Single CAD Consolidation – Reducing CAD Chaos

Blog • CAD & Simulation

In May 2008, Industry Market Trends published an article outlining how sections of a major new aircraft had reached the assembly plant with wiring flaws, which caused a production halt. Executives at the aircraft manufacturer blamed the fiasco on the failure of different plants to use the same design software. It was an expensive lesson, costing thousands of jobs and forcing the company to reduce its profit forecasts by $6 billion and close multiple plants.¹

While this is an extreme example, it demonstrates the risks that arise when a manufacturing project relies on multiple CAD systems for modeling, configuration management, testing, analysis, and other important product development functions. So-called CAD chaos has a price as large as it is far-reaching, whether happening at an aircraft manufacturer in 2008 or at a mid-size business in 2021 that finds itself redoing expensive tooling and disappointing an important customer.

CAD chaos can also have less tangible consequences, such as stifling innovation where it should be occurring. Most manufacturers believe that one key to staying ahead in highly competitive markets is to drive more innovation into their products and processes. The goal is not innovation itself but the potential impact it can have on the business.

Consolidating to a single CAD system cannot guarantee those original and productive ideas will suddenly emerge in greater numbers. Still, it does create an environment more conducive to exactly that. Too often, however, companies take themselves hostage by putting some of their most valuable intellectual property (IP) – the data, calculations, and models underlying successful products – in several CAD systems. Employees seeking to make the most of this IP find themselves up against the barriers of rework, data translation, and the damaging effects of innocent human error.

The problem also extends to resource flexibility and the projects the company decides it can take on. Consider a company with 50 engineers. Twenty engineers are highly experienced in one CAD system, 20 in another, and ten in a third. If a critical project requires 30 engineers, at least 10 of them will use a CAD system other than the one where they have most of their experience.

At this point, the company faces several unpalatable choices. It can decide not to do the project because it lacks the engineering talent, which hurts the business. It can also decide to do the project knowing it’ll be less efficient and that this efficiency gap might lead to a host of unwelcome follow-on impacts, ultimately affecting the project’s ROI. Either way, the company is worse off than if each engineer was ‘fluent’ in a single CAD package.

Companies living with CAD chaos also pay a range of stiff financial and strategic prices: license and maintenance fees for each software package; training and library support costs for each; impaired collaboration; processes that encourage mistakes and demand manual rework; and lost opportunity as users spend their time on idiosyncratic homegrown workflows.

That’s merely what happens inside the business. Imagine if one of the issues above causes a problem that goes unnoticed in a company product, into the marketplace, and into customers’ hands. Now, the company potentially faces an uptick in warranty costs, a threat to its market position, and the unsettling realization that somehow, somewhere, its design process contributed to the problem.

PTC defines digital transformation (DX) as a broad business strategy, applicable across all industries, to solve traditional business challenges and create new opportunities using technology. Consolidating to a single CAD tool can be a critical part of any company’s digital transformation solutions plan. Digital Transformation Solutions are becoming more important as technology gets better.² Remember, though, that the moment when variety should not be the spice of the corporate digital life could be apparent. Having all digital data in the same format is more valuable and healthier for the business than not. With a single CAD system, a consistent single digital thread weaves its way through the entire design environment supporting efforts to cut costs, reduce mistakes, get to market faster, spur innovation, and help valuable employees work together more effectively. Below are the major steps to take on your journey.

Single CAD consolidation is as much about good management and prudent stewardship of resources as it is about technology. Spend time looking at your processes, figuring out the time sinks of data translation and model recreation, and determining what they are costing in salary, time, manual effort, repetitive tasks, squabbling between teams as to who will do the tedious work, mistakes, and opportunity cost. Imagine a work environment without any of those items and see what it would mean for your situation. Collaboration is hard enough without adding the burden of competing tools.

Change is not easy. Hallway mutterings can erupt into “But I won’t be as productive if you make me switch tools. I know this tool!” Listen but stand firm. A well-trained user of one tool will experience a downturn in productivity as that person adjusts to the new tool. In our experience, however, this is a short-term problem. An early-career engineer may protest as well, but it’s worth considering whether that person has attained fluency in the preferred tool or knows it just well enough ‘get stuff done’. Don’t allow dire forecasts of productivity drops to intimidate you. In the words of one executive, you can become very good at doing something wrong. Moreover, proper training on new CAD software may well make users far more productive on the new platform than they ever were on the old.

It’s no secret that CAD tools inspire fanatic commitment. Our experience suggests that it is futile to try to win over staunch adherents by pitting the major tools against another. We’ve even seen users who are shown how a task can be completed in much less time with fewer clicks reject that evidence and support their preferred tool even more fiercely for that same task.

If you’re fortunate, you can migrate to a new, standardized 3D CAD platform by starting all new projects on the new software. More likely, your company is like many others in that 80 percent of design engineers’ work involves modifying or leveraging existing designs. Those designers must be able to leverage data from other tools during the migration. Your new CAD tool should have multi-CAD as a core capability, both to meet the immediate needs of the migration and for the follow-on, inevitable multi-CAD demands of working with vendors, customers, and partners.

Follow the Golden Rule and treat your users as you would like to be treated during a transition. Plans for training, documentation, and support must be in place to help users become acclimated and productive as quickly as possible. At a minimum, your plan should include on-demand and live user training in several formats and be easily accessible to users. Ensure you understand what help is available inside the software, ideally in a context-sensitive menu at the right-click of a mouse button.

Technologies are reinvigorating every step of product development, from how engineers create designs to the review process and even model validation. Companies have the right to expect that their product design software not only keeps pace but that the company behind the product has a robust, long-term roadmap and a history of investment. The vendor must be as committed to their product as you are to your business.

Consider Creo for your single CAD solution. Creo is a full-featured professional 3D CAD solution used by a vast cross-section of companies and has been for three decades. Or, as we like to think of it, Creo is the standard in industries from aerospace to health care to consumer goods. Now with major releases yearly, easy-to-learn Creo comes in the most scalable range of 3D CAD product development packages and tools in today’s market.

A single, integrated design environment means maximum efficiency and easy access to various capabilities – instead of switching back and forth between various software packages for specialized capabilities. A designer working in Creo could go from the initial concept to CNC toolpaths or print-checking a final model to be additively manufactured in polymers or metal.

That same designer could get real-time feedback on her design as she was evolving it – without leaving her design environment or opening another window. When she wants to share models with downstream users, the augmented reality capabilities in each seat allow her to email a link to each stakeholder’s phone. That’s the strength of the digital thread, an area where Creo enjoys a best-in-class reputation.

Do not allow multi-CAD challenges to break your digital thread. With Creo, your users can master multi-CAD. This is an inevitable and critical part of any consolidation effort as your users transition their models and data from one system to another – or a customer’s model from one system to another.

Creo’s Unite technology makes it seamless to import, open, fix, update, and save other CAD files in all the major CAD systems. You don’t even need those systems’ licenses. The flexible modeling capabilities in Creo also allow users to work directly on geometry without knowing how the model was built.

Creo has been delivering value to customers for decades. Each release has significant performance, productivity, and technology delivered annually. As companies work to bring their products to life digitally, they’re turning to Creo’s real-time simulation, design for additive manufacturing, and more immersive, efficient, and secure collaboration using cloud-based augmented reality. Creo’s generative design capabilities are simply the latest addition to a market-leading product with decades of investment behind it.

Digital Transformation Solutions starts with your digital home, with time and effort spent getting your digital house in order. For many of you, that will mean consolidating onto a single CAD platform. Like any major project, you’ll need to stay the course, remain focused, and anticipate pushback. The reward will be a business better positioned to produce top-quality, innovative products that get to market faster. The time to act is now.

While there are many benefits to consolidating onto a single CAD platform, it’s not always an easy decision. It can be a challenge to migrate all of your data and make the changeover. But, as we’ve seen, the rewards are great. If you’re looking for help making this transition or have any other CAD questions, TriStar PLM Solutions is here for you. Contact us today to speak with one of our experts and get started on your Digital Transformation Solutions journey!

¹David R. Butcher – “Industry Market Trends” 5/8/2008

²Statista: “Digital Transformation – Statistics & Facts” 3/22/2022

Links to Other Pages

• Features of CAD Software – 9 Essentials: Essential features of CAD software that enhance design capabilities and productivity.
• Multi-CAD Environment – Improve Productivity With Creo: Optimize productivity by utilizing Creo in a multi-CAD environment, ensuring collaboration and workflow efficiency.
• Creo Unite Technology – Multi-CAD Collaboration: Creo Unite technology for effective multi-CAD collaboration and design processes across different platforms.
• Product Development – Digital Engineering Transformation: Digital engineering transformation with product development, using advanced technologies for innovation and efficiency.

TriStar PLM Solutions welcomes questions. Feel free to CONTACT US if you can’t find what you’re looking for, or call us at 800-800-1714