Inside the Digital Shop: Bruno Calatayud on Integrating CAD/CAM

In this episode of Verify In Field, host Jacob Edmond sits down with Bruno Calatayud, National Director at EFICAD, to talk about the development, evolution, and impact of SWOOD a SolidWorks-based CAD/CAM solution built specifically for the woodworking and millwork industry. 

Bruno shares the story of how SWOOD grew from an educational initiative in France into a global platform with clients in 50+ industry categories. From SolidWorks integration to machine-ready CAM output, SWOOD is giving custom millwork shops the tools to take full control of their workflows from design to machining. 

If you’ve ever wondered whether a fully integrated CAD/CAM solution is worth the switch bor whether your current software is holding your team back this episode offers a clear look into what’s possible. 

About Our Guest 

Bruno Calatayud is the National Director for North America at EFICAD, the developers behind SWOOD, a fully integrated CAD/CAM solution for woodworking built on SolidWorks. With a background in mechanical engineering, Bruno has spent over a decade training technical teams, working with international partners, and helping shops streamline complex production with 3D-driven automation. Based in Boston since 2019, he’s now leading SWOOD’s expansion across North America. 

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Transcript

Bruno Calatayud 0:00

I think I visited like 30, 35 countries in Europe, in Asia, in the US, Canada to visit our partners and yeah, pretty much be with them. Teach to their technical team about woodworking because they are more on the solid oxide, let's say and mechanical engineering. So it gives them some tips on the wood, on the CNCS and all these kind of things. And yeah, that's where we really start to expand our business.

Jacob Edmond 0:31

Welcome back to Verify in Field everybody. Today I'm excited to have a special guest on Bruno Calatayud from EFICAD and They're makers of SWOOD CAD CAM software. So, Bruno, thanks for joining us today.

Bruno Calatayud 0:44

Hey Jacob. Thanks for having me.

Jacob Edmond 0:45

To get started, would you mind just giving a little bit of your background and how you got involved in software and manufacturing?

Bruno Calatayud 0:54

Sure. My background is engineering. So I did an engineering school in France where I'm from and um, get out of school in, 2009. And actually EFICAD and SWOOD is my first job. So I directly started doing the first training first implementation post creation everything that technical for this new software. But we release a few months before I start with the company. And from there we did the first event in the US at the convention in 2012. And that's where we start to meet international partners to push our development in different countries. So I start to take that as a new responsibility in my role, be able to uh, travel a lot. I think I visited like 30, 35 countries in Europe, in Asia, in the us, Canada to visit our partners and yeah, pretty much uh, be with them. Teach to their technical team about woodworking because they are more on the solid oxide, let's say and mechanical engineering. So it gives them some tips on the wood, on the CNCS and all these kind of things. And yeah, that's where we really start to expand our business. And we came in 2015. The potential, let's say, of the North American market during the show. Same thing the year after, during I-W-I-W-F in Atlanta, and that's where we decided to open a branch in the us. So I moved from France, arrived in Boston in 2019. And yeah, we start the business here. So far and yeah we got the team here now.

Jacob Edmond 2:24

Awesome. EFICAD had, is stark solely to produce SWOOD or is there a little bit more history before the software product came about.

Bruno Calatayud 2:34

Yeah, there's much more before. So EFICAD, we're funded in 1989 actually by two professor, so we come from um, educational world. They didn't have any CAD solution for their classes. So they decided to create their own CAM for mechanical CNC metalwork. But pretty quick after that in 91 they start to partnership with SCM to create a wood camp solution based on AutoCAD at this time. And yeah, that was really beginning, let's say of the wood product for EFICAD. We did another solution in SolidWorks in 2001. But we also came from educational. Let's say French government decided in 2001 and naturally integration and the wood solution we had before AutoCAD, we decided to merge.

Jacob Edmond 3:21

Okay. so SWOOD is, the product basically that you guys are all focused on today or are there others still?

Bruno Calatayud 3:28

No, it's a main one. We have some historical customers on the whole solution, but we still work on with them and we support them. But the main focus and the 95% of the development we do is on SWOOD. Yeah.

Jacob Edmond 3:40

Awesome. So then let's talk a little bit more about SWOOD specifically. SWOOD is a CAD/CAM specific application that works in SolidWorks, correct.

Bruno Calatayud 3:53

So we are what we call to an add-on to SolidWorks. So we live inside Solid Works. We work with SolidWorks files. But we bring on top of the 3D parametric platform, solid dock software, wood features regarding designing process engineering steps on the project. And at the same time, the common nesting solution. So you have really a complete solid works environments. You can use everything SolidWorks software, and we come with a SWOOD to bring, let's say the wood the root features in solid works.

Jacob Edmond 4:27

Awesome. And so you mentioned that EFICAD had previously, originally developed something that worked with CAD and then another solution based on SolidWorks and then all of that kind of combined creates SWOOD, which is now in SolidWorks. What was the kind of evolution of graduating from a CAD based solution to choosing SolidWorks as what you're overlaying in?

Bruno Calatayud 4:51

So I think really see the potential of 3D for the industry was what designed us to go on this platform and to bring the wood feature on this platform. That's something we still see a lot. Let's say for our customers that switch from CAD to 3D where it's a complete different world. We stay on the same type of project. We work on the same type of product, let's say, but you have a different mindset when you start to work in 3D. And I think that's where we wanted to go from the beginning.

Jacob Edmond 5:20

Okay, awesome. And so what types of clients, what types of manufacturers are using SWOOD? Is it entirely cabinetry and woodworking based? What is the makeup of the user base of SWOOD look like today?

Bruno Calatayud 5:33

So the main focus, yeah, it's on custom cabinetry, custom meal work let's say. But we have also lots of customer in uh, retail and shop fitting, store fixtures. We also have standard furniture applications sofa, or office furniture, cabinetry of course. And we also have customer in January applications, so people doing doors, windows we counted a few years ago to um, start to really sort our panel of customer. And we have up to 50 categories I think of customers today. So I will say that 80% is between custom millwork and retail and shop fittings. But we also have 20 other percent where really spread out the capabilities and what the wood material can bring on the market.

Jacob Edmond 6:20

Okay, awesome. so the people that are using it, like what does their workflow look like'cause it's a full CAD and CAM solution, right? You have all of SolidWorks plus. What SWOOD brings on top of it. So can you talk a little bit about what the workflow of kind of the ideal user of SWOOD looks like?

Bruno Calatayud 6:41

Yeah. Like I said, you stay inside Solid Works, so you gonna be able from the design project to have all the geometry analysis in 3D and the three environment to create the toolpath and generate the CNC code for the machines. We also use the same files to create optimization for the nesting and flat table. So we really we stay on the same, design. So your design is what you're gonna use for all the different steps you need to go to the shop and to the machines. So the biggest advantage on that for our customers is when you're gonna make a change on your design. You don't have to export, you don't have to inforce another platform, and it's gonna live on the same file and it's gonna be there and every new change is applied, maybe a new role, a new pocket. It's already applied on the machining and already applied on the export and the data we're gonna send to the machine and shop at the end.

Jacob Edmond 7:35

Okay. so for those that maybe aren't familiar with SolidWorks, can you talk like about SolidWorks, the difference of. SolidWorks versus just CAD or versus other 3D solutions, because from my understanding, SolidWorks, a lot of people may have interfaced it with product design or other types of industries, right? It's a very broad software. But it has benefits over just cad, right? Like you get, even without itself you can get a bill of materials, you can get some things out of it that just regular CAD maybe doesn't give you. Can you talk a little bit about just how SolidWorks works and relation to other solutions people may be familiar with?

Bruno Calatayud 8:16

Sure. So yeah, so is a native 3D parametric software. So first of all, when you design, you can design parametrically, everything. So just changing the dimension, you can change your entire project. Like you said, I mean, you have the, base of CAD inside, but you have other plugin parts of SolidWorks that you can directly use. So, for example, in our industry, one that our customers use is a 2D drawings. So same thing based on the 3D file you have. Your 2D drawing is already prepared and you can do your detailed view or cut view or all these kind of things to have release the final submittal for your architect or for your customers ready on that. I think that's where there is a big difference with CAD and with other software. It's all the different plugin you have on top of that. If you do, metal work, and sometime our customers can do that as well. You already have sheet metal. You already have wellmans embedded inside. You have a complete surfacing module where you can really go complex on shapes and definition of special products. And that's all the kind of things of course we use also in SWOOD to bring, um to customer the possibility to create custom product and final product with all the engineering steps and the possibility to go to the shop at the end.

Jacob Edmond 9:29

Okay. And so then guys overlay on top of that, right? It's an add-in, as you mentioned. Can you talk about how SWOOD itself operates? What is it doing, what does it add to SolidWorks that SolidWorks doesn't have by itself? And how does it do that? Is it a database? Is it just files like how does the architecture of SWOOD work and what does it add onto SolidWorks?

Bruno Calatayud 9:53

So have four main module. So we're gonna have the design, so on top of your standard CAD. It also gonna have additional libraries methodology and features to speed up the process to create your wood project. For example, we can have a library of, drawers hinges fronts that you can use with a simple drag and drop to complete your project. We also embed all the material management for panel processing. So everything regarding grand direction, edge bending, thickness management laminating process, all this data necessary at the end in the shop, we bring that for the design portion You can create your box your cabinet from scratch. You can also use an existing file and just apply the final steps regarding engineering and material management. And on top of that we're gonna bring the manufacturing solution. So we have a CAM, which is our core solution for manufacturing. That's where we are gonna be able to define strategies tool paths. And analyze the 3D model and solid works to have everything ready for the machines. And we also bring the, the nesting. For point to point process, you can use the CAM for the flexible, you're going to use the CAM and the nesting as well. The final module we have is a product. We name suite Center. special product or semi custom product, let's say, to automate the process. So if you have an external database with Euro sales team, for example, with a list of order and custom product, maybe with dimensions material, we're able to connect this database to the product. You are designing solid works and suite, and we are able to rebuild, create the final version, the custom version of your product, generate the CNC code, generate everything automatically so you can run, let's say. Pretty much all your production just with one click. But require of course, to have your product completely design and define in solid works and suite. But at the end, we can really automate everything for our customers. Like I said, we live inside solid works, so every time you move a solid works file, you're gonna move orders those to data. At the end, the only external files we have, it's at the end when we generate our reporting to generate the CNC code and the document or data file for the document in the shop.

Jacob Edmond 12:04

Okay, so those libraries you talked about at the beginning, right? You have libraries of, drawer systems and hardware and things like that. Are those essentially just models? That you can pull in, or is there other data attached to those as well?

Bruno Calatayud 12:17

There's a couple of things. So various models, there is it's fully parametric, so every time you're gonna change a dimension, your draw is gonna adjust to the new dimensions. And we also bring machining on top of that. So when you drag your draw, you're gonna have the drilling operation on your side panel to have the, slides connected to. Between your drawer and your cabinet, for example. So all these kind of things come with one feature. We provide the library to our customers. They have access to a server to download new library that we create. But everything being based on files and SMBs, they can also create their own items. So they can bring 3D five in this specific feature with everything in. A model definition and use the same drop feature at the end with their own system.

Jacob Edmond 13:01

So is it very much it sounds like it's very much like what you get. And so by that meaning like if I just model something in SolidWorks, even if it's not something in my library I add the machining to my parts and my model SWOODis able to analyze that and create ca, the cad out the cam output as well.

Bruno Calatayud 13:25

That's correct. We have customers that are focused on custom part or custom project and doesn't have the design module with us. And they just use Solid Works as a CAD and the CAM to create the toolpath at the end. So it's really a flexible and scalable solution. So if you do bottleneck is, for example, to go to the machine, you can definitely start with the, nesting. And in the future, if you need also to speed up the process on the design, you can bring the suite design module on top of that. Yeah.

Jacob Edmond 13:53

And so for the design module though, say I am, are people using it to have libraries of how they build cabinets and they can just drop in a cabinet? That's the way they build it and it gives'em the model and the drawing and as well as it's ready to go for machining.

Bruno Calatayud 14:08

Yeah, so you have your full library everything is customizable. You can duplicate that, so you can create a custom version for your project pretty quick. We have a layout feature for that, so you can just select points on your sketch on your layout sketch, which represent the floor. And and yeah, I mean everything is is attached to the model. So the machining, the cam, the drawing for the cabinets, the drawing for the project, everything is linked to the same files.

Jacob Edmond 14:33

Awesome. And then as far as output, it's a full cam output, meaning you can use SWOOD if you have the right module to nest straight to your CNC or create individual machine code files or optimize to a saw.

Bruno Calatayud 14:52

So we export to CNC machines directly. Of course with the 35 years of experience, we have post processor for that. So we are able to really go directly to the machine with all the tooling information, all the detail regarding joining head, aggregate, all these kind of things. Our CAM solution is a full cam up to five axis meaning operation. But if your machine has this type of capability, we can drive them as well. The connection to the beam. So today is something we still use our optimiz Optimizer software on so we export all the data off panels and it's optimized. We've got Right. Or some other software that exist on the market. But something we were looking at. But for now, I mean we really stay focused on the CNC router machines.

Jacob Edmond 15:36

Okay, so you'll out Outlook output, like a PTX file or

Bruno Calatayud 15:40

Yeah.

Jacob Edmond 15:41

and board file that can import into your sawing optimization software. Okay. So what is the ideal use case of SWOOD look like what's your ideal client that's using it to really. Improve and streamline their production workflows. How are they using SWOOD compared to, what maybe other companies are doing that haven't adopted SWOOD?

Bruno Calatayud 16:05

I mean our ideal customer today, obviously it's people that already have solid blocks but don't use suite to go to the shop and to the machines. And also anyone that's really struggling with custom products. So could be because they have a standard cabinetry software and they need to go back to AutoCAD to be able to create that. That's where really usually they come to us and they say, okay I want to be more flexible on the offer I have for my customers as a manufacturer.

Jacob Edmond 16:31

So you're seeing people sometimes using it to supplement, their existing, maybe they have a cabinet vision or a microbiome mosaic or something for their more standard case work, but they're struggling with more custom stuff and they're starting with using it there. And then do you see people eventually start with supplementing and then maybe they realize they can do everything in it?

Bruno Calatayud 16:55

Yeah that's usually the standard path for them. So they take maybe one seat for special product, but with the time they see what they can really do and bring everything under the same platform. And that's why they move completely with us. On top of that, the fact that you also have the flexibility to to have, metal work. If you work on some project where you need to work with suppliers that use metal you can bring or you can even do drawings for them regarding really having the project altogether under the same fights.

Jacob Edmond 17:28

What about, as we have evolved, I've seen a lot over the last five years that remote, teams or people that are working in the cloud has become more and more common. How do you see teams using SolidWorks or how does SolidWorks work with, my engineer maybe isn't on site where my shop is, or maybe I have three or four engineers that all need to collaborate on the same projects. How does collaboration as well as spread out workforces work with SolidWorks

Bruno Calatayud 17:54

if there two type, I think today with solid works you have a standard PDM capabilities with solid works, so you can really have your file living on the server and you can grab it locally when you need to use it. That's also where we are able to manage revision management and different workflow for approval of the different step of your design engineering with your team. The future of SolidWorks is probably on the cloud. The start to present that. A long time ago, and now we can see more and more new solutions coming from solid works. You have a complete platform, which name 3D experience where you have different application for design and everything like that. And you start to have some even some solid works version that are typically connected to the cloud regarding the data management. Yeah.

Jacob Edmond 18:42

Okay. So definitely see things moving towards

Bruno Calatayud 18:45

For sure. Yeah, for sure. On the data management. And be able to share all the project with different users. Yeah, that's something really that's gonna be pushed in the next few years. I think the design is gonna be is starting and maybe it's gonna take more time to be on the cloud.

Jacob Edmond 19:00

Okay. but today it's mostly, most people are using, the check-in or checkout of the server through a PDM.

Bruno Calatayud 19:10

That's still the main thing. At least for our customers, because we are today on the desktop version of SolidWorks so our customers still use the standard PDM software checkin checkout, revision management and workflow approval.

Jacob Edmond 19:24

Okay. outside of, move to the cloud, what else do you see in the future for SWOOD just CAD CAM software in general?

Bruno Calatayud 19:32

I think we are really focused on the data on our side. Be able to have really reliable data, so continue to improve. Our automation on the cam side, it's where we are. We really want to push our effort for the next years. So be able to recognize, morphing, maybe have different type of strategies in this size of machining you want to manage all these kind of things. And be able, of course, to share that in the shop or even other departments. Today we export document. We probably see that in the future being like a database, that's where everyone can be connected and be able to work in the company.

Jacob Edmond 20:09

What advice do you have for those that maybe are listening and are exploring, hey, we have pain points in our engineering. We feel like we needed a new solution. Maybe we're considering SWOOD looking at what's on the marketplace. What advice would you have for a shop owner or an engineering leader that's starting to explore a new CAD cam solution?

Bruno Calatayud 20:28

For me, I think it's to be able to identify the bottlenecks. If you see that, for example, you have three designers and one programmer, and the programmer doesn't have the time to program everything coming from the design and engineering office that's where you are able maybe be more focused on something like our solution and be able to get your streamline process really from design to manufacturing. So be able to identify that, be able to to have the people involved in the solution and have their feedback about how they're using today and what could be a good solution for them in the future. But that's probably the best way to find a good solution for what you need in your company here.

Jacob Edmond 21:07

Awesome. And so if, if people are interested in finding out more about SWOOD or reaching out and seeing if it's good for them, what's the best way for them to find out more and to contact you guys?

Bruno Calatayud 21:17

Obviously our website so SWOOD.EFICAD.com. That's where you're gonna find mostly all the information and our contact. They can reach out to me on LinkedIn as well present on this platform. And we also do different show during the year. So we were in Vegas, we're gonna be in our contact year. That's where you can find us just an email, a phone call.

Jacob Edmond 21:38

Okay.

Bruno Calatayud 21:39

But that's also possible to reach out to us.

Jacob Edmond 21:41

Awesome. We'll link that in the show notes to your website as well as how people can reach out and get ahold of you. Is there anything else that you would like to share? Advice for any cabinet shop owners out there that are listening.

Bruno Calatayud 21:51

Yeah, I hope you guys understand better now what SWOODis about and yeah. If you have any question, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We are on the North American market for the last six years. We had customers before, but we are pushing. So yeah, I know that we are still new, let's say, in the industry. if you are curious and want to know about how we work on the 3D wall, let's say with our solution, we'd be more than happy to show you that during a presentation.

Jacob Edmond 22:17

Awesome. Thank you Bruno, for coming on and sharing about, swd and look forward to having you on again in the future.

Bruno Calatayud 22:23

Sounds good. Thank you, Jacob.