CONCORD, Mass., Feb. 20, 2007 — Building off the momentum of the Certified SolidWorks Professional certification program, SolidWorks today announced a new, more effective way for teachers and potential employers to ascertain students’ 3D CAD skills and their grasp of fundamental engineering principles. The Certified SolidWorks Associate (CSWA) exam tests students’ abilities to model objects in 3D, their understanding of the overall design process, and their familiarity with industry best practices – crucial knowledge for engineering careers.

The CSWA joins the CSWP exam, which tests professional engineers’ abilities, as the two industry benchmarks for gauging SolidWorks® and COSMOS® software skills. The CSWA helps educators monitor individual student progress as well as curricula effectiveness. It also gives manufacturing companies and design firms tangible proof of competency as students enter the job market.

“You can’t really evaluate applicants’ CAD skills by looking at their resume and samples of their work,” said Bob Mimlitch, vice president of engineering at Innovation First, Inc., a diversified manufacturer that provides a broad range of rack solutions and robotics components. “That means we can’t hire people on the spot, because we either have to see their work from a previous internship or put them on a computer and look over their shoulders. The Certified SolidWorks Associate exam would give us a tangible gauge of someone’s grasp of engineering fundamentals and proficiency in SolidWorks.”

Brigham Young University, which has been teaching SolidWorks for more than four years, is using the CSWA exam to determine the ability of its industrial design students to use SolidWorks to communicate their designs to others, especially their engineering colleagues. “Working with industrial design students, I see the ability to effectively use a CAD application as an important communication tool between them and their colleagues in the engineering world,” said John Reinhard, part-time SolidWorks instructor and computer support representative at Brigham Young University’s School of Technology. “Having industrial design students take a certification test geared toward engineering students enables me and them to assess their understanding of an application and of engineering principles that will help them communicate with their engineering teammates of the future.”

The online test will be offered at participating educational institutions around the world. Instructors at these institutions and Certified SolidWorks resellers will proctor the exams.

“There is no standardized test that comprehensively measures students’ 3D CAD skills, so teachers and potential employers have to rely on project work and in-classroom performance,” said Marie Planchard, SolidWorks director of education. “The CSWA program gives students a way to showcase their skills, teachers a way to gauge progress, and companies an additional tool for evaluating potential hires.”