Deploying the Right CAD File Collaboration Infrastructure is the Key to Enabling Concurrent Design for Distributed Teams

As a technology concept, Concurrent Computing has been around for decades. The ability to execute several computations during overlapping time periods, instead of sequentially, enables a computation to make progress or even finish without waiting for others to complete. This typically results in a more efficient and faster computational process.

A similar concept known as Concurrent Design is rapidly being adopted as a process methodology by globally distributed project teams and “follow the sun” development models gaining popularity in design and engineering disciplines.

By identifying tasks that project teams can deliver in parallel (concurrently) to accelerate product development or project delivery, Concurrent Design has the potential to radically change the design process while reducing project costs and associated completion times.

As organizations race to adopt concurrent design as a practice, they quickly discover some key chal­lenges including:

• Cultural opposition to opening up the design and review process (lose control) 

• Dependency on efficient communication between design and production teams

• Software and systems compatibility to enable design models and project files to be exchanged efficiently

While effective collaboration among project team members can address these challenges, existing IT infrastructure found in many organizations often fails to support the unique collaboration requirements of design and engineering power users, and project managers. These challenges are often magnified by inconsistent and slow WAN connections, and a lack of file version control when sharing and updating project files with team members at branch offices.

This is especially true with architecture, engineering, construction and manufacturing organizations where the ability of project teams to efficiently share and edit computer-aided design (CAD) and other project related files is rapidly becoming imperative across their respective industries.

Learn more by reading Building Best-of-Breed File Collaboration Infrastructure for Concurrent Design, a white paper which analyzes collaboration requirements and challenges related to the Concurrent Design/Engineering methodology.