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Let’s Move Beyond Modeling
12/11/2009
by Joel Orr The engineering-automation industry is
seizing up from old age. It’s dominated by billion-plus-dollar companies
that care little about customers, little about innovation, little about
employees, and lots about shareholder value (and concomitant executive
bonuses -- but let’s not even go there).
Okay, before you, my friends at these companies, get mad, calm down.
I love you. I love this industry. I love being part of the world of
engineering design -- the world that Carol Bartz, former president of
Autodesk, referred to when she said, "If it hasn’t been designed by God
-- and most of the stuff around you hasn’t -- then it was probably made
using engineering software."
As Carol says, most human-made stuff is now designed with the help of
CAD. And it has been thrilling to watch this trend unfold. But all you
CAD/CAM/CAE/PLM developers, what have you done for us lately? Given us
release n+1 and a bunch of lies about how the additional features make
it impossible for us to stick with release n? (Or, heaven forbid,
release n-1.)
How long since there’s been true CAD innovation? Let’s see, the
industry has given us associative geometry, solid modeling, parametric
modeling, form features, direct modeling and its variations -- anything
else? "Many of these advances have been like putting cup holders in a
car; they’ve made life easier but they don’t really get us where we need
to go," says consultant Peter Marks at Design Insight in Santa Cruz,
Calif. (www.DesignInsight.com).
According to Marks, these changes are focused on ease of geometric
modeling, which is just one of the problems facing manufacturing and
construction. "I’d guess these advances have added a percent or two to
overall engineering productivity. Remember we have never designed and
built aircraft faster than in Word War II, before CAD even existed. In
some cases, these gains may even get lost in the tools’ steep learning
curves." What is now required, but nowhere to be seen, are systems and
processes that promote dramatically improved energy efficiency,
sustainable design including reliability and material choices, and even
ways of connecting our understanding of manufacturing economics to the
national economies of the countries in which manufacturing happens.
Where is true innovation? Why does the CAD industry hire such a small
percentage of top-of-their-class graduating engineers from the best
schools? Where is the excitement? Where are the order-of-magnitude
productivity increases?
And why is the coolest simulation happening in SimCity and Spore? (If
you don’t know what those are, you really need to check them out.) Why
is the greatest VR happening in entertainment? Why do companies like
InfiniteZ (www.infinitez.com)
with a true 3D engineering workstation, go begging for funds? (Picture
your model floating above the workstation surface on an inexpensive
device.) Why is there almost no artificial intelligence in CAD? Why
can’t simple design tasks such as checking for problems in limited ways
be augmented by agents? (The idea is not new; it’s just never been
commercially successful.)
About four or five years ago, COFES (www.cofes.com)
tried to put together a list of "40 under-40" engineering-automation
innovators and their successes. We quickly narrowed our sights to try
and find 14 under-40s. We couldn’t. And while we might have been able to
pull together "4 under-40s," this just seemed too pathetic.
It’s time for a new generation of leaders with fresh ideas,
risk-taking, and vision. What are we going to do about it?
About the Author
 Joel
Orr is Chief Visionary at Cyon Research Corp. in Bethesda, MD. Reach Joel at
joel.orr@cyonresearch.com
Article edited by Leslie Gordon,
Sr Editor, Machine Design
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Article reprinted by permission of Penton Media,
publisher of Machine Design |
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