Autodesk manufacturing sales director, Northern Europe, Richard Tinsdeall explains... 

Some of the greatest innovations in manufacturing have been realised by smaller organisations responding to design challenges. Now, however, as technology evolves, so too does the potential for SMEs to access and exploit tools previously only available to the largest organisations – and effectively compete on a level playing field with their larger peers. 

Crucially, as well as better enabling engineers to realise new designs and solutions, modern technologies also have the potential to address some of the more complex challenges faced by the manufacturing industry - at a time when increased operating costs and reduced manpower resources are impacting even the strongest operations.  

Harnessing the Cloud 

Cloud computing, in particular, offers tremendous opportunities for manufacturers - particularly in the vast off-site computing power it can offer. The technology has existed in various forms for decades. Today, however, it is transcending traditional localised collaboration and office-productivity applications to enable new business capabilities to be delivered in new and different ways. 

More specifically, cloud-based services are bringing greater access for designers and engineers to sophisticated high performance rendering, design optimisation, simulation and collaboration tools, previously only within the reach of organisations with local, high-end computing resources. 

Using the cloud to extend the bandwidth of computing resources, manufacturers can now bring ideas to market much faster - and at significantly less cost - than ever before.  

Information sharing 

In today’s highly competitive manufacturing environment, the requirement for flexible and collaborative working has become increasingly more important. Yet the necessity to adapt everyday practices comes at a difficult time for the industry. World manufacturing output remains flat going into 2012 with the euro zone’s industrial sector experiencing its fifth straight month of contraction in December 2011 according to the latest set of purchasing managers indexes (PMIs).  Asian manufacturing is suffering too, with PMIs showing a lack of momentum even in the industrial powerhouses of    China and South Korea. 

Times are also tough for UK manufacturing. Despite a smaller than expected decline during December, the sector is still contracting and overall figures for the fourth quarter of 2011 showed the sharpest fall since the second quarter of 2009. 

With immediate prospects remaining poor, manufacturers know that, in order to remain competitive, they must deliver projects within very tight deadlines, putting engineers under increasing pressure to transform ideas quickly into good, reliable workable designs. 

Manufacturers must first quickly develop quotes which are low enough to be attractive to potential customers yet high enough to guarantee profit. They then need to focus on developing high-quality, reliable designs. This is where design analysis and optimisation carried out in the cloud can be key. 

Once, they have workable designs, these then need to be turned into products. So, manufacturers must ensure that internal and external suppliers can do the job and deliver what’s needed.  This requires effective collaboration across the supply chain. Again, the cloud can help in delivering this.

Linked to this, the rapid adoption rate of iPads, BlackBerrys, iPhones and other mobile devices is beginning to significantly change the way people communicate and consume content, as well as further driving the requirement for accessible design. Increasingly, modern manufacturers are realising the potential of these portable platforms to extend the sales reach of a new design by presenting ideas to clients and prospects in a more accessible manner.

As many parts of the manufacturing sector continue to target more global audiences, servicing remote markets is also of key importance, and brings with it a greater requirement for enhanced mobility. In facilitating access to high-performance design optimisation, visualisation and collaboration, the cloud is central to meeting these changing requirements by enabling users to store, view and share work through web browsers or mobile devices, anywhere and at any time - and unlocking far greater flexibility in engineering software as a result.

As well as high-performance rendering, design optimisation and enhanced collaboration capabilities, the much-increased online storage capacity for our own Autodesk Cloud is also expected to facilitate much greater access to design and engineering documents. The hosted solutions it contains have the potential to give users the freedom to work where it is most effective, as well as the functionality to view, edit and share designs wherever they need to be. 

Faster realisation 

While the obvious advantages of greater cloud computing capacity lie in the increased accessibility it brings, the scope and functionality has shown to go well beyond the simple option to put jobs in the cloud. 

The ability of the cloud to drive design optimisation is a key benefit. The cloud allows users to carry out a large number of FEA analyses at the same time. In fact, users could run 100 design analyses in roughly the same time you would need to run just one simulation locally. This allows users to analyse a large number of design alternatives and easily select the best solution. 

In this way, the cloud also has the potential to dramatically improve on the overall design and creative process through faster design optimisation, the creation of more design iterations in less time and with fewer resources, in addition to facilitating seamless collaboration.  

The potential for these powerful optimisation capabilities is, therefore, incredibly exciting; not least in the fact that it will have the potential to support users in producing compelling, photorealistic visualisations in the cloud, increase the number of renderings they can create, and reduce hardware investments for the business. Crucially, this functionality also promotes creativity and innovation by supporting the testing of multiple design options and creating more sustainable designs and higher-quality products while reducing material, transportation and energy costs. 

While it remains to be seen how quickly manufacturers adopt the technology, the cloud will undoubtedly herald new possibilities for design engineers. And whether it is used to solve tough operating or design challenges, for the smaller manufacturer in particular, the reach and possibilities undoubtedly now exist to accelerate innovation and drive competitive edge.