While thinking about the challenge of companies managing multi-CAD environments (yes, I know, this is what geeks do) I couldn’t help but to imagine a Rube Goldberg machine. When different teams within an organization are all using different CAD programs, there are often creative and resourceful workarounds (akin to digital duct tape) deployed, but despite their best efforts, there is a huge opportunity for improved collaboration and productivity left on the table.
But why do businesses work in these multi-CAD environments in the first place? The rule-of-thumb for data management is that as your CAD systems double, the complexity quadruples. Any data management problems can quickly get out of hand if you don’t have strategy and process in place to manage the risk.
Most people (Rube Goldberg aficionados excluded) do not purposely create these complex environments…but there are reasonable explanations as to how companies ended up with this challenge:
- Mergers and Acquisitions: Beyond the organizational and cultural assimilation, bringing together different companies almost always includes rationalizing and connecting different technologies together. In the case of companies with engineering departments, there are often multiple mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD) and electronic computer-aided design (ECAD) authoring tools in place.
- OEM Supplier Relationships: In order to secure business from OEMs (especially in the automotive and aerospace industries) suppliers are often required to submit MCAD and ECAD data to the OEM in a prescribed, proprietary format. This requires the supplier to have multi-CAD authoring tools on site to do business with multiple OEMs.
- Departmental Decisions: In many companies, technology decisions are made at the department level. This enables different groups within a company to acquire technology that focuses on niche requirements. In the past, companies could work in relative silos without major disruptions. Today, competitiveness demands that all departments collaborate and maximize their intellectual property.
Without a well-formulated strategy, you could place your company’s productivity (and perhaps your job) at risk. Some of the key challenges in an improperly managed multi-CAD environment include:
- Inability to collaborate from one CAD authoring tool to another.
- Inability to share information outside of the engineering department. Collaborating with manufacturing and others in the early stages of product development could provide substantial productivity improvements.
- Inaccurate and out of date Bill of Materials (BOM)
But even when confronted by the challenges of a multi-CAD environment, and shown a clear opportunity to improve the value of intellectual assets, many managers are still hesitant to tackle the problem. Some of this reluctance can be traced back to a few key myths about multi-CAD data management:
Myth #1: Deploying a system to manage my Multi-CAD data will slow my designers down
Myth #2: Bills of Material (BOM) must be manually updated each time there is a change to the design
Myth #3: I cannot include ECAD in my Multi-CAD environment
We can quickly and clearly debunk each of these myths, and we’ve got real-world examples to prove it. Transforming a multi-CAD challenge to a multi-CAD opportunity is the business of Dassault Systèmes, and we’ve been working with companies for years to help them transform a multi-CAD challenge into a multi-CAD opportunity. Companies like Eaton, 3M and Toshiba are using the ENOVIA Multi-CAD part of Single Source for Speed Industry Solution Experience to increase productivity and obtain the benefits of PLM. If you’ve can give us 12 minutes, we’d love to show you how Single Source for Speed can help in increase productivity and obtain the benefits of PLM in this pre-recorded webinar.
