...and how to meet them.

Hint: the top 5 packaging machine design challenges are cost, flexibility, reliability, modularity and energy efficiency. All have big implications for design qualiy, time to market, customer satisfaction and the bottom line. Craig Therrien, DS SolidWorks product manager, breaks it down.

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Today's podcast features John "Muggs" Ferguson, owner of John Ferguson Design. Muggs is well known for his SolidWorks surfacing prowess, and will be delivering a presentation at SolidWorks World 2009 entitled "Using Surfaces in the Real World."

Muggs is also the author of The SolidWorks World Survival Guide, which he discusses here with Steve McGrath. Have a listen--Muggs has lots of good advice for both first time attendees and SolidWorks World veterans.

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Click here to download the Survival Guide.

Today we hear from Jeff Ray, CEO of DS SolidWorks Corp. Jeff talks about sitting down with Sir Richard Branson, his favorite things about SolidWorks World, and answers your questions.

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Jon Hirschtick founded SolidWorks in 1993, and served as CEO until 2001. Even though he's officially retired, Jon remains active at SolidWorks, and will be one of the keynote speakers at SolidWorks World 2009. In this podcast I talk to Jon about the history of the event, what he'll be talking about, and his favorite rides at Animal Kingdom.

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Today we'll hear from Mark Biasotti, Product Manager of new Product Concepts at DS SolidWorks Corp. Mark talks about the breakout sessions he's conducting, as well as his thoughts on SolidWorks Worlds past and present.

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At over 100 miles per hour on the water, powerboat drivers better have confidence in their ability to react quickly and the boat's design. Fresh off winning the 2008 Class One World Powerboat Championship, Dubai Victory Team is preparing to defend its title with a boat it is now designing in SolidWorks software. Edmond Husseini, head of the team's technical office, discusses what it's like to drive these boats, and the challenges of designing them to push the envelope for speed, performance and safety.

To listen to an audio-only podcast (MP3 format), click here.

To listen to a podcast with images (M4A format), click here.

To watch a video of the boats in action, click here.

Kerri Dunne, events manager for DS SolidWorks, tells you why you've gotta go to SolidWorks World 2009 Feb. 8-11 in Orlando. Her team organizes the whole thing.

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The Reee Chair is one of the few emerging sustainable products to back up its claim of being waste neutral. Made from the plastic of nine Sony PlayStation2 video game consoles, each chair keeps 2.4 Kg of plastic from going to landfill. Invented by London product designer Christopher Pett and developed in SolidWorks, the chair is now in use in corporate board rooms, schools and private homes. Pett discusses the challenges of designing an environmentally and commercially sustainable product.

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Hear from one of the CAD industry's leading editors and thinkers, Jeff Rowe, managing editor of MCADCafe.com. He shares his opinions on what's right and wrong in the CAD industry and touches on "green" concerns, open source, inustry consolidation and the future of CAD.

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• Download the audio only version.mp3

Monty Yates, new product development engineer at Munters Commercial Dehumidification, details the productivity benefits of enteprise PDM and what looks good in SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2009, also launched today in Barcelona.

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