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Concurrent Engineering Blog

The Business Case for CAD Consolidation

Posted by Emma Rudeck on 13-Mar-2014 16:28:00

cadMany manufacturers are currently in a position where they are using several CAD applications. This could be because of customer needs, external suppliers, or even internal departments using different CAD packages. While it is not always possible to reduce the number of CAD packages that you have to use, in instances where you can, there are clear advantages. Let's take a look at 4 key factors that make CAD consolidation a viable and profitable choice for many manufacturers.

The Advantages of CAD Consolidation

Significant Cost-Savings

First and foremost CAD consolidation can save you and your business money. Having only one main piece of software from which all work flows reduces numerous and sometimes redundant licensing charges. Having to upgrade a series of software packages, or paying for the maintenance charges is significantly more expensive versus just one software application. In-house training can also be dramatically reduced if new or retrained employees only have to focus on learning one platform rather than many all at once.

Design Replication, Reuse and Rewriting 

Compatibility between CAD packages can be a problem, with designers often having to recreate models in order to maintain the design intelligence. This makes it harder to reuse exiting designs in new products. Having all models created in one piece of CAD software, and then stored for reuse, creates a library, which is available for later use.

CAD Consolidation enables Company Collaboration

More often than not a project has many hands working on it. Collaboration between employees, departments and other businesses is much easy when all CAD designs are consolidated to one programme. Beyond the obvious compatibility issues, CAD consolidation allows people to merge files, trade design elements and build different parts or one project, designed by many different employees, into one complete finished product. When all the designers work on the same tool, it is much easier for them to work on parts originally created by colleagues.

Benefits to the Business as a Whole 

Having all designs flowing through one piece of CAD software allows businesses to create effective and standardised practices that all employees can follow. Similar to in-house writing styles at publishing companies, standardised rules for CAD usage enables greater consistency from one project to the next. Also, as mentioned above, if a designer leaves the company or a department has a sudden influx of work, other designers can assume projects to handle the workload as a team.

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