G2

Jeffrey S.

CAD System Administrator

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

6/25/2018

"Centro helps us to more quickly use CAD Data"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Centro?

The software has the ability to watch folders on our network drive, convert various CAD formats, and add the files to a user-friendly database. The web UI enables the user to view CAD assemblies in an organized and accessible manor. It includes a viewer that can rotate, zoom and explode assemblies, a BOM compare tool, and a method of managing users, permissions, and all the various projects that we are working on. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Centro?

The software relies on an ArangoDB database technology, which I was previously unfamiliar with. According to Actify, ArangoDB is a graph database which adds power to the software beyond what a traditional database could do. Actify recently added support for ArangoDB running on Windows, so that should make it more accessible to inexperienced administrators such as myself. Rather than calling this a "dislike" I would call it a learning opportunity for those who are interested in alternative database technologies. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Centro:

I highly recommend Actify for their creative solutions, and their excellent support personnel. If your company designs 3D mechanical parts in various CAD systems, but doesn't need a full-blown enterprise PDM system, and if you want to make your CAD files more available to your non-CAD personnel, Centro will be an excellent option. I recommend you give them a call and schedule a demo. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Centro solving and how is that benefiting you?

We have three main goals for Centro.

A) Easy conversion CAD data from a variety of native formats to various neutral CAD file types, or Spinfire CAD visualization software.

B) Make our CAD data more accessable to all of our engineering and manufacturing personnel by using the Centro Catalog and Web Viewer.

C) 3D Search of CAD files, helping us to access knowledge of similar parts we have built previously.

Of those three objectives, the easiest for us to realize was quick and automated file conversion using the Centro "Pipelines" and the built-in converters.

Currently we are working on adapting the Centro Catalog to our own processes, and that is turning out to be somewhat of a challenge. Our particular issue is the relatively un-structured nature of our existing processes, which have evolved over many years. Centro is very flexible, however, so we are trying to configure it to meet our own needs, and they have skilled technicians who are assisting us.

Our third objective, 3D search, will be easy to achieve once we have populated our Centro Catalog with a certain quantity of CAD files. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.