CAD/CAM tools have proved more versatile than anyone could have anticipated. Once used only by large industrial and automobile manufacturers, today small and medium enterprises have taken to CAD/CAM as these tools help reduce design cycle time, number of errors in the initial stages of production and help cut time to market.

Manufacturers today use Computer Aided Design (CAD), Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) and Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) tools to design pens, jewellery, TV sets, shoes, phones, pressure cookers, watches, sanitaryware and even the doors of your house. Industry pundits estimate the market for CAD/CAM/CAE to be in excess of Rs 250 crore, growing at a healthy 30 percent CAGR. It is estimated that there are about 2,500 to 3,000 Indian companies using CAD/CAM software. IDC says that companies are now shifting their attention to Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)—primarily to manage the data generated during the design process. Product definition resides not just within an individual company, but also across an extended enterprise, including suppliers, partners and customers.

Key drivers
Companies are realizing that it is the product that makes the company, and not the other way round. We associate Nike with shoes, Boeing with aero planes, Hawkins with pressure cookers and Titan with watches. Very clearly, a product is at the core of every company. At the end of the day, a company is remembered or associated with only its products. Companies realize that while efficiency and savings affect the bottom line, new products drive top-line revenue growth. CAD/CAM helps in the following ways:

Time and cost savings: By using CAD/CAM tools, manufacturers are able to reduce their time-to-market by over 40 percent, which gives them a competitive advantage.

Collaboration: As companies move towards an e-business environment, the exchange of information becomes essential for business partners. The Web has created a huge opportunity for productivity enhancements and collaborations, creating an environment where every manufacturer is able to share documents with every supplier and client online. Hosted collaboration services let the extended design team share information, giving access to the most up-to-date design and product information quickly and easily, helping the team engage earlier in the design process with greater accuracy and fewer mistakes.

Quicker to manufacture: CAD software can accurately simulate a prototype. This reduces costly mistakes on the production floor.