From Cathy's Desk - K-TEK Invests in Topobase - Autodesk Utility Design - State-of-the-Art eLearning - Customers Investing - K-TEK at Autodesk University

From Cathy’s Desk

The economic downturn has certainly caused some changes in the CAD world.  From our perspective, we’ve seen a decrease in demand for marketing and sales learning content, and an increased interest from clients seeking to leverage their existing investments, improve efficiency, and double down on training.  

We’ve taken the opportunity to make investments of our own, in particular improving our skills and knowledge for Topobase, AutoCAD Utility Design (AUD), and Revit MEP.  We’ve also raised our training game, especially when it comes to designing and developing advanced eLearning solutions.  

This newsletter highlights a number of these areas, and provides you with a good sense of where K-TEK is going and why I’m excited about the future.  I’m hoping that you’ll also get some ideas that might be useful in your own organizations.

K-TEK Invests in Topobase

We’re pleased to announce that K-TEK is now a solution provider for Topobase.  As Autodesk’s Topobase installed base continues to grow, we are seeing more opportunity to help customers increase efficiency and improve infrastructure management by using this powerful and flexible platform.

To help customers adopt Topobase, K-TEK is now offering the K-TEK Accelerator for Autodesk Topobase service.   Successful Autodesk Topobase implementations require a combination of technical skills, consulting expertise, and utility infrastructure knowledge.  Starting with the Topobase Accelerator, K-TEK can design a Topobase solution and phased delivery approach that results in a sustainable long-term system that works for our customers.

We deliver the Accelerator as a packaged services offering, which provides new and existing Topobase customers with the three most important building blocks of a production system:

K-TEK is already in final discussions with several customers to deliver the Topobase Accelerator program, expanding adoption of Topobase and paving the way to better infrastructure management at a lower total cost.

Autodesk Utility Design – Growing opportunity and knowledge

In many ways, AUD – Autodesk Utility Design – is a mystery product in Autodesk’s lineup.  There is very little information available, and most Autodesk resellers are not authorized to carry the product.  But over the past couple of years, AUD adoption has been growing.  K-TEK has now completed two projects associated with AUD, and we have more in the pipeline.

What is AUD?

AUD is a product with a laser focus on utility design, primarily for electrical distribution.  Here’s what sets AUD apart from any other product in the Autodesk catalog:

• Tools specifically for fast utility layout – AUD is configured for every customer with exactly the utility components they use.  It is optimized so a trained designer can quickly select components, and lay out a utility project. 
• Integrated basic electric analysis – For an electrical design, you need to do the math to validate your design.  AUD can perform analysis of voltage drop and flicker, cable pulling tension, sag and clearance analsyis, and more.  Designers can instantly determine if their design is valid, and can accurately select the right components.
• Integrated material ordering – The end product of any infrastructure product design is a set of design documents for use by a field crew.   Using AUD, you can easily determine the material requirements to create an entire job order, complete with a set of design drawings for field use.

K-TEK and AUD

K-TEK has been working with AUD for over a year.  In addition to receiving Autodesk’s AUD implementation training, we have completed several projects including creation of end-user training content and a comprehensive web-based eLearning complete with quizzes, software simulations, and in-depth narrated slides to explain the fundamentals of AutoCAD in the context of a customer-specific AUD implementation.

K-TEK is also a delivery provider for AUD, and is now offering a K-TEK Accelerator specific to AUD.  We are now working with several resellers on AUD opportunities.  K-TEK, with it’s broad range of available consultants and skills, is well positioned to deliver AUD-based solutions tailored to each customer’s needs.  If you’d like to learn more about our AUD capabilities, please contact Dan at 888-751-5559.

State-of-the-art eLearning

K-TEK has an extensive track record of creating high-quality eLearning materials.  We are experts in the use of Articulate, Captivate, and Camtasia to create innovative and interactive training solutions that allow trainees to learn in the way that works best for them, at a time of their choosing.

K-TEK has just finished delivering eLearning content titled “AutoCAD Skills for AUD Users”.  This course combined several advanced eLearning technologies:

Customers investing in the future

A number of our customers are focusing on improving their operations, to take better advantage of the software they already own, and to provide their staff with new skills and expertise.  Here are two examples of projects where K-TEK is helping such customers achieve their goals.