Breaking Down Global CAD Trends

By BARB SCHMITZ | Published: NOV 9, 2011

Though the benefits of using 3D CAD to design new products has been well documented and more and more manufacturers are adapting 3D design tools, the majority of organizations continue to deploy a mix of 2D and 3D tools. Despite that, there are a growing number of companies that are standardizing their product development efforts on 3D CAD platforms. Let’s take a look at where 3D CAD is having the biggest impact and what industries and countries these users represent.

In the study, CAD Trends in Product Design, conducted by PTC, over 7,000 product development engineers, managers, and executives worldwide were asked to weigh in on the current status of both 2D and 3D CAD. Respondents came from over 51 countries, including the U.S., Germany, Japan, France, Italy, India, Korea, China, U.K., and 41 other countries.

Let’s look at the overall breakdown of today’s design tools and environment. Of all respondents, a little over 10% reported using mostly 2D design tools; almost half (47.3%) reported using a mix of both 2D design tools and 3D CAD; and 41.2% reported using mostly 3D CAD.

Of those who were at their respective companies when they transitioned to 3D CAD (60% of respondents), the primary benefits cited included fewer design reviews (53.8%), fewer physical prototypes (56.8%), less engineering change orders (61.1%), and the ability of more people to participate in design reviews (58.7%). Perhaps most interesting is the fact that over half of respondents reported achieving two of these four benefits (50.4%) and another 38.6% reported achieving three of the four benefits from using 3D CAD.

CAD Usage by Country

When the survey broke down those respondents by country and industry, respectively, some interesting facts emerged.  In the U.S., the percentage of companies using mostly 2D was quite small (6.3%) compared to those reporting using mostly 3D (55%), which was higher than the global average.

The country with the highest usage of 3D CAD was Germany, with 59.1% of respondents reporting their companies use mainly 3D CAD, and correspondingly the lowest usage of 2D design tools (4.8%). Perhaps surprisingly, Japan led in the survey with the highest use of 2D design tools with nearly a third (27.4%) reporting using mostly 2D. A nearly equivalent share (25%) reported using mainly 3D, with the remaining 47.6% using a mix of both 2D and 3D.

A higher rate of investment in technology among its manufacturers may be partially responsible for the German manufacturing industry’s robust growth, despite the global recession. According to research conducted by the Deutsche Bank, the German manufacturing industry reported production increases of more than 10% in 2010, and is up 12% in the first six months of 2011.

U.S. manufacturers are also experiencing growth. According to the Institute for Supply Management’s October 2011 Manufacturing ISM Report on Business, the U.S. manufacturing sector expanded in October for the 27^th consecutive month.

3D Adoption by Industry

More interesting trends emerged when we looked at 2D and 3D design tool usage by industry. The industry with the highest use of 3D was the medical design industry, with over half (52.6) reporting using mostly 3D. This industry, however, only represented 5.4% of the total number of respondents.

Other industries with high 3D CAD adoption rates were the aerospace and defense industry (50.2%) and the automotive industry with (47%) reporting using mostly 3D CAD. These industries had correspondingly low 2D CAD usage; medical device industry reported only 4.1 %, aerospace and defense (4.4%) and automotive (6.3%).  Overall these three industries combined represented 28.7% of respondents.

The industry with the lowest rate of 3D CAD adoption and correspondingly the highest use of mostly 2D design tools was the industrial equipment industry. Among the respondents in this industry segment, which represented 33.8% of all respondents, 13% reported using mostly 2D and 38.6% reported using mostly 3D design tools, and nearly half (49%) using a combination of 2D and 3D tools.

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