CAD Challenged?

For years we have been covering the CAD interoperability challenge facing mold shops, and today shops of all sizes are still looking for solutions despite the use of industry standards and translator tools because the costs associated with this challenge are affecting the bottom line. A new paper advising CAD users on the importance of tools that allow them to design in a multi-CAD environment might shed some encouraging light on the subject. CIMdata, a global PLM consulting and research firm, announced this new paper: “CAD Selection Considerations: Multi-CAD Management.”

According to CIMdata, "The competitive landscape demands that product developers focus on productivity. No longer can they afford to recreate product models that were created in a different CAD solution than their own chosen design suite. Given dispersed work groups, acquisitions, and interaction with the supply chain, multi-CAD environments are common and expected. When selecting a modeling solution, prospective users must assess their needs for importing alternative CAD data formats in a manner that provides for a smooth transition and the ability to manipulate and edit imported model geometry.

"When dealing with multi-CAD situations, many companies fall back on a strategy of purchasing licenses for all the necessary CAD solutions with which they have to share design data, then performing data translation between the different solutions. However, the cost burden of this approach becomes excessive. This paper, the second in a series, identifies and reviews a number of functional capabilities for dealing with third-party design data within CAD solutions that have proven to be critical for leading-edge users. The first paper in the series dealt with geometric model change editing."

The “CAD Selection Considerations: Multi-CAD Management” paper is available to be freely downloaded here.