Digital Product Development

We've come a long way since the days of the paper drawing. Advances in computing power are multiplying the capabilities of design engineers.

by Mark A. Burgess

The world of digital product development is changing--and changing fast. Just look at the engineering workplace today and compare it to, say, 20 years ago. It's quite different, and in 20 years, it will be quite different from today.

Probably the most significant driver of change in the engineering world is the rapid advance in information technology. The pace of IT advances in all fields has been staggering. In my mind, the most amazing example of this is seen in greeting cards, of all things. A greeting card that has flashing lights or plays a catchy melody contains a small microprocessor. In fact, the greeting card computer is significantly more powerful than some of the first room-size vacuum tube machines. The most astonishing thing is that the microprocessor in the greeting card never breaks, and it basically runs until we tire of the melody and throw it away. Disposable computers are now commonplace.

So how do these advances in IT manifest themselves in the engineering world? Consider mechanical design. Twenty years ago, the standard medium for mechanical design was the paper engineering drawing. It fundamentally consists of a picture, usually depicting an object in three views, and some callouts describing critical or unique features of the design. Anyone who has tried to build a part from a three-view drawing knows there can be multiple ways to interpret the information. These different interpretations and ambiguities can lead to engineering errors.