Working Together

for Developing
Innovative
Electromechanical
Products

This research has been sponsored by SOLIDWORKS

WORKING TOGETHER FOR DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE ELECTROMECHANICAL PRODUCTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 3

The Need to Work Together 9

PART 1: THE PROBLEMS/CHALLENGES OF WORKING TOGETHER 4

Problem/Challenge No. 1: Information Silos Negatively Impact Design Decisions 4

Better Integrated Electrical and Mechanical Design Saves Time 10

Implementing an Integrated Approach 11

The MCAD Side of the Equation 11

The ECAD Side of the Equation 12

Placing Electrical Components and Routing 13

Integrating Electrical + Mechanical Processes = Success 13

How Do Companies Succeed With ECAD/MCAD Integration? 15

CONCLUSION 15

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WORKING TOGETHER FOR DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE ELECTROMECHANICAL PRODUCTS

INTRODUCTION

As time goes on, there are fewer truly 100 percent mechanical or electrical
products being developed and manufactured. Combined mechanical, electrical
and electronic components are part of virtually all contemporary value-add
products. However, too often there is a disconnect between electrical and
mechanical design engineers that needs to be resolved.

Mechanical
and electrical
elements are
integrated.
MCAD and ECAD
should be too.
(Image courtesy
of SOLIDWORKS.)

Electromechanical products and their technical requirements are getting so

complex that sheer manpower and dated design methods are not getting the
job done. In many cases, doing things the way they’ve always been done is
costing manufacturers in terms of product quality, utility, time to market and
customer satisfaction.

THE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER

Electrical and mechanical design engineers need to work more closely

together to ensure a successful outcome, but they need new, capable tools
and support systems. Replacing current practices with best practices that
involve both technologies and people are essential for developing innovative
electromechanical products, but they are not always easily implemented.

First, let’s take a look at the problems and challenges of current practices that
are still prevalent, then, second, review the solutions and benefits offered by
best practices for integrating electrical CAD (ECAD) and mechanical CAD
(MCAD) disciplines for developing outstanding products that provide real value
for customers.

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WORKING TOGETHER FOR DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE ELECTROMECHANICAL PRODUCTS

PART 1: THE PROBLEMS/CHALLENGES

OF WORKING TOGETHER

It’s no secret that today’s products have become increasingly complicated with
mechanical, electrical, electronic and software components. How do you keep
track of it all and maintain a cohesive effort that involves several engineering
disciplines and tools for complex product development?

In research performed by engineering.com, this and other questions have

been answered. Engineering.com surveyed 265 diverse design team members
to determine if they thought integrated electrical and mechanical design
would help their development teams’ performance and if they saw value in the
integrated practices. Not surprisingly, the answer was a resounding, “Yes!”

Ignoring and not addressing the problems below results in higher cost,
longer lead times, reworking, lateness to market and a lower-quality product.
Poor electrical/mechanical integration negatively impacts product team
performance and resulting products.

Bottom line: In the worst-case scenario, customers may get an inferior or

compromised product and companies will lose market share or worse.

PROBLEM/CHALLENGE NO. 1:
INFORMATION SILOS NEGATIVELY IMPACT
DESIGN DECISIONS
Silo mentality is an attitude that occurs when different departments or groups
within an organization do not want to share information or knowledge with
other individuals in the organization. A silo mentality reduces an organization’s
efficiency, can contribute to a negative corporate culture, and result in poor
product development practices.

Traditional distinct
silos of knowledge and
experience—MCAD
and ECAD—don’t
work when designing
electromechanical
products where
cross-disciplinary
knowledge exchange
and the ability to
visualize the impact
of design decisions
across disciplines is
required.

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WORKING TOGETHER FOR DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE ELECTROMECHANICAL PRODUCTS

PROBLEM/CHALLENGE NO. 2:
INCOMPATIBLE TOOLS FRUSTRATE
DIFFERENT ENGINEERING DISCIPLINES
Tools that don’t “talk” to each other and are not associative lead to big problems.
When a mechanical change is made, it is not reflected on the electrical side and
vice versa.

An example
of MCAD and
ECAD tools
that are able
to talk to one
another, literally
via comment
and revision
history within
the managed
change process.
(Image courtesy
of SOLIDWORKS.)

There is no guarantee that design tools coming from different vendors are
compatible because user interfaces, underlying algorithms and design
paradigms are different. This issue is compounded by the fact that, although
electrical and mechanical design do share some similarities, they also possess
differences, thus prompting incompatibility.

Some reasons for electrical and mechanical tool incompatibility include:

• Design tools address specific aspects of the design process and provide no
support for the design cycle as a whole.
• Different tools have been designed and applied in different contexts with
no regard for their interaction with other disciplines. As a result, they use
incompatible representations that can require manual translation from one
tool to another.
• The kinds of abstraction, reasoning and problem-solving that are natural for
one discipline are usually not supported by the other discipline.

On the other hand, electrical and mechanical design applications coming from
a single vendor, such as SOLIDWORKS, are much more likely to be compatible
with each other and the workflow for developing electromechanical products.

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WORKING TOGETHER FOR DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE ELECTROMECHANICAL PRODUCTS

PROBLEM/CHALLENGE NO. 3:
DATA LOST IN TRANSLATION
Data lost in translation is a serious incompatibility and interoperability issue
between respective bills of material—ECAD (EBOM) and MCAD (MBOM).

Competitive pressures drive innovation and demand quality, as well as

create increasingly complex electromechanical products that have led many
companies to at least consider the collaboration of electrical and mechanical
design teams. Success depends on how well different engineering disciplines
collaborate and react to changes in design and process. Thus, the fast, efficient
sharing of clean product data is critical.

As an example, studies suggest that problems encountered in sharing

engineering data for the automobile industry could cost more than $10 billion
per year, a formidable obstacle to accelerating a product’s time to market.

Poor data translation is the most publicized and costly problem in CAD data
exchange. Errors often mean having to recreate data or a complete model.
Preventing those errors may mean using a CAD translation tool, which,
according to a report by the Metropolitan Emergency Services Board, “ranges
from $200,000/year on the low end to $600,000/year on the high end.”

Further magnifying the cost of poor-quality, data translation is the fact that
many errors go undetected until late in the design process, when they create
more expensive problems.

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WORKING TOGETHER FOR DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE ELECTROMECHANICAL PRODUCTS

PROBLEM/CHALLENGE NO. 4:
MULTIPLE SYSTEMS ARE NOT AN ANSWER
Companies that are forced to support multiple CAD systems need trained staff
to use them. Those costs transfer back as program overhead. Other factors
contribute to the apparent move away from this approach. For example,
because no single CAD system is the best for all programs, organizations must
make sacrifices when forced to use a particular set of tools. Such sacrifices
translate into indirect, intangible costs such as lost opportunity for innovation or
longer time to market.

Significant hidden costs to productivity also result from time wasted sending
and receiving disparate product data between multi-discipline development
teams.

PROBLEM/CHALLENGE NO. 5:
THE HIDDEN COST OF CAD INTEROPERABILITY
A significant and largely unaddressed source of data exchange cost is the
lack of communication infrastructure to support effective data transfers and
interoperability. A huge amount of engineering time is spent performing
manual tasks associated with sending and receiving data, confirming receipt,
checking contact and version information, resending lost data, etc.

Currently, it is usually the responsibility of engineers to maintain all product

development information, but they generally don’t have a secure or
effective method of doing so. Consider the cost of resending even a small
percentage of 100,000 files simply because data was sent in the wrong format.

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WORKING TOGETHER FOR DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE ELECTROMECHANICAL PRODUCTS

Management sometimes understands the cost of poor data exchange to the

business, but very few attempt to measure it. Instead, management should
consider implementing a cross-functional interoperability team.

Electromechanical product design demands that the geometry received from

a mechanical CAD system—whether in wireframe, surface, solid or combined
formats—be free from any irregularities and inconsistencies that may have
occurred in the electrical CAD creation phase. Data exchange from MCAD to
ECAD must include tools for identifying and repairing those inconsistencies.
Ideally, these electrical and mechanical design tools should be able to integrate
and interoperate with each other.

PROBLEM/CHALLENGE NO. 6:
ELECTROMECHANICAL DESIGN
PROCESS ISSUES CAUSE DELAYS
When a design fails, a design iteration may require another expensive and time-
consuming prototype. This is the main problem, as reported by over 80 percent
of respondents in the engineering.com survey.

Next are problems due to the electrical design teams and mechanical design
teams being able to communicate effectively. Even on small teams, when
their counterpart is nearby, data flow is complicated because dissimilar design
systems too often cannot communicate with each other.

When data flow is restricted, episodic or unreliable, the versions of systems in

each engineering discipline can be unsynchronized and different. An update
that one electronic engineer makes may not be reflected in the assembly. In
the worst case, the company could go into production without the most recent
design.

As serious as these problems can be for successful product development, they

can be overcome through improved electrical and mechanical integration.

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 WORKING TOGETHER FOR DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE ELECTROMECHANICAL PRODUCTS

PART 2: OVERCOMING THE PROBLEMS/

CHALLENGES

Effectively designing products that incorporate electrical, electronic and

mechanical components requires a radical transformation of the design
process. There are tremendous benefits and rewards that can be realized in
doing it.

Engineering.com’s research determined how some product teams are

managing their electromechanical models and processes. Some of the most
interesting findings from this research include:

• The “average” design team of 11 members now includes three mechanical,

three electrical, two software, two systems and one industrial designer.

• 71 percent of designers say the value attributable to electrical systems in

their products is increasing.

• Most product teams hold daily or weekly meetings to manage the electrical
and mechanical designs.

Survey respondents also reported on whether and how much time

they were losing to process and model conflicts between electrical and
mechanical systems.

While no team is “typical,” it is interesting to compare the number of

various skills that comprise a modern design team. According to the survey
results, there are now as many electrical design team members as there are
mechanical. As products increase in complexity, the number of system and
software designers has also increased to meet these demands, as well as the
increasing inclusion of industrial designers.

Median Number of Team Members

Industrial Mechanical Software

Typical
electromechanical
product
development team
makeup. Systems Electrical

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WORKING TOGETHER FOR DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE ELECTROMECHANICAL PRODUCTS

BETTER INTEGRATED ELECTRICAL AND MECHANICAL DESIGN

SAVES TIME

In the survey, 83 percent of respondents said their design team could save
time if they had an integrated system of electrical and mechanical design.
Some of the time savings would no doubt come from fewer or shorter
meetings, while other time would be saved in reducing the root causes of
design iterations.

Additionally, 41 percent said that their teams would save more than 10
percent of their total design time. This opportunity could drive teams to
investigate opportunities to better integrate these processes. Software
vendors are also aware of this opportunity. Several, such as SOLIDWORKS,
have recently made significant advances in electrical and mechanical
integration.

Could integrated electrical and mechanical design save you meeting and rework time?

17% 42% 30% 11%

Would not save our Less than 10% of 11-25% of More than 25% of
team any time design time design time design time

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WORKING TOGETHER FOR DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE ELECTROMECHANICAL PRODUCTS

IMPLEMENTING AN INTEGRATED APPROACH

Research has shown that integrated electrical and mechanical design

reduces development cycles. Other research has shown that product teams
are under constant pressure to reduce their product development time. The
survey suggests that one of the biggest ways to do that would be through
deploying integrated electrical and mechanical design processes, supported
with appropriate software.

An impressive 73 percent of respondents said that an integrated system

would allow them to deliver products faster, and 38 percent said that
the product development cycle could shrink by more than 10 percent.
This finding underscores the significant opportunity for design teams by
integrating electrical and mechanical design.

To succeed, electromechanical design teams need software toolsets that

can:

• Provide integrated electrical and mechanical design

• Mesh MCAD well with ECAD and vice versa for data and processes
• Exchange data with fluidity and without losses
• Provide associativity between MCAD and ECAD

THE MCAD SIDE OF THE EQUATION

Developing and manufacturing products can be dramatically improved with

a foundational suite of mechanical product development tools that cover
design, simulation/verification, cost estimation, manufacturability checks,
CAM, sustainable design, technical communication, data management and
integration with electrical design. You need the ability to handle all aspects
of your part and assembly modeling with a design system for transforming
ideas and concepts into 3D models.

Copper
geometries
for PCBs in
SOLIDWORKS.
(Image courtesy
of SOLIDWORKS.)

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WORKING TOGETHER FOR DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE ELECTROMECHANICAL PRODUCTS

Product and project collaboration tools help design team members work
closely with other project stakeholders, including the electrical design team.
The software also needs to provide ways of protecting proprietary design
data before sharing it beyond an organization and to manage project data
and control design revisions that ensure data security and integrity.

THE ECAD SIDE OF THE EQUATION

Most fundamental for electrical design is a schematic-design tool that helps

rapid development of embedded electrical systems for electromechanical
products. Built-in and web-enabled libraries of symbols and manufacturer
part information provide common re-usable materials that optimize design
re-use. Tedious design tasks can be streamlined and simplified, from
terminal block to contact cross reference assignments, with automated
design and management tools.

Commenting
and revision
management
options in Altium
Designer.
(Image courtesy
of SOLIDWORKS.)

Single-line and multi-line schematic tools, including an integrated library

of thousands of symbols and parts, enable quick planning of an embedded
electrical system. Design teams can work concurrently on one or more
projects and keep all work current with real-time bi-directional updates
that integrate ECAD data with a 3D model, place 3D versions of all electrical
parts into the model, and create paths and connections with wires, cables
and harnesses. Ideally, all work in 2D and 3D would be synchronized in real
time and fully integrated BOMs created that include both mechanical and
electrical parts.

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WORKING TOGETHER FOR DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE ELECTROMECHANICAL PRODUCTS

PLACING ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS AND ROUTING

The ability to place electrical components and use advanced 3D routing

technology to automatically interconnect electrical design elements within
a 3D model is key. A vital aspect of this is the ability to determine optimal
paths and lengths for wires, cables and harnesses while maintaining design
and BOM synchronization between electrical and mechanical designs. 2D
schematics and 3D models are synchronized bi-directionally in real time, so
any changes are automatically updated.

Designers and engineers need the ability to integrate electrical schematic

design data from ECAD into a 3D CAD model for CAD-embedded, electrical
system design. These real-time, bidirectional multi-user tools enable more
collaborative design between electrical and mechanical designers and allow
for placement or removal of electrical components within a 3D CAD model.

A virtual “design-in-place” electrical harness development environment that

provides auto-routing of a schematically-defined electrical harness in a 3D
CAD model simplifies harness development while minimizing errors.

A planning tool for rapid collaborative design of schematically-defined

embedded electrical systems that can be implemented in a 3D CAD model
with the intelligence of traditional multiline tools creates a new technology
paradigm, incorporating purpose-built design tools for schematically-driven
embedded electrical subsystem development.

Finally, don’t forget that a good PCB design tool provides on-demand
collaboration between the electronic design domain and 3D mechanical
design domain. It offers a clear advantage to any company where ECAD and
MCAD collaboration is critical for the overall success of the product design.

INTEGRATING ELECTRICAL + MECHANICAL PROCESSES =

SUCCESS

There are various capabilities you need to ensure electromechanical product

development success:

ECAD/MCAD Collaboration: Share data between electrical CAD (ECAD)

and mechanical CAD (MCAD) designers using a tool that enables teams to
share, compare, update and track electrical design data so users can quickly
resolve electrical-mechanical integration problems.

Collaborative Electrical-Mechanical Development: Tools address the needs

of multi-user and cross-discipline projects with a synchronized design
environment between the electrical and mechanical teams to readily
implemented schematically-defined electrical systems into a 3D CAD model.
Multiple electrical and mechanical engineers can work on the same project
simultaneously in real time using advanced database technology with a
bidirectional, multi-user environment.

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WORKING TOGETHER FOR DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE ELECTROMECHANICAL PRODUCTS

The same
component
in both
SOLIDWORKS
and Altium
Designer,
featuring unified
component data.
(Image courtesy
of SOLIDWORKS.)

ECAD-MCAD Collaboration Services: A web-based server facilitates

collaboration between both sides of a design project. It links 3D mechanical
models and electrical data together as a single, managed project that
unifies data and pushes change notifications between both sides of a
design.

Link to 3D CAD from ECAD: Electrical schematics linked to a 3D assembly

facilitates verification of proper fit; planning of all wire, cable and harness
routes; and provides calculation of all wire lengths prior to assembly.

Common ECAD and MCAD Database: ECAD schematics should be bi-

directionally linked and allow multi-user interaction in real time. ECAD and
MCAD share a common database, ensuring consistency and facilitating
creation of a single, unified BOM.

Pipe & Tube Routing: Tools to simplify design and documentation of piping
and tubing for a range of hydraulic, pneumatic and other systems and
applications.

Library Management: Combine and manage schematic, PCB and

mechanical component libraries together in a single location.

Electrical Cable, Wiring and Harness Routing: Includes design tools that
build a path for electrical cables, pipes, or tubes for assemblies. Routing
creates a special type of subassembly that builds a path for electrical cables,
pipes, or tubes between components.

Managed MCAD-ECAD ECO Process: A managed engineering change order

(ECO) process between ECAD and 3D CAD that pushes changes to board
shape, component placement, mounting holes and cutouts to and from
ECAD and MCAD, ensuring the overall designs are synchronized.

Version Control: Manage and compare all history and changes made to
design files directly within the software for gaining greater control over
changes made to design, as well as know exactly what changes were made
and by whom.

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WORKING TOGETHER FOR DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE ELECTROMECHANICAL PRODUCTS

HOW DO COMPANIES SUCCEED WITH ECAD/MCAD

INTEGRATION?

Companies that succeed in creating products that involve multiple

disciplines need to have:

• Clear lines of communication for effective collaboration

• Real-time/parallel processes, not sequential
• Tools that work for each discipline and integrate with the other disciplines

Successful companies also have processes in place for upfront and ongoing
simulation, validation, visualization, digital prototyping (AR/VR) and data
management.

To succeed, electromechanical development teams need an understanding

and committed management team that may require change/shift in
corporate culture, which is never an easy thing.

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WORKING TOGETHER FOR DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE ELECTROMECHANICAL PRODUCTS

CONCLUSION

Product development efforts are losing time due to poor integration

between electrical and mechanical design processes. Effective MCAD and
ECAD collaboration through integrated tools and processes provide more
value and better products faster.

The engineering.
com survey
respondents
provided
details on how
collaboration
A PCB designed between electrical
in SOLIDWORKS and mechanical
PCB. teams contributed
(Image courtesy
of SOLIDWORKS.)
to overall success.
83 percent of
designers said they could save meeting and rework time if they had better
integration between electrical and mechanical design processes. 73 percent
of teams could reduce their product development cycle through integrated
electrical and mechanical design.

There is a huge opportunity to save time and develop better products that
will drive teams to investigate opportunities for better integrating electrical
and mechanical processes. Software vendors appear to be increasingly
aware of this, as companies like SOLIDWORKS have made significant
advances in electrical/mechanical integration.

It is absolutely necessary for mechanical and electrical teams to work

together to develop innovative successful electromechanical products—
it’s as much a people issue as a technology issue—but using the best tools
suited for the tasks ensures a greater likelihood for success.

It all comes down to communication, collaboration, coordination,

cooperation and integrating the right tools.

THIS RESEARCH HAS BEEN SPONSORED BY SOLIDWORKS

Discover more at solidworks.com

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