A View From 2030

Pulse of the Profession:

CAD in 2030
Pulse of the Profession: CAD in 2030

An Inflection Point for

Digital Change
The instant that the first commercially available CAD programs
became accessible to engineering and manufacturing firms in the
mid-1960s, the old ways of working—rooms full of drafters staring
at drawing boards—began to slip into history. It was a paradigm
shift, to be sure, and it wasn’t the last big change this now-
essential technology would spark. CAD technologies and their
applications have been steadily evolving ever since, ushering in a
bevy of new techniques and approaches over the decades.

And that trend continues. In recent years, designers and

engineers have been using CAD to add value in innovative new
ways. These approaches have arisen in tandem with a wave
of Industry 4.0 tech trends, such as additive manufacturing
(AM), generative design, digital twinning, the Internet of Things
(IoT), and artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI and
ML). Increasingly, firms are looking to leverage these emerging
technologies to enhance agility, productivity, and efficiency.

As we enter yet another new epoch of CAD innovation, the lines

between design and manufacturing phases will continue to blur.
Data streams from connected factories could support IoT-enabled
CAD models, helping to validate design assumptions and unlock
new insights. AI and
ML-driven generative
design algorithms
This is the fourth of ASME’s multipart series on how the integrated into CAD
future is shaping—and will be shaped by—engineering programs may
automate repetitive
professionals. Head here to check out earlier reports,
on Career-Ready Soft Skills, Digital Transformation, and
Design for Manufacturing.
 Pulse of the Profession: CAD in 2030

Ready for Take-Off

The global computer-aided design (CAD) and the software-as-a-service (Saas)
markets are both poised for big growth. And with cloud-based CAD platforms
gaining ground in the worlds of manufacturing and engineering, there’s plenty
of overlap.

Value of global CAD

market in 2021 $9.9 billion
Projected value
by 2030 $17.5 billion
6.9% Global CAD market’s projected compound annual
growth rate, 2022-2030

Percentage of end users in the United States

who prefer cloud-hosted and SaaS applications
for communication and organization purposes. 80%
Value of global SaaS
market (2022 estimate) $251 billion
Projected value of
SaaS market, 2029 $883.3 billion
19.7% Saas market’s projected compound annual growth
rate, 2022-2029

Sources: Polaris Market Research report, 2022; FinancesOnline; Fortune Business Insights report, 2023
Pulse of the Profession: CAD in 2030

tasks and consider real-

world manufacturing
“We’ve come a very methods and operating
conditions, rapidly
long way from the days generating and evaluating
scores of different potential
when CAD was used designs for a product.
Digital twins have the
in isolation to design a potential to enrich CAD
models with real-time data
product on a computer from physical prototypes,
screen. Now we connect offering engineers
virtual tools for refining
CAD to every step of the designs and improving
performance. And cloud-
[manufacturing] process.” based CAD platforms can
unlock designs from fixed
— Paul Miller, Forrester analyst, computer stations, allowing
told 5 Minutes in the Future teams to collaborate via
mobile devices and tablets
from the factory floor and
beyond.

This more high-tech approach will provide a much-needed boost in collaborative

functionality within the field. “Access to 3D models and product data has been a
major barrier for cross-functional teams for decades,” Dan Murray, CEO of Vertex,
told ASME. “This [younger] generation expects that mobile devices and applications
will exist in the workspace.”

As CAD evolves from a discrete design-centric methodology into one more inclusive
of manufacturing, a growing number of mechanical engineers will find CAD skills
highly valuable. Perhaps that’s why the global CAD market is poised to nearly
double in size between now and 2030. Valued at $9.9 billion in 2021, it’s expected to
grow to $17.5 billion by 2030, according to a Polaris Market Research report.
“We’ve come a very long way from the days when CAD was used in isolation to
design a product on a computer screen,” says Paul Miller, a principal analyst at
Forrester whose research focuses on digital manufacturing and IoT. “Now we
 Pulse of the Profession: CAD in 2030

connect CAD to every step of the process. We can control the milling machines. We control
the 3D printers that take those design files and then produce the finished part. And when you
add in machine learning, things get even more interesting.”

It all adds up to a future in which CAD is both more prevalent and more important to
engineering and manufacturing firms. In other words, working knowledge of at least
one CAD program is likely to become the norm—and a baseline qualification—for both
mechanical engineers and many of the specialists with whom they collaborate. With the
capabilities of these software programs rapidly expanding, engineering professionals will
need to adopt an always-ready-to-learn mindset.
 Pulse of the Profession: CAD in 2030

CAD at Work
Tasked with creating systems and products that meet technical requirements cost-
effectively, engineers routinely turn to CAD. Creating physical models of components,
machines, or products is generally impractical from both a time and cost perspective,
but CAD’s widely realized benefits go beyond the design process to include boosting
manufacturability and quality control processes. Here’s a quick look at key benefits
CAD offers today’s mechanical engineers.

Digital prototyping
CAD software allows engineers to strategically and efficiently
work up preliminary designs—and to say goodbye to physical
blueprints and prototypes. Within certain design and material
constraints, designers can kick the tires on different
approaches and iterations by simulating certain conditions
and environments to test performance.

Quality control
Using CAD software, engineers can integrate quality
control processes into the product development
process earlier, saving time and money later. Users
can simulate a variety of conditions, such as stress
and temperature, to understand how a prototyped
product or system will likely perform over time. That
can surface design flaws or shortcomings before
production begins, and help ensure that the product
meets all structural and functional specifications.

Accelerated time to production (and market)

It’s not just that CAD allows mechanical engineers to avoid time-consuming physical
prototyping processes. It also lets them quickly perform tests, cutting out waiting times
between iterative prototypes. Add a shortened design process to a shortened testing
process, and the result is faster time to production and market—which allows firms to
be nimbler in responding to market demands and customer needs.
 Pulse of the Profession: CAD in 2030

Scott Harms, president of MetalQuest, which specializes in manufacturing precision

machined component parts, says CAD is the essential starting place for the
company’s entire design and manufacturing process. “It makes us so much more
rapid in terms of when we go out on the shop floor to produce something,” he said.
By that point, the component has already “been looked at from 50 different angles.”

But CAD’s wide array of applications comes with an important caveat: It’s a tool,
not a panacea. One of its greatest strengths is its ease of use for making two-
dimensional and three-dimensional designs with detailed specification. But that
aspect of the software can cut both ways. Less experienced engineers may create
designs that appear manufacturable on a screen—but can’t actually be made. For
example, CAD programs allow a user to easily mate two parts, William Durfee,
a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the design education
department at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, told ASME. However, “in
real life, they’d need to be welded, or adhesively bonded, or fastened with some
type of fastener—it’s easy to forget that on the screen.”

But here’s the good news. Next-gen CAD programs and teams, which are fed data
from real-world facilities and which allow design and manufacturing engineers to
collaborate, are more likely to address such manufacturability issues, helping to
eliminate these potential pitfalls.
Pulse of the Profession: CAD in 2030

Seizing the Next-Gen Advantage

As discussed, CAD’s value to mechanical engineers is expanding in new

directions as software programs evolve and integrate with a range of
fast-changing technologies, from AI and ML to the cloud. Here are three
emergent ways that CAD is helping to redefine design and manufacturing
processes, as well as the ways in which teams work together.

A more customized experience

As CAD tools have developed over recent decades, more and more capa-
bilities and commands have been added. That makes the software more
powerful. But it can also be unwieldy, overwhelming users with too many
options. “We’re now at the point where there are 500 different commands
you could execute as you design a circuit board or mechanical piece of
hardware,” Chad Jackson, chief analyst & CEO of Lifecycle Insights, told
ASME. “It’s almost become too much.”

AI and ML-driven CAD enhancement can help improve the user experience
in a few different ways. An ML algorithm could be created, for example, that
automates menial or repetitive CAD tasks. In fact, the software may auto-
matically recognize such actions and step in to perform them, speeding up
the design process. More dramatically, a CAD program might soon offer
suggestions to the user based on his or her past designs and knowledge of
similar parts in the firm’s library of designs. The upshot? No need to keep
entering the same geometric constraints or other requirements over and
over—and a far more seamless design process.

“There is tremendous opportunity to use AI to unlock the creativity of engi-

neers and supercharge their ability to innovate,” Gurdeep Pall, corporate
vice president of business AI at Microsoft, told ASME. “Modern systems are
inherently getting more complex, and AI is perfectly suited to tackle com-
plexity.”

The ubiquitous shift to software-as-service and cloud-based platforms

could also support a more customizable CAD experience. All those su-
perfluous features and commands will fall away as vendors become more
 Pulse of the Profession: CAD in 2030

attuned to the needs of specific organizations and even specific users, offering tools that can
be better adapted to the needs at hand. With CAD tools able to evolve in such personalized
ways, the barrier to innovation will likely be far lower.

Fewer walls between design and manufacturing

Historically, CAD and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) were distinct processes—the for-
mer firmly planted in the design phase, and the latter in the manufacturing (e.g., CNC machin-
ing) phase. But momentum has for years been building to create a single CAD-CAM standard
that would enable more seamless data transfer between platforms and programs. The hope is
to avoid manufacturing delays and late-stage design revisions while gaining visibility into how
specific design choices translate into manufacturing requirements. A similar goal underpins
the idea of digital twins, which collapse the distance between the design environment and a
manufactured product.

“We want to be able to change a product in CAD and have those changes propagate auto-
matically to product and factory simulations. That way, we get immediate feedback on how
design changes modify cost, time, and materials,” Stephan Biller, GE Global Research’s chief
manufacturing scientist, told ASME.

Of course, fully integrated CAD/CAM software exists today. But while currently it’s anything
from standard across the industry, it—and digital twins—could become the norm in the years
to come, both within and across organizations, as companies seek greater efficiencies, build
IoT-enabled manufacturing facilities, and embrace Design for Manufacturing (DfM) principles.
 Pulse of the Profession: CAD in 2030

Streamlined communication and collaboration

In essence, DfM unites the realms of design and manufacturing to pre-
vent the need for redesign work and speed up value realization. In this
kind of integrated environment, a CAD system that contains data on each
prototype iteration and every test result is invaluable in part because it
facilitates consistent, seamless communication between design and man-
ufacturing engineers and other team members. Everyone can be on the
same page, so to speak.

The shift to cloud-based, device-agnostic platforms will likely play a role

in this respect. No more will there be a need to convert file formats or
manually update to the latest software release. Whether working on a
mobile device, tablet, or desktop, cross-functional team members can
simultaneously work on the same design file maintained in the cloud.
With technological barriers to collaboration and communication removed,
problems can be flagged and resolved sooner, and solutions can be
found faster.
An Evolving, Essential Skill Set
Soon, mechanical engineers will likely see an increasingly interdisciplinary design and manufacturing
digital ecosystem. Leaning on AI and ML, CAD programs will soon offer more complex—and
customizable—capabilities to make it easier to design cost-effective products.
As a result, mechanical engineers can expect basic coding and scripting to fall under their purview, and
CAD may become more widely used across teams and organizations. In a sense, CAD could become a
kind of lingua franca, bringing stakeholders and disciplines together.
“I believe that accessing CAD will not be a privilege of a small, highly trained group of engineers, but it will
become a tool that all…can access,” Istvan Csanady, CEO of Shapr3D, told Develop3D last year.

About ASME
ASME helps the global engineering community develop solutions to real world challenges. Founded
in 1880 as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, ASME is a not-for-profit professional
organization that enables collaboration, knowledge sharing, and skill development across all
engineering disciplines, while promoting the vital role of the engineer in society. ASME codes and
standards, publications, conferences, continuing education, and professional development programs
provide a foundation for advancing technical knowledge and a safer world. In 2020, ASME formed
the International Society of Interdisciplinary Engineers (ISIE) LLC, a new for-profit subsidiary to
house business ventures that will bring new and innovative products, services, and technologies to
the engineering community, and later established the holding company, Global Knowledge Solutions
LLC. In 2021, ASME launched a second for-profit subsidiary, Metrix Connect LLC, an industry
events and content platform to accelerate Additive Manufacturing in the engineering community. For
more information, visit www.asme.org.

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