Remember back in February when I blogged about a new series of eBooks focused on the CAD Revolution? The first one was relatively broad-based, talking about the changes in the technology over the past few years a little about how those changes impacted each role. The next two eBooks, however, are deep-dives that focus on one role each. Here’s a little more about what you can expect from each one. You can get all of these eBooks at the following link (registration required)
The CAD Revolution… and What It Means for the CAD Manager
So just who exactly is a CAD Manager? While the title may change from organization to organization or even industry to industry, they manage the team of people who use CAD day in and day out. Ultimately that might be an engineering manager or someone who is more specialized. This eBook certainly goes into how the changes in the CAD industry has affected their organization in terms of productivity and meeting deadlines in the schedule. But it also looks at the personal implications for them also. Hey, everything isn’t just about the company. Specifically, this eBook looks at the following three issues that affect CAD Managers.
- Reuse: The Great Schedule Disruptor – When you’re trying to meet deadlines, whether or not you can reuse models on a large-scale becomes a risky outstanding variable.
- CAD Support: The Unofficial Night Job – Because the CAD Manager’s team is seen as the experts in CAD, they often spend a lot of time fulfilling requests from other roles and organizations.
- Design Data Proliferation – Today’s get it done attitude translates to using anything and everything under the sun to capture concepts, designs and ideas in engineering.
The CAD Revolution… and What It Means for the CAD Specialist
Where the CAD Manager oversees the team that uses CAD day in and day out, the CAD Specialist is the individual that actually has to make it happen. And in the midst of the new talk about new roles that could potentially use CAD applications, CAD Specialists are the ones that actually might benefit the most. In a fashion that’s similar to the eBook about CAD Managers, this eBook not only looks at organizational advantages but also how some of the changes in the CAD industry could address some of the volatility and fire drill type of work the CAD Specialist deals with every day. This eBook focuses in on three scenarios also.
- The Unpredictability of Reuse – Reuse might affect a CAD Manager’s ability to meet deadlines, but for CAD Specialists it the difference between going home on time or staying until midnight.
- The Fork in the Road for CAD – Past decisions for technology used for CAD modeling has always been an unpalatable either-or choice instead of using the right tool for the job.
- Recreating the Wheel at Handoffs – Each handoff between roles has often been inefficient because design representations are rarely forward compatible, forcing the recreation of designs from scratch.
The CAD Revolution… and What It Means for the Product Engineer
Lost in much of the talk about engineering software nowadays, strangely enough, is the actual product engineer. I’ve written before about The Subtle Distinction between Designing and Documenting Products. I’ve also written about Every Engineer’s Dirty Little Secret: the Stigma of 2D. But this eBooks goes much farther in-depth on how the changes in the CAD industry could offer some advantages to the Product Engineer. And not just from an organization or team perspective, but also from an individual perspective. Specifically, it can help address The Engineering Minefield and Unplanned Work. In this eBook, three different issues are addressed in the context of the changes in the CAD Industry.
- Concept Design: Just Make It Work – As today’s engineers scramble from meeting to meeting, they use anything to capture design concepts and ideas. Unfortunately, those approaches aren’t always the most efficient, for them or the team.
- More Iterations Equals Better Designs? – Traditional CAD, with powerful features and parametrics, has always held great promise to explore design options and alternatives. The reality however is most design decisions have been made before CAD is ever used.
- The Customer Validation Minefield – Validating designs with customers is always a good idea. But using ambiguous definitions, like sketches, and verbal communication can still lead to misinterpretation.
Conclusion and Questions
The changes in the last five years in the CAD industry have been significant. And there’s some interesting implications both for those that are using CAD every day right now as well as those that don’t touch CAD at all. This series of books provide some insight into what it means for the CAD Manager, the CAD Specialist and the Product Engineer. You can get all of the eBooks from the following link (registration required). Up next, you’ll see two more eBooks that focus on the Simulation Analyst and the Manufacturing Engineer.
Take care. Talk soon. And thanks for reading.
