CAD: Engineering Bundles vs. Granular Apps?

Packages, bundles, product suites, integrated environments. I’m sure you are familiar with these names. The debates about best of breed solutions vs. single-vendor integrated suites are going long way back in the history of CAD and PLM. Some companies are ready for functional trade-off and afraid of additional integration cost. For other companies performance and functionality are absolutely important to innovate.

Service oriented architecture and web technologies are bringing a sense of granularity into application and product world. In my view, Develop3D article – Why granularity is going to rock the future brings a very important perspective on the future of products. Al Deans speaks about granularity in data management. The complexity of product and data is growing. More people should work collaboratively on the same information (what was bundled before as a single CAD file). Here is my favorite quote:

When you’re working on a system that’s remotely located on a server, whether that’s over your internal network or across the wider web, you’ll need to manage and exchange finite packets of information, features, sketch entities and such. the rise of collaborative working systems, such as Catia V6, will mean that users are working on the same data, in parallel, at the same time. If not at the same time, there will be times when design changes, down to feature and maybe sub-feature level, will need to be managed and rationalised. To do that, you need to manage and keep track of those individual parcels of data and oackets of change. That’s going to require a level of granularity that’s way beyond what most data management systems are currently capable of.

Last year I watched Tech4PD video capturing debates between well known PLM pundits – Jim Brown and Chad Jackson – CAD Granularity vs. Integrated Suites. Navigate here to watch the recording. I voted for granularity. It was well captured by Chad Jackson statement. Here is the passage:

Granular CAD applications enable many roles in the enterprise, expanding the use of the 3D asset company-wide. Granular apps are better at enabling individual roles.

Latest blog post on Lifecycle Insight (again by Chad Jackson) – No More Excuses: It’s Time to Merge MCAD and ECAD caught my attention by something that I see as opposite to principles of granularity. Chad is debating the need to bundle and unite the functionality of MCAD and ECAD applications. I found his conclusion in a slight controversy with previously introduced concept of “granular CAD applications”:

Why are there two separate toolsets at all? And that’s where, despite the lack of enthusiasm and interest in the topic, I think there is potential for disruption and innovation. There shouldn’t be two toolsets. You should be able to conduct mechanical and electrical design in a single CAD application…. Call it Hardware CAD (HCAD). Call it Electro-Mechanical CAD (EMCAD). I don’t care. But don’t tell me such an offering wouldn’t be intriguing. In my eyes, there is no reason that a combined MCAD-ECAD application shouldn’t be available. Large existing software providers have their reasons for inaction. But that means there is a ripe opportunity for disruption from smaller companies.

I want to elaborate more about the last point related to disruption and innovation. I explained my point of view in the blog post last year – The Future Unbundling Strategies in CAD/PLM. I want to repeat some of my assertions from the last year:

1. CAD and PLM is too big to sustain as a one big aggregated solution provided by a single vendor. This is a polystate diversified space that needs to be covered by multiple solutions, features and vendors.

2. Vendors are never good enough to see what exact problem customers want to solve. Especially when it comes to large manufacturing companies and complicated supply chain eco-systems. That’s way armies of consulting services as well as diversified products must be applied to provide a final solution.

3. Customers often don’t know what problem to solve. For most of the situations product development is a complex problem. It requires the team of people to work on. In addition to that, large organizations are involved into politics and confrontation related to usage of different enterprise software and tools.

What is my conclusion? I  see a very strong potential in unbundling of existing large product suites. Take a piece of functionality, re-invent it, provide bigger value to a customer. Cloud technologies and future focus on data will be an imperative to make it successful. Vendors’ focus is shifting towards services. It is about how to satisfy customers each day. Selling of expensive bundles can be a thing in the past. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg