MCADCafe Industry Predictions for 2023 – Anark

By Patrick Dunfey, Vice President of Marketing and Alliances, Anark

Patrick Dunfey

An all-in-one Digital Thread Collaboration Platform for 2023
A long-term manufacturing industry goal has been to make product data accessible and actionable across manufacturers and suppliers to allow for more effective collaboration and innovation. Since this information is rarely in one place, a platform to automatically aggregate information from disparate PLM, CAD, and other authoritative IT systems to create standards-based 3D PDF Technical Data Packages (TDPs) was important.  These documents were adopted by industry, especially the Department of Defense, as a superior way to organize, store and share information. All that was needed to open a TDP was the free Adobe Reader which is available on most desktops.

From the mid-2010s onward, more versatile options than files were required, and publication platforms expanded to create cloud stored TDPs with access via standard web browsers.  This enabled a fileless approach to technical data creation and consumption which expanded options to present information and control intellectual property security. Instead of a file, users would have a controlled link with credentials to access TDPs with all the benefits of modern internet content.

Soon to follow was the need to collaborate using browser commenting and markup which expanded the usefulness of technical data beyond static viewing.  Teams crossing organizational boundaries now had secure access to information and conversations within controlled threads.  Challenges communicating via emails, attachments, file shares, messaging systems all while trying to reference engineering information was significantly reduced.  Rapid understanding of issues and collaboration could involve a wider range of participants to solve problems.

The next step forward in the evolution of visual collaboration for manufacturing is cloud hosted, browser accessed technical data with the ability to load, access and view files without the need for specialty IT applications. This includes typical desktop documents in addition to options for people to drag and drop MCAD files that automatically creates browser-based models that become part of the collaboration.  Visualization, collaboration, and file sharing is combined to eliminate the need for multiple parallel and often confusing applications, systems, and methods to discuss, understand and solve manufacturing challenges.

The prediction: 2023 is the year that fileless visual collaboration in the cloud accelerates for manufacturers. Cloud-based solutions will be mobile-first so everyone can collaborate on any device and have advanced IP security previously unattainable with file-based solutions.  This trend will hasten the end of email as a confusing manufacturing collaboration tool. The above-mentioned solutions can replace email attachments and discussions with simple version-controlled file-sharing combined with real-time conversations in the context of the product information being discussed. The industry is looking for tool agnostic methods to aggregate information and collaborate such that wider stakeholders can be included in problem solving, not just organizations that have access to specialty engineering applications.

The Digital Manufacturing Institute (MxD)  is currently engaged to demonstrate this type of environment for visual collaboration to the U.S. Army and the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). The goal is to modernize acquisition and supply chain activities to reduce lead times, improve decision traceability, and improve communication across DoD programs.

About Author:

Patrick has always been drawn to the next transformative technology trend. As the Vice President of Marketing and Alliances at Anark, he focuses on customer-centric programs that drive value for manufacturers. He spent the early part of his career as a mechanical engineer and has over 20 years of enterprise software expertise, with specialties in CAD, PLM, ERP, AR/VR and IoT. He has met with over 1000 companies, ranging from SMB to Fortune 100, to help bridge the gap between technology and customer value.

Category: Industry Predictions

This entry was posted on Friday, January 20th, 2023 at 1:48 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.