prior to the establishment of this group, U.S. Water relied on equipment produced by other manufacturers to install its water soft ening and treatment systems. According to Senior CAD Draft er Travis Brown, designing and manufacturing its own equipment gives the company more design fl exibility, greater innovation potential, and increased revenue opportunities.

“Building our own equipment is an important step in the growth of the company,” Brown points out. “Why buy existing pieces of equipment from likely competitors when we can design, customize, and manufacture our own stuff and ensure that our systems operate at an optimum level? We had used AutoCAD® 2D design tools, but decided to move to a 3D platform to expand product development to include the various pieces of equipment necessary for installing our systems.”

Aft er evaluating 3D CAD applications, U.S. Water Engineering and Equipment selected SolidWorks® Professional design and SolidWorks Premium design and analysis soft ware as the development foundation for the new division. U.S. Water chose SolidWorks soft ware because it provides capabilities that dovetail with water treatment system and equipment development, such as automated routing of piping systems, integrated design simulation, and photorealistic rendering tools, and is easy to learn and use.

“The establishment of the Engineering and Equipment Division demanded the implementation of the right 3D platform,” Brown stresses. “We needed to be able to design and build customized equipment on the fl y and leverage design automation to the fullest extent. We determined that SolidWorks gave us the best chance to succeed. Our division is now helping the company grow revenue, which has proven that we made the right decision. In many ways, SolidWorks has allowed us to establish this division.”

C A S E S T U D Y

U.S. WATER ENGINEERING AND EQUIPMENTLaunching a water treatment system equipment initiative with SolidWorks

Challenge:Design, engineer, and manufacture its own line of water treatment system equipment to take advantage of increased revenue opportunities and eliminate reliance on competitors’ products.

Solution:Implement SolidWorks Professional design and SolidWorks Premium design and analysis soft ware.

Results:• Reduced design cycles by 75 percent• Grew equipment revenue 80 percent in

one year• Established new equipment business• Eliminated reliance on competitors’ products

U.S. Water Services leveraged SolidWorks Professional design and SolidWorks Premium design and analysis so� ware to successfully launch the U.S. Water Engineering and Equipment Division.

Faster development, greater flexibilityWith SolidWorks as its development platform, U.S. Water launched its Engineering and Equipment Division in 2009. The new group produces equipment related to the installation of the company’s four primary product lines—water softening, water filtration, reverse osmosis, and skid-based treatment systems. Using SolidWorks design tools, U.S. Water has reduced design cycles for equipment design by 75 percent.

“It would have taken us four times as long to develop this equipment without SolidWorks,” Brown notes. “SolidWorks helps us automate development processes, such as using SolidWorks Routing to route piping and flexible tubing systems, and the Design Library of 5,000 parts that we’ve created in SolidWorks to facilitate design reuse. SolidWorks has given us the flexibility and agility to efficiently and cost-effectively operate the Equipment Division.”

Growing revenue through design automationBy taking advantage of SolidWorks design automation tools, the U.S. Water Engineering and Equipment Division enables the company to capitalize on new business opportunities, growing annual revenue by 80 percent in its second year. “SolidWorks has allowed us to take our operation to the next level,” Brown says. “We compete against very large corporations, but with SolidWorks we develop winning proposals and install systems that outperform the competition.

“Our quality has improved, and we have streamlined our development processes,” Brown adds. “Since implementing SolidWorks, we are simply in a better position to secure future business opportunities.”

3D renderings surpass 2DAn important benefit of using SolidWorks at U.S. Water is the ability to create photorealistic renderings with PhotoView 360. “It’s truly amazing the difference between a 3D rendering versus a 2D drawing,” Brown says. “We use renderings whenever we can, and make sure to include them in our proposals, because they communicate so much more about what we are capable of doing.”

“We still use 2D for our electrical drawings and schematics,” Brown continues. “But even with 2D, the move to SolidWorks created opportunities. We downloaded the free DraftSight® 2D application from Dassault Systèmes, which let us eliminate costs associated with our 2D drawing package. In short, the move to SolidWorks has given us the automation, flexibility, and speed that we needed to successfully launch our equipment business and help grow our company.”

SolidWorks is a registered trademark of Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corporation in the US and other countries. DraftSight is a registered trademark of Dassault Systèmes in the US and other countries. Other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. ©2013 Dassault Systèmes. All rights reserved. MKUSWCSENG0213

“SolidWorkS haS alloWed uS to take our operation to the next level. We compete againSt very large corporationS, but With SolidWorkS We develop Winning propoSalS and inStall SyStemS that outperform the competition.”Travis BrownSenior CAD Drafter

Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corporation175 Wyman StreetWaltham, MA 02451 USAPhone: 1 800 693 9000Outside the US: +1 781 810 5011Email: generalinfo@solidworks.comwww.solidworks.com

U.S. Water Engineering and Equipment12270 43rd Street NESt. Michael, MN 55376 USAPhone: +1 763 689 3636www.uswaterservices.comVAR: Alignex, Edina, MN, USA

With SolidWorks PhotoView 360 tools, U.S. Water creates photorealistic 3D renderings of its systems, making its proposals stand out from competitors.

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