Computer-aided design (CAD) is a tool intended to facilitate the evolution of a complex set of concepts into a completed product. Like all tools, CAD is an extension of the user, reflecting that individual's skills and experience. Within the span of a few decades, the use of pencils, pens, and paper has given way to computers and software. Use of CAD has become commonplace in the high-tech industries. But the transition has not been without its pitfalls.To get more news about 2d construction drawing software, you can visit shine news official website.

A former tool designer in the aircraft and aerospace industries likes to share the story of his company's shift to CAD. When the decision was made to fully embrace the new technology, the firm's engineers, drafting personnel, and designers were offered lucrative early retirement options to make room for the new CAD team. But within two years, a large number of these retirees were offered equally generous fees to act as consultants. "The company wanted us to come back and give refresher courses in basic drafting and design," he explained. The new CAD tools enabled the designers to render beautiful drawings at a rapid pace. "But," he added, "the new team kept designing things that, in this world, were impossible to machine or build. So they needed help with using the basic tools and concepts."
This critical relationship between a tool and its user is echoed by Bruce Christie of I.N. Inc. (Los Alamitos, CA), "Did the word processor make everyone an author? Did the Paint program make everyone an artist? No. [CAD does] make you a more productive engineer and it makes you able to tackle programs that perhaps you couldn't tackle with your pencil and paper. But whether you get the job done right, and if the quality of the result is acceptable to the client, depends on the quality of the engineer who's doing it."
Rex O. Bare, president of product development firm Omnica Corp. (Irvine, CA), agrees. He contends that "if the person using the tool doesn't know what he or she is doing in the design process, the tool won't make the design better. It might make it look more interesting, or a little more presentable, but it still goes back to the competency of the person using the tool."

CAD offers diverse benefits in the design process. Among these are more-effective communication, greater control over the design process, and savings in development time. Each of these are factors in achieving an improved flow of ideas from initial concepts through design processes to the finished product. Use of CAD tools also allows a broader range of design factors to be considered.

COMMUNICATION

Product success is influenced significantly by the level and extent of communication achieved during the development process. CAD software is being used to help create an environment in which each participant can make effective contributions to this process. In addition to designers, participants can include experts in human factors and other specialties, as well as representatives from management, marketing, and manufacturing.

Bare explains that the use of CAD "encourages the participation of people who might not normally have been able to make meaningful contributions based on looking at drawings. The marketing guys, the managers, the people who would not have been interested in or been able to deal at the level of an engineering drawing can absolutely look at full-color, fully shaded images and understand what they're looking at. So they can participate, and they do."

From the design consultant's view, the level of communication allowed by CAD systems also addresses another problem. Says Earl Robinson, vice president of industrial design at Omnica, "The 'not invented here' syndrome is real. There are territorial problems. We're consultants, and when we go into companies to work for them, quite often people feel threatened."
Robinson believes that such attitudes can be addressed effectively through broader participation in the design process. "When you can do this as a team, and you get the sense of authorship from everybody at the table, and everybody can give their two cents worth, then it moves a lot faster. We get consensus quicker using CAD. Period."

The current generation of CAD systems also provides a degree of functionality that can enhance the communication of complex concepts. Says Bare, "By being able to look at all sides of the thing, with the section views, with the fit, we're able to solve a lot more of the problems and look at more potential solutions or approaches than we could ever do with the older kinds of systems. And once you have that information in a CAD form you come to realize that there are so many things you can do with it—animations, photorealistic renderings, educational arrows pointing to features to communicate with marketing people or customers, or putting that information into reports so that somebody reading the report knows what they're looking at. You are able to go through all of those things faster, better, and with better communication."