Design Optimization vs. Engineering Complications

Let’s face it: Product complexity hasn’t just outpaced our ability to manage it, it’s lapped us as we sit in departmental meetings, search our computers for the latest versions of project files and wait for analysis and test results to run. Why?

Faster computing, ubiquitous connectivity and more capable sensors have led to electronics being integrated into products that were previously only mechanical. At the same time, more powerful electronics can be packed into smaller design envelopes, increasing the engineering complexity inherent to electromagnetic interference, computational fluid dynamics and embedded systems. Of course, electronics require software, which further increases product complexity. It’s a snowball effect, and it’s just starting to roll down the mountain.

Even as we pack more features into everything from cell phones to aircraft, we need to make components smaller and lighter to satisfy consumer demand, energy requirements and competitive pressures. That means simulating and testing new materials, optimizing designs to use only the amount of materials needed without loss of strength, and designing for new, advanced manufacturing techniques. But the role of the design engineer is no longer limited to computing with CAD and CAE, prototyping and product testing. It’s increasingly about data.

More Data, More Complexity

The much-ballyhooed Internet of Things (IoT), in which the devices and machines in our factories, homes and pockets communicate with one another, is the prodigy of Moore’s Law. As the IoT matures, it brings with it product complexity challenges that will dwarf what design engineers face today, thanks in part to the data it will produce. Experts predict that by 2020, the world’s 8 billion people will make use of 50 billion connected devices, generating 50 trillion gigabytes of data.

Much of that data deluge will be parsed into useful information meant to inform product design decisions. As products report back on how they’re being used and serviced in the field, design engineers will have the ability to update product functionality via software. Many predict the IoT will lead to even shorter product design cycles, some of which are already mimicking fast software development turnaround times.

The added complexity is too much for any engineer to handle alone, so collaboration with colleagues in other engineering disciplines, coworkers in other departments and business partners and clients who might be on other continents becomes even more critical. Decision makers up and down the supply chain, from the board room to the factory floor, also need access to design engineering data. Sharing the right data with the right people at the right time to allow good decisions adds yet another layer of complexity to the product design cycle.

Design engineers can fight fire with fire by investing in the right technologies to simplify product design when possible, avoid unnecessary complications, and manage complexity when it’s inevitable.

Optimize Design Engineering

Tomorrow’s products being researched and developed by engineers today will change the world. How you respond to complexity will dictate the rate of innovation. Thankfully, engineering software and hardware are easier to use than ever, speeding up complex calculations and producing results that enable real-time decision making. That’s why Desktop Engineering is devoting this annual Optimization Special Issue to technologies and processes that design engineers can use to manage complexity across all phases of product development.

Topology optimization software provides engineers with more options to remove complexity by quickly conceptualizing combined parts and new structures that cut down on over-engineering and wasted materials. Engineering design software advances are helping engineers automate processes and solve multiphysics challenges early on in the design cycle to enable simulation-led design. Data management software creates a central repository of product knowledge that drives collaboration, traceability and product lifecycle management efforts.

On the hardware side, affordable 3D printing helps speed up the product development cycle by allowing engineers to quickly explain complicated designs, or even manufacture short-run end-use parts, some of which would be too complex to manufacture otherwise. And, of course, high-performance computing via workstations, clusters, servers and the Cloud is the primary enabler of design optimization.

Engineers can choose to look at new design engineering technology in two ways: as yet another complication to their already difficult jobs, or as an opportunity to better manage today’s complex product requirements. Only the latter will position themselves for success in the connected-product future.