Why it is necessary to master the virtual realm of CAD / CAM / CAI / CAE

It is thirty years since I started as a freshman in Agricultural Engineering Iowa State University; I am now a crusty, old retired engineer ... but my career [up to this point] in research, turning around small companies, supply chain development, product development and launch engineering has led me to the conclusion that it is now ESPECIALLY necessary to master the virtual realm ... in no particular order of significance, the reasons to master the virtual realm are:

• To overcome complexity with automation of routine, mundane engineering computation and the use of visual tools that allow for illustration of gargantuan amounts of data. 
• To exploit the ability to experiment in the virtual realm with set-based concurrent engineering [by modeling/simulating different designs based upon deliberately-chosen sets of factors] and using parallel, competing paths to learn as much as possible, as fast possible, as early as possible BEFORE wasting time, resources on physical prototypes, BEFORE building product-intent scrap.
• To utilize these modeling tools reliance on property associativity and design re-usability to extract more value from data repositories
• To exploit these tools capabilities for DFM / DFA / DFSS / DFx, tolerance engineering, FEA/CFD simulation  to learn about issues EARLY in the product development and launch cycle. 
• To become a master of anything [including a profession like engineering], a warrior must care for, sharpen and continually develop his tools. 
• To become fluent and effective in communicating in the language of hyper-efficient, hyper-rapid, hyper-frugal product launch and development engineer ... to work efficiently with talent wherever that talent is in the world. 
• To launch better products more rapidly for less cost for people that I care about.  

Perhaps I should explain how I came to this conclusion ...

Nobody should monkey around with stuff because it is cool ... praying to God and trying to be more like Jesus is cool; spending time with people who need you is cool; trying to fathom the beauties of God's creation and being a steward of nature is cool ... even though mastering the use of computer-aided design (CAD) packages like SolidWorks or Pro/E, computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) packages like MasterCAM or SolidCAM, computer-aided inspection (CAI) like PC-DMIS or PolyWorks, computer-aided engineering (CAE) packages for a variety of finite-element analysis (FEA), computational fluid dynamics (CFD) problems like SolidWorks Simulation or ANSYS Fluent or Matlab/Simulink is definitely cool.  Mastering the all of the facets of virtual realm of CAD / CAM / CAI / CAE is definitely cool WHEN YOU GET TO THE POINT WHERE YOU CAN HELP PEOPLE ... but until you get to that level of mastery, the software packages are costly fritterware or just more junk that you are trying to make into something productive. 


What is FRITTERWARE, you ask?  Before you attain mastery of these tools, you will need to commit to significant investment of time because the complexity of these packages will fritter away an enormous amount of your time while you are trying desparately to use them to do something productive.   If you want to persevere through the difficulties of mastering this range of different tools ...AND as an expert, you also will want to learn how the different technicians, draftsmen, engineers [that you are trying to assist/lead] can collaborate more effectively using the tools together ... if you want to persevere in the dark/frustrating hours where everyone is screaming to make the stuff work NOW, you need to remember WHY mastering the virtual realm is so important in the first place!

Mastering the virtual realm is about significant, exponential growth in SPEED and PRODUCTIVITY, more specifically mastering the virtual realm is about the speed and productivity of product development and launch teams.  It's about improving the speed and productivity of what engineers do ... which can be a slightly itchy subject because engineers are used to improving the speed and productivity of other people do.  Worst of all, mastering the virtual realm involves getting the commitment of an engineering manager ... typically an engineer with 15 or 20 years of experience and, more importantly, a record of demonstrated effectiveness as an engineer ...  engineering managers did not come of age having the affordable power of today's CAD / CAM / CAI / CAE tools available to them.  They may have wanted tools like these, they may have dreamt of the day they'd have tools that actually performed like software vendors promised ... the fact of the matter is that highly affordable, extremely powerful CAD / CAM / CAI / CAE tools were simply not available until very, very recently.  Some engineering managers can adapt and will support a program leading to rapid mastery of the virtual realm; other engineering managers can't adapt or won't adapt -- the engineering managers who can't or won't adapt WILL sink their companies.

The reason that quickly mastering these tools is important is HUGE shift in where engineering talent is located now.  The MOST exciting developments in development and launch engineering are coming from India and China where YOUNGER, LESS EXPERIENCED, MORE PROGRESSIVE engineering managers have budgets sufficient to equipment armies of young engineers with these powerful tools to engage in FRUGAL development.  In other words, mastering the virtual realm is not only about mastering these tools within your company ... it is ALSO about becoming fluent enough in the language CAD / CAM / CAI / CAE tools in order to access a talent pool from around the globe ... offshoring is no longer just about components, tools and dies made in India or China ... offshoring is now about using engineering talent from whereever it is on the planet to be faster and more productive.

It is necessary to master the virtual realm in order to speak the language of hyper-efficient, hyper-rapid, hyper-frugal product launch and development.  If you don't speak the language in that new world ... you can't go anywhere, you can't eat anything, you can't even use the restroom ... you had better stay home where it's safe, except that, if you are launching and developing new products, you can't go home again! 

My own path to mastering this virtual realm might not be what one would predict ... twentysome years ago, I was trying to learn everything about statistics that I could so that I could more efficiently design experiments that could be completed more rapidly with fewer resources ... in the 90's I was trying to get small manufacturers to educate their employees about things like GDT and to develop consistent processes so that they could establish the foundation of continuous improvement and become leaner ... for the last decade, I've been trying to get product development teams in larger companies to avoid designing in complexity or to avoid sloppy engineering that resulted in the need to fight fires, inspect-in quality.   I haven't abandoned any of these skills; I haven't abandoned my commitment to lean, continuous improvement; I believe in the need for aggressively working to constantly simplify more than ever.