I’ll be attending National Manufacturing Week in Chicago next month, to get the latest scoop on the manufacturing industry and related CAD software. Actually composed of eight shows—including the National Design and Engineering Show (NDES)—this event takes over the entire McCormic Place convention center.

Notably absent this year is Autodesk, but CAD vendors that will be exhibiting include Actify, 3D Systems, Adobe Systems, auto·des·sys, Cyco Software, PTC, SolidWorks, SURFCAM, UGS, and VX Corp.

Trying to sort through the list of vendors I’d be interested in visiting, and in fact, trying to get any details at all about the show, I’m struck by how slow and cumbersome show’s Web site is. This is the premiere manufacturing show for the U.S., and the fact that it isn’t a stellar example of ease-of-use, quality, and performance is an interesting comment on those same aspects of America’s manufacturing prowess and capability. The whole site is clearly database-driven, and quite slow. The exhibitor list is painful to navigate, since you can’t always select mutliple categories. I had to run a dozen different searches to compile a list of all the CAD vendors.

Barmy.