Design Analysis Is Ready
for the Engineering Mainstream,
But Should the Mainstream
Be Using It?

By Suchit Jain
Vice President, Analysis Software,
SolidWorks Corporation

Design analysis software has something in common with an unlikely array of products like cars, televisions, video games, and computers. They all started off as expensive, complicated luxuries and grew into mass-market staples when they became inexpensive and simple enough for the mainstream. Analysis software has indeed grown less expensive and simpler to operate, to the point where any engineer can learn to use it in a few days. Inexpensive desktop applications perform design analyses that once required specially trained analysts, but still the masses have been slow to follow.

Despite its affordability, simplicity, and performance, most companies today are unlikely to authorize their entire engineering staff to use design analysis software, likening it to giving a teenager on a learner’s permit the keys to the family Lexus on a snowy night. Companies feel it’s too much power in the wrong hands at the wrong time. Analysis software’s usability has improved through greater automation and from simplifying steps. Front-line engineers can now set up an analysis and run it, where previous generations of products required analysts. But just because an engineer can operate an application, that doesn’t mean he/she knows the best way to apply it. An engineer can set up an analysis, run it, and get accurate results, but analyze the wrong part of the design. So the ability to use the software doesn’t automatically pair with the skill and knowledge to use it properly. Considering that factor, confining design analysis to highly trained analysts is slow and relatively inefficient, but companies can trust the results. How can they trust their final product to the analysis of engineers with just a few years on the job? Just because everyone in the design process can use today’s analysis software, does this mean they should use it?

Yes, they should. Design analysis software’s returns in cost and quality overshadow any risk from junior-level engineers or senior engineers misusing it. For a relatively modest cost, companies can turn their entire engineering staffs into quality control bloodhounds who sniff out problems early in the design stage, before they can grow into more expensive problems closer to the prototyping and production stages. This gets products to market faster, with fewer errors, and at lower cost than with the old method of restricting analysis to highly trained analysts. There is a legitimate kernel in companies’ concerns about widespread use of design analysis technology, however, and they need to be addressed. The good news is that the answer to those concerns already exists in most companies. They just need to recognize and nurture it.

Make room for the master

Engineering mistakes have a cumulative effect, so it stands to reason that the sooner they’re corrected, the less harm they can do. The parts and assemblies designed by junior engineers affect the more complex assemblies and finished products created by senior engineers – and can ultimately impact the entire company’s success. Traditionally, analysts have been the backstops who caught engineers’ mistakes. In most organizations, they analyze late-stage designs before they go to physical prototyping or production.

This system is reliable, but it’s also inherently inefficient. Design and production processes halt while the analysts are working. The analysts’ feedback also might come too late, after the company has already committed to tooling for a prototype.

Using analysis software from the beginning of the design process captures time lost under the present system and stamps out late-stage errors by catching them early. Low-level analyses are done on the front lines, leaving analysts more time for complex issues. But that doesn’t address the quality concerns around engineers who don’t know analysis well enough to understand what they’re producing. The answer to that question is in a new position in the engineering hierarchy: the analysis manager.

If you’re ready to stop reading now because you know you can’t add a person to your department, you don’t have to. Your analysis manager is already in your department somewhere. Look carefully and you’ll find an engineer who has been quietly learning analysis on his/her own for years. He/she is most likely the person who noticed when vendors first integrated analysis functionality into CAD software. This engineer hacked around with it on his/her own time until he/she became proficient. This person has most likely been using it to check his/her work for years, either unbeknownst to management or with its tacit approval. This quiet pioneer is the key to making design analysis software work to its full potential in every engineering organization.

Analysis managers work between front-line engineers and analysts. Analysts should still do the most intricate and demanding analysis work. Front-line engineers can handle routine tasks, guided by analysis managers. Upper management and senior engineers determine which elements of the product front-line engineers are qualified to analyze. Analysis managers provide quality control to overcome the obstacle of trusting analysis done on the front lines.

Potential analysis managers already have most of the knowledge they need to step into these new roles. And this new role doesn’t mean losing an engineer. Once rank and file engineers are proficient on the software, analysis managers get involved only when the rank and file have questions. For a small investment of time and formal training, these engineers become a front-line resource to ensure that every engineer uses design analysis software properly to detect and correct the errors that erode quality and time-to-market advantages.

Design analysis software’s steady gains in accuracy, intuitiveness, and economy have taken it from the exclusive province of trained analysts to the mainstream of the design process, where everyone can use it. The current generation of analysis software delivers trustworthy results when used properly. In this case, “used properly” means restricting what different people in the design process can analyze – not keeping it out of their hands entirely. Design shops serious about the efficiency, quality, and time-to-market gains that come from wide adoption of analysis software should invest in the new position of analysis manager. The small investment this new position requires has immediate return in shorter production times, fewer late-stage errors, and lower design costs.

About the Author

Suchit Jain started his technology career in 1994, supporting then-new COSMOS analysis software as an entry-level engineer with Structural Research and Analysis Corp. (SRAC). Jain rose through the ranks to vice president of marketing, helping COSMOS grow into one of the most widely used analysis products in the computer-aided design (CAD) industry. Today, he is responsible for marketing communications, technical sales and support, analyst relations, and overall product management for COSMOS, which is now owned by SolidWorks.

Jain holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, and a master’s degree in structural mechanics from the University of Southern California. He has presented at the National Design Show, AUTOFACT, and several SolidWorks user conferences. His articles and columns have been published in CAD industry journals such as Machine Design and Design News.

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