Survey shows frustration from CAD users
An
ImpactXoft Corp product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Apr 29, 2004
Although advances in CAD software have helped engineers accelerate product development schedules, significant technical obstacles remain during the highly iterative "work in progress" phase.
Although tremendous advances in CAD software have helped engineers accelerate product development schedules, significant technical obstacles remain during the highly iterative "work in progress" phase.
New and emerging 3D design tools are needed to help engineers and product managers more quickly and efficiently understand a design, make design changes, and communicate design changes across a globally distributed product development team.
These opinions were reflected in survey responses from CAD and design engineers attending National Manufacturing Week's NDES Show where thousands of industry professionals gathered to meet with suppliers, view product demonstrations and have access to all of the latest products available.
Conducted by ImpactXoft, the survey found that for many CAD engineers even moderate design changes are still taking a longer time than they should and that despite significant technology improvements over the past several years, 3D models remain very difficult to interpret.
Results highlights include (percentages are percent of respondents): 52% stated it can still take weeks and months to make extensive changes to a design; 72% had significant issues interpreting design changes; 70% had significant issues incorporating suggested changes to their designs; and 42% said that overlapping design changes continue to hamper - and often delay - design efforts.
"The engineers we surveyed are clear on this point - the tremendous pressure on manufacturers to continue cutting development time and costs is creating a demand for more advanced yet user-friendly and intuitive tools that enable engineers to make design changes with the click of a button and then communicate those changes as simply as sending an e-mail", said Attilio Rimoldi, ImpactXoft's cofounder, President and CEO.
"Once these tools are accepted throughout the design industry, the speed at which products are developed will increase dramatically".
CAD design tools that enable "order independence" - meaning that a user can create designs based on a behaviour-driven approach as opposed to the order dependant design tree model - exemplify the capabilities design engineers need to take product development to the next level of efficiency.
Collaboration and communication problems are being addressed by new capabilities enabling design engineers to work in parallel on the same design and share and merge design changes with the simplicity of an e-mail exchange.
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