Configura CET Designer December 2011 Calendar

DECEMBER 2011 M

5 12 19 26

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6 13 20 27

W

T

F

S

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7 14 21 28

1 8 15 22 29

2 9 16 23 30

3 10 17 24 31

4 11 18 25

2011 Best of CET Designer Awards Program first place rendering was created in CET Designer 2.6 with Photo Lab by Shay O’Malley-Langer, Fluid Interiors.

Try CET Designer® for free at www.configura.com/cet.

We’ll get you started! Call us at 877-238-0808.

Updated Video Tutorials Check out our updated Video Tutorials at http://www.configura.com/cet/support/ video. These short, easy-to-follow videos walk you through specific topics in CET Designer. The videos are a great way to brush up on best ways to use CET Designer and to learn new features of the solution!

FREE Webinars See our complete list of free webinars – including free on-demand webinars – at www.configura.com/cet/training.

End-of-Year License Renewals: Most users’ CET Designer license subscriptions expire at the end of the calendar year, so be sure to look for your renewal notification soon to ensure uninterrupted service! When you receive the notice, you can renew immediately and will be invoiced for your 2012 subscription by the end of December 2011.

Remember, dealerships qualify for a tiered discount based on number of licenses, but the licenses need to be under one Buyer. One Buyer should be designated at your dealership to handle all the licenses.

If you have any questions about setting up a Buyer account, please contact CET Designer Support at 877-238-0808.

Also, the User Name on the account should be accurate. It is the name that is displayed when you go into CET Designer Message Center. To change the User Name on your account, go into the Extension Manager, Choose Tools pull-down in upper right corner, and select Options. From the Options window, follow the prompts under Change Personal Information.

Classes announced for 2012: CET Designer Academy, Grand Rapids, MI Classes* These two-day Beginner and Advanced classes in CET Designer are interactive and hands-on. The cost is $300 per two-day session and includes course materials.

Beginner: Feb 28-29, May 15-16, Aug 14-15, Nov 13-14 Advanced: Mar 1-2, May 17-18 Aug 16-17, Nov 15-16 Sign up at www.configura.com/cet/training. *CET Designer Beginner and Advanced classes are IDCEC approved courses. CEUs are accepted by ASID, IDC, and IIDA.

Vegas Highlights!

Didn’t make it to our User Conference? – or maybe you did but just want to be inspired all over again? Check out all the content we’ve loaded to www.configura.com/ userconference/2011.

Highlights: Google’s Aidan Chopra giving the keynote presentation … Winners of the 4th annual Best of CET Designer Awards Program … Power Peer presentations … plus gorgeous renderings, lots of videos, conference photos and more!

CET Designer® 2.6.3 released Nov. 21! Download it now!

Meet Shay O’Malley-Langer, Project Designer, Fluid Interiors Shay O’Malley-Langer has an eye for beauty – in her profession as an interior designer, and in appreciation of the gorgeous scenery that abounds in her home state of Minnesota.

Shay’s been with Haworth dealer Fluid Interiors in Minneapolis for about five years now – and she’s been using CET Designer almost the entire time.

“I like how easy it is to use CET Designer and how beautiful the renderings are with the new Photo Lab,” Shay said.

She created this month’s rendering using CET Designer 2.6 with Photo Lab; the rendering took first place in the 2011 Best of CET Designer Awards Program. Photo Lab is automatically bundled with 2.6.

Shay recently used the software for a project involving the relocation of a large financial institution. “I was able to work twice as fast because of CET Designer,” Shay said. To read more about how Shay used CET Designer on this project, go to www.configura.com/shay-langer.

Many think of Minnesota as a winter wonderland – and, indeed, it is! The summers are equally spectacular, and during the warm-weather months, one of Shay’s favorite ventures is hiking and biking the Gitchi-Gami Trails along Lake Superior. Check out the stunning images at www.ggta.org/gallery.php.

Meet Andreas Ekbom, R&D Programmer, Configura Andreas Ekbom has been with Configura since 2005, working on the core parts of CET Designer – “mostly on the features that will launch months to even years later!” he said.

His work runs the gamut, from designing algorithms for polygon reduction to writing code for Photo Lab post-processing.

“I like the freedom of my work – the analytical skill and creativity that the programming requires,” he said.

Andreas grew up in Falköping, Sweden. He currently lives and works in the coastal city of Gothenburg, the second largest city in Sweden (Stockholm is the largest and is on the opposite coast).

Andreas holds a master’s degree in computer science from Linköping University, which is in the same city as Configura’s headquarters. He is also an accomplished photographer. He helped to start the Configura office in Grand Rapids, Michigan, working there for three years, before moving back to Sweden in 2008. Andreas is married to Karin and they have a daughter, Alva, 3, and a son, Alexander, 3 months.

If you attended this year’s CET Designer User Conference, you likely heard Andreas present on “The Art of Image Creation in CET Designer.”

“It was something that I’m not used to doing, but I like to challenge myself and do things out of my comfort zone. It was a very fun and a good learning experience. I liked meeting real users with real experience in using our software!” Andreas said.

Simplify

in December and into the New Year …

December’s Featured Tips Using the Six Sigma Strategy to Implement CET Designer “We jumped in with CET Designer … we saw the benefits we could gain by using the software.” – Eric Yosick, Design Team Leader, Lincoln Office Erick Yosick, a Design Team Leader with Lincoln Office in Peoria, Illinois, holds a Black Belt in Six Sigma. Four years ago, he was charged with streamlining work processes at Lincoln Office. He introduced CET Designer to his team and used Six Sigma as part of his changemanagement, lean-process strategy.

Today, Lincoln Office has simplified its workflow, reduced ordering errors and sped up turnaround time.

At Configura’s 4th annual CET Designer User Conference, Yosick presented the Six Sigma strategy for implementing CET Designer in dealerships.

Here are tips from Eric’s presentation: 1. Six Sigma seeks to reduce variation in a process in order to achieve more consistent output. Six Sigma finds the problem – and the problem’s root cause – and eliminates it in order to reduce waste and increase efficiency.

2. To find the problem and its cause, Six Sigma follows a circular road map of five repeating stages: ✔ Define (the problem) ✔ Measure (the associated costs) ✔ Analyze (the possible solutions/ways to eliminate the problem) ✔ Improve (the design/workflow process) ✔ Control/verify (the new process) 3. CET Designer eliminates unnecessary steps in the design-specification-render-order process.

But for optimum results, it requires dealerships to do the following: ✔ Make a commitment to the solution ✔ Invest in the right hardware ✔ Engage the designers in the transition process ✔ Make improving skill level and use of the solution a continuous process Watch Eric’s full presentation at www.configura.com/ userconference/2011

What’s Six Sigma?

Six Sigma is a business management strategy originally developed by Motorola USA in 1986. Today, it is widely used in many sectors of industry. Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes. It uses a set of quality management methods … and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization (“Black Belts,” “Green Belts,” etc.) who are experts in these methods.

Source: Wikipedia.org