Computer Aided Design: The Advantages of CAD
If you’re looking for a custom engineering and design company, you want one that specializes in computer aided design. CAD has a whole host of benefits both to you and your design company. Learn more about the advantages of CAD right here.
Advantages of CAD & benefits of CAD
With manufacturing still comprising around 10% of all U.S. jobs, the roles and responsibilities in the industry are changing. Many firms are growing up and becoming more contemporary by seizing the advantages of CAD. Designers and manufacturers alike feel more empowered to make strong decisions and stick to them.
Rather than having the design process segmented from manufacturing, you can bring the two closer together with CAD software.
If you’re interested in a few reasons why your designers might like to use CAD software, here are 6 reasons why.
1. A Streamlined Design Process
When a designer is working with CAD, they can take advantage of the way the software smooths out bumps in the design process. They can more easily visualize the final product that’s being created and all of the little constituent parts that are involved.
With most CAD software, animation can be added so that designers and product managers can get an idea of how the product will work in the real world. It can be seen moving and interacting with the rest of the elements it’s meant to be paired with.
As the designer works with CAD, every step of the design process will be documented, allowing everyone to synthesize and analyze the process. This can help to increase productivity by lowering the amount of error that will be made during the design. Shorter project design and completion times are pleasant news for everyone.
You’ll be happy with the results that come from having your designers work in CAD. You’ll see a higher profit margin, a lower rate of error, and generally more satisfaction from any team member who relies on the designer to finish.
2. Better Quality Design
Design quality suffers when the project is arduous and when it’s difficult to see the finalized product. With the tools that are available when designers are working with CAD, they can analyze the engineering process and can predict how to carry it out. CAD systems are deadly accurate and allow error figures to drop drastically.
When you minimize the margin of error, you only get a better design. So long as your design teams and project planning staff are communicating, the results of your CAD design should yield products with fewer issues. CAD systems can run all kinds of scans and tests to ensure that the product can bear the weight it purports to and withstand the pressure you need from it.
Good design can also help the manufacturing process. The fewer draft productions and wastages that your manufacturer reports, the cheaper and faster your products will be in the end. Faulty design can become a thing of the past with a strong CAD system.
3. Simplify Communication
When you design with CAD, you can communicate more clearly with supervisors and anyone working with or adjacent to you. With detailed drawings that are made in a standard format, the whole process can be simplified. When you’re talking to a supervisor, they need to have a simple explanation in front of them.
Your CAD drawings can act as a roadmap for how they’ll understand the project. When you have great documentation of the design like you do with CAD, communication can come naturally. The better you understand one another, the better your products will be in the end.
4. Plenty of Documentation
One benefit of using a CAD program is that it automatically generates documentation. When you have documentation, you have both justifications for design decisions and simple explanations that can keep people from asking silly questions.
By listing the details of the product, you can allow other teams make sure that the materials work together before you have prototypes built. You can also share the documents so they’ll ensure your component fits into their idea of the product.
The geometry and dimensions of the products and the material specifications are going to be unique no matter what software you use. Every designer will put their own flourishes. CAD software documents every step of the way and every draft that occurs.
5. A Manufacturing Database
The design process more or less helps to outline the manufacturing process. You can start a list of materials that will be needed and make recommendations based on your own experience with design.
Materials will be required for certain components because of restrictions, temperature, and the conditions where you use your product. The responsibility of your staff and interns is to hang on every word that the designers list when they talk about what they need for a project. Manufacturers need to be brought back down to earth on a regular basis when they try to recommend design ideas.
The CAD design will be like a recipe for manufacturers. It will explain why more complex manufacturing might be necessary and eliminate points of conflict.
6. Design Data Saved
When you hire or outsource designers, you might not end up with permanent access to your design data. Passwords can change, users get locked out, and those people may move on. When you use CAD software that you have a subscription to, you can get copies of everything for later.
Whether you’re designing in-house or outsourcing, you want to be sure that you can go back and revisit your design later. You want to be able to manufacture more, make small changes based on new components added, or just tweak it. When you use CAD software, you get to keep every design you make.
Your manufacturing team, who has to go through, archive, and make changes to legacy or ancient projects, will thank you.
There Are Even More Advantages of CAD
Your designers, prototyping team, and project managers will all be pleased when you embrace the advantages of CAD. You’ll complete more projects on time and with fewer errors than teams that don’t use CAD. Check in with your team regularly to ensure they’re getting the most from the tools they’re using.
To learn about the kinds of CAD design we offer, click here to find out more.