A gap persists between what the users of mechanical computer-aided design and engineering expect from their systems and their ultimate satisfaction, but their system dependence continues to increase, say the results of a first-quarter Dataquest survey of 200 users of mechanical design systems in the US and Europe. Dataquest asked the respondents to rank from 0 to 5 the importance of, and their satisfaction with, 25 aspects of the system, such as the manufacturer’s quality improvements, the system’s ability to lower manufacturing and design costs, and to improve time to market. The rankings for all 25 items showed a gap between perceived importance and satisfaction, says Mike Seely, director of San Jose, California-based Dataquest’s CAD/CAM/CAE and GIS Industry service, at its CAD/CAM/CAE Focus conference in Milan. Improving product quality ranked highest in importance, at 4.5, but with a satisfaction rating of only 3.4. The system’s ability to lower manufacturing costs showed the biggest gap between expectation and satisfaction, with rankings of 4.4 and 3.1, respectively. In Europe, where 50 computer-aided design system managers from Italy, France, Germany and the UK, were surveyed, the expectation-satisfaction gap was often higher, with the exception of the UK, where the prevailing ethos dictates that if you expect little, you won’t be disappointed. The gap for the product’s integrated data management capacity, for example, was 4.3-2.4 in Germany, 4.1-2.5 in France, 4.3-2.8 in Italy and only 3.9-3.1 in the UK. The UK’s tendency to a smaller gap could be because they use more two-dimensional-only systems, which can more easily improve productivity, says Petra Gartzen, industry analyst for Dataquest Europe Ltd. Despite their grumblings, only 5.5% of the entire pool of respondents said they plan to decrease their number of terminals, compared with 54.7% planning an increase, 39.8% keeping their existing number. Furthermore, average planned increase was 54.7%, against an average decrease of only 34%.
Companies have shrunk in size
Companies have shrunk so in size that almost everyone can have a seat, since the number of professionals using the technology has dropped, Seely said. In Europe, only 5% of UK respondents and 3% of German respondents said they planned to decrease their number of terminals. A whopping 70% of German respondents said they planned to increase the number of terminals on their system. Approximately 45% of both Italian and French respondents, and 50% of UK users, planned increases. Planned software purchases among mechanical CAD/CAM/CAE users for this year and next broke down into 38.9% for two-dimensional-only, 11.8% for three-dimensional wire frame and surfacing, 13.3% for solid modelling and 36% for a combined system. So, you have almost half expect to buy a solid modeling system in the next two years, Seely said. Hewlett-Packard’s ME system rated the highest among users in terms of ease of use and satisfaction with software quality. For ease of use, Adra Systems rated second, followed by Cadam, while Matra Datavision and Autodesk took second and third places, respectively, for software quality. Dataquest values the worldwide mechanical CAD/CAM/CAE market, including hardware, software and services, at $7,770m in 1992, which was an increase of 5% over 1991. The number of hardware units grew 7.2% worldwide to 290,390 technical workstations, personal compurters, hosts and servers. Combined MCAD/CAM/CAE hardware, software and service revenues in Europe in 1992 grew at approximately the same rate, 4.2%, for a total of $3,100m. Growth in unit sales was somewhat slower in Europe, at 5.1%, to a total of 104,300. Gartzen said the bribery scandals plaguing Italy have stalled its MCAD market growth. Italy was beginning to work its way into the number three position, ousting the UK, but that has come to a halt, she said. The top 10 vendors in the $3,100m European MCAD market, in order of market share, are IBM Corp ($604m), Computervision Corp ($487m), Hewlett-Packard Co ($267m), Digital Equipment Corp
($128m), Intergraph Corp ($96m), Matra Datavision SA ($89m), Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG ($88m), Control Data Corp ($82m), EDS/Unigraphics ($78m) and Applicon ($76m). Seely noted that the indispensibility of CAD systems in designing complex products makes it easier for companies to cost-justify them. One US aerospace user, for example, told the research outfit: We determined that the structural parts devised by one F-16 structural design engineer were billed at over $100m. Seely quipped, We think this company can afford to buy that engineer the absolute finest design tools, even a Cray, if he wanted it! – Marsha Johnston
