Autodesk Accelerating Its Way Back To Manufacturing

I spent most of the week in Toronto at Autodesk Accelerate, a conference that discussed Autodesk’s manufacturing strategy going forward. The theme of the conference was “The Future of Making Things” (at least according to Autodesk), and in large part Autodesk succeeded in getting this message across with its Fusion 360.

For a long time Autodesk has tried to be everything to a wide range of industries – from manufacturing to mapping to architecture to entertainment. Some forays have been successful, some not so much, but that hasn’t stopped the company from trying. I personally was glad to see manufacturing return as a focus of Autodesk recently, because for the past couple years a focus has been, in my opinion, AEC and rebuilding the world. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but this focus left a lot for mechanical design/manufacturing customers wondering how committed the company was to them for the long haul.

After making a big noise about its investments in manufacturing, the company has divested itself of some interesting manufacturing products and technologies for a variety of reasons. Previously, and I’m dating myself, but it wasn’t all that long ago that Autodesk had dedicated manufacturing products, such as Mechanical Desktop and AutoCAD Mechanical (I was a big fan of both at the time). Then came the late arrival of Inventor for 3D design, but that’s story for another time. Finally, Autodesk has said to me that IoT is definitely in the center of their radar screen but what is there to show for it? Sure, IoT has a mechanical component, but it’s a lot more than just that, and it will become more prominent in Fusion over time.

The Accelerate conference customer presentations focused primarily on some common issues that we’re all familiar with, but good to be reminded about. Below are some my major takeaways:

• Automation done right lets people focus on what they are best at
• Innovation is more about people than technology
• Machine learning and artificial intelligence are quickly evolving to solve increasingly complex design problems
• Robots automate processes, not necessarily replace them
• Although there are certainly exceptions, it’s usually better to buy and modify something that it is to build it from scratch
• The so-called paperless digital factory is really nothing more than just a regular workkshop
• Stop viewing design and manufacturing as separate entities, work to connect them as one process
• Don’t design stuff you can’t make
• A tool by itself is irrelevant, it must be connected
• If a picture is worth 1,000 word, video is worth 10,000 words, and 3D is infinite

Fusion 360 is really about the convergence of design and manufacturing and automating processes through connections provided by the cloud, parallel computing, and Autodesk’s Forge platform.

A long-time Autodesk staffer stated anonymously that a lot of internal infrastructure problems had been resolved  with Fusion, so many obstacles with regard to performance and capabilities have been eliminated, greatly benefitting current and prospective customers. That in itself is certainly good news.

By itself, CAD will become less of the bigger Fusion picture as time goes on with the inclusion of a lot of other capabilities, especially on the simulation and manufacturing fronts. Fusion’s goal is to serve design professionals, not just tasks.

The Usual Cast Of Characters At Autodesk Accelerate 2018

A vital aspect of generative design involves integrating design and manufacturing parameters and constraints to automatically develop multiple topologies that solve design problems. It does not choose the best (optimized) solution, but offers alternatives that allow humans to choose the best one. In other words, generative design can help create, but not invent. Simply put, state a design problem to solve through generative design.

The importance and significance of generative design is for exploring designs and not necessarily just optimizing them.

In early October, Fusion 360 will cost $495 (US) a year and includes access to generative design technologies, advanced simulation, and 5-axis CAM. That’s a lot of bang for the buck.

Can Autodesk win back the hearts and minds of the manufacturing community? I think before accelerating, the company needs to gain some momentum through solid plans for the future of this community, one that has slipped away before it’s too late. This week indicated to me that the company does indeed have a solid plan for moving forward for design and manufacturing.

The Autodesk Accelerate event was a good start, but the message put forth this week needs to be amplified, refined, and repeated at Autodesk University in November. We’ll just have to wait and see if Andrew Anagnost and his manufacturing team, headed up by the very capable Stephen Hooper, can continue to pull it together and provide a cohesive and coherent message for Autodesk manufacturing customers on Fusion 360.

Interestingly, Hooper said that as much as Autodesk likes to hear what customers like about Fusion 360, the company also encourages customers to tell them what they don’t like so those issues can be addressed and resolved. This is a good sign that the company is really listening to its customers.

Next year’s Accelerate conference will take place at a major Autodesk Fusion customer’s location, Steelcase headquarters in Grand Rapids, MI.

Having had a taste of Autodesk’s manufacturing future, it will be interesting to see what transpires and evolves with Fusion over the coming year. I listened to the presentations about that future this week, but want to dig into Fusion hands-on myself (especially generative design) to really get a feel for its reality and potential.

Some would argue that Autodesk never really sold manufacturing short, and to an extent, I would agree with that. However, I’m glad to see that the new Fusion push is putting manufacturing back where it belongs – in the spotlight, front and center.

Disclosure: Autodesk paid for conference registration, travel, hotel accommodations, and some meals, but in no way influenced content above.

Tags: Autodesk, Autodesk Accelerate, Fusion 360, manufacturing

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