What is CAD Automation?

In today’s ecosystem of teams spanning engineering, manufacturing, sales, and customers, what is one thing they all have in common? They need things quicker. Customers want new products that solve their unique challenges sooner. Sales teams want new features released as soon as possible. Manufacturers want updated designs more rapidly. Engineers want to deliver high-quality, innovative designs faster. But with multiple projects and often the feeling of not having enough time to do everything, how can teams speed up the design process to meet customer needs? Enter CAD automation.

What is CAD automation?

In short, CAD automation is just the reduction of manual design tasks by using rules, logic, or software-driven workflows, enabling engineers to focus on innovation rather than rework. If you have repetitive tasks for many designs, this part of the of the process can be automated to limit human intervention, increasing the speed at which a design or manufacturing deliverable can be completed.

How does CAD automation work?

Automating CAD workflows works by connecting design intent to a rule-based logic. These rules would govern how a 3D model is then brought from initial design to validation. Many CAD platforms support this through integrated parametric capabilities or APIs. When implemented correctly, an automated workflow will make sure design tasks follow the same standards every time no matter who is creating the model.

What are the benefits of CAD automation?

Accelerated design

The most immediate benefit of design automation is improved speed of design teams. By eliminating repetitive tasks for engineers, they can focus on generating design variations. With quicker design iterations, teams can explore more concepts early in the development process. This means finding the right design quicker, and with less back and forth between cross-functional teams.

Increased customization

Automated design tasks again allow engineers to explore more design variations. This opens up manufacturers to creating customized products to meet the unique challenges of customers.

Better organization and communication

When teams implement their rules, parameters, and logic for best practices, an automated workflow leads to structured design processes. When a design process is structured, information flowing between engineering, manufacturing, sales, and other downstream teams pulls from the same source of truth. This ensures teams are using the same 3D models and documentation to limit miscommunication, making it easier to scale and manage the increasingly complex products being developed.

Improved quality

By automating your CAD workflow, you’ll reduce the number of repetitive manual processes and limit the chances for introducing human error. This leads to consistent design practices being followed which results in better quality of your products.

Streamlined processes

By automatically embedding your best practices directly into your CAD workflows, automation will help to eliminate redundant work and unnecessary workarounds that add time to your CAD process. Instead you’ll get to delivering your best designs in less time.

Examples of CAD automation

Across the manufacturing industry, there are many examples of automating meticulous CAD tasks.

Design Reuse

Being able to easily reuse common designs is a simple way to automate part of your design process. In Creo, you can use design rules and family tables to automatically create part variants based on a standard component.

Associative parametric updates

While you’re designing, it is inevitable that a dimension, reference, or constraint will change. When this happens, parametric CAD systems maintain full associativity and help to automate the rework process saving time and frustration.

Automated drawing creation

2D drawings are a common manufacturing deliverable (but if you want to experience faster product definition check out model-based definition and the model-based enterprise). The issue with 2D drawings is they are tedious, time-consuming, and only replicate the 3D model. Advanced CAD systems can use the 3D model to automatically generate drawings using standard templates, create associative BOMs or other manufacturing deliverables, and easily create dimensions, tolerances, and annotations.

Feature presets

Similar to design reuse, if you know there are certain settings a feature will use (holes, extrudes, revolves, etc.), a powerful CAD system like Creo lets users define feature presets to repeat the same settings you recently defined. Additionally, being able to export standardized settings help other users or teams automate tedious design tasks.

Integrated capabilities

Trying to move through the design process quickly means moving from concept, to design, to simulation, to manufacturing. Disjointed systems for these steps mean you must stop designing, export the design, import it to the next tool, then fix any errors before completing the next task. An automated CAD system integrates these capabilities, so you don’t have to leave the design environment.

What industries use CAD automation?

Any engineering or manufacturing team looking to improve productivity, meet short timelines, or manage multiple projects can benefit from automating their CAD system – whether that’s in an aerospace, MedTech, automotive, high-tech, or industrial environment. The need for automated workflows is less about what industry you are in, and more about what you’re trying to achieve: are you trying to manage complex models? Are you looking to accelerate your project from design to production? Are you trying to respond quicky to unique customer needs? If so, CAD automation can probably help.

Engineering

Engineering teams have to manage complex 3D models and enforce design standards. Whether you’re dealing with an assembly that has thousands of parts, or trying to customize designs for customers, automated workflows help engineers dedicate their time to problem-solving instead of repetitive edits.

Manufacturing

In the manufacturing industry, automation enables faster transition from product design to production. By setting rules in the design process, you can easily align design intent with manufacturing constraints to improve product quality.

How long does it take to implement CAD automation?

Implementing automated workflows depends greatly on the complexity and scope of your existing processes. With the right CAD tool, simple automation techniques (like associative updates!) can be taken advantage of right away. More advanced initiatives that involve integration with enterprise systems may take up to several months. A good way to start though is to identify the repetitive tasks taking up your time and then extend automation to the more advanced projects.