CAD Tools: Usability versus Capabilities

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) continues to be a point of contention between users and vendors. It has advantages in easily managing CAD and other data, but users often find it confusing and are not sure how to effectively implement it while staying productive. Kasprzak believes that most, if not all, companies understand the concept of PLM and its advantages. “The confusion generally arises in understanding available offerings and the best way to implement them. Companies should implement in stages, trying not to do too much, too fast, and select a vendor they can grow with,” he explained.

The problem with PLM, said Bosley, is that PLM decisions involve extremely large corporate-level investments in complex systems and deployments that are difficult to implement with long ROI payback periods. “Individual CAD users probably have little say in the overall decision and adoption of PLM,” Bosley added. “They are along for the ride. What CAD users care about is their productivity — most CAD users are probably not concerned with the PLM issues unless it impacts their individual productivity.”

Milliken believes that “everyone is confused by PLM — even those who tout it. I bet you could ask a selection of executives from any CAD vendor — even those with PLM in their name — and you’d get a different explanation of what it is from each of them. PLM is one of those CAD vendor acronyms that was created to sell software and services — lots of services. We think of it as standing for ‘Pay Lots More.’”

Ray agrees that CAD users continue to be confused by PLM. “As many different users that are looking into PLM, there are that many different views of what PLM is and what it isn’t,” Ray said. “It can be very frustrating to someone who’s just trying to get their product out to market. What we find is a high percentage of CAD users out there are really looking for more effective ways to manage design data, which doesn’t necessarily have to come in a CAD file format. It can be PDFs, Word documents, or PowerPoints — all of these need to be captured and included in the design data.”

Usability versus Capabilities

So, are CAD users ultimately unwilling to compromise between usability and capabilities? Why are users required to choose whether they have an easy-to-use product, or one that provides the capabilities they require to do their job?

“Users are not willing to compromise between usability and powerful design capabilities,” Joung stated. “Product design is continually increasing in complexity, and global competition is putting pressure on discrete manufacturers to deliver better products faster and cheaper. CAD users need the power to complete their entire design task, and they want those capabilities easily accessible,” she said.

The next major step — either evolutionary or revolutionary — in the CAD market should be accessibility, according to Milliken. “What if any engineer in their day-to-day work saw something that could be improved, and they went back to their desk, whipped out a quick conceptual design, did a quick first-pass analysis, and then output a PDF file containing both 3D and 2D data that could be sent around for feedback and discussion? The next step for CAD,” Milliken added, “is less about the features or user interface, and more about getting it out from behind the barriers erected by CAD vendors. Put it in everyone’s hands, keep it simple, and get out of the way.”