Why CAD Data Migration is important in Product Development & Design Projects?

In the earlier times the representation of the drawings were a difficult task. As to showcase the drawings ranging from a small set to the larger set, product designers had to go through a difficult time. Thus, the CAD technology came into an existence to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, and optimization of designs. With the introduction of the CAD environment the things have become very intuitive, interactive and easy to represent. Now comes about CAD data migration, when the technology changes the project drawings have to be compatible accordingly.

Also, the process of data digitization comes under the data migration umbrella i.e. changing two dimensional drawings to three dimensional. CAD migration not only helps to access the right data at right time but also accelerate the product development process by saving time and resources.

Importance of CAD Data Migration in Product Development & Design Projects:

The migration of the CAD data has become vital especially in this complex manufacturing environment. In today’s scenario where any manufacturing company including tier-1, 2, 3 OEMs are dealing with loads of CAD data. These companies are also dealing with their vendors at different project stages. Now it becomes imperative for the companies to stay updated to their vendors as well as dealers with the latest design information. Here comes the importance of CAD data migration.

Let’s take an example of company “X” which manufactures shock absorber for the automotive, industrial equipment and other relative industries. The shock absorber has various product configuration and for the smooth translation of these configurations, internal team has to certainly remain in the unified environment. This will help the team to update the product development project with the seamless flow of technical information and resources. Thus leading to the efficient way of project management and adopting a single source of truth.

Also, if the X is working with 20 different vendors, working on different product configurations. Then at times, X has to maintain the technology which is not supported by it’s vendors just to retain its legacy data. This will create a sheer situation of creating a huge business investment. In such situations, data migration will definitely be a good scope to cover to reduce the time-to-market of the products.

Various Software Platforms used for Data Migration in the market:

CAD migration can be preformed in various software platforms from the different software companies in the market like Siemens, Dassault Systemes, Intergraph, Bentley, Autodesk, etc. Below mentioned is the few software which can perform the data migration activities:

1.    CATIA 3DEXPERIENCE

2.    Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD

3.    Siemens NX

4.    Intergraph CADWorx

Top measures to consider during Data Migration Process:

1.    Various quality parameters to set for smooth transition process

2.    Proper skill distribution in various software platforms

3.    Right use of project management methodology among various product engineering team

4.    Complete audit of the independently managed raw data both in 2D and 3D formats