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CAD education to the year 2000
CAD education to the year 2000 John J Allan III This address relates motivation and the scope of CAD activities to a dynamic coexistence with the information processing revolution. Observations are made that should help CA D educators use their knowledge o f economic, political and social forces to discuss pedagogy In a meaningful way, realizing that the ultimate goal is to contribute to the betterment of mankind.
MOTIVATION We all have a basic motivation that is independent of our national origin. That is, ~ve want our students to learn fundamental concepts that they can later apply to increase industrial productivity: productivity as used here means quantity and quality. Examining the production of goods and services, we clearly see that there are planning functions and execution functions. And we realize that there are two keys to productivity improvement • performing as many production activities as possible in parallel • identifying similarities among production elements and executing the required activities at minimum cost 1 . In practice then, we must educate our students to change the structure of the basic information and materialprocessing components of our means of production. We must teach principles that will allow a customer's goods and services to be produced with due attention, but with a functional focus on 'groups' of production elements. The industrial revolution contributed many ideas for increasing productivity. The foremost of these ideas was assembly-line production. Now, we are in the informationprocessing revolution. And I submit to you that during our professional lifetime, CAD/CAM will emerge as the major contributor to increased industrial productivity. This implies that what we teach and the way we teach it will influence the singlemost important aspect o f our nations' means of production. This awesome responsibility could be a very frightening prospect. However, while we are prepared intellectually for this challenge, we are not completely prepared. As citizens of the international engineering community we Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of Center for Special Studies, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275, USA. This article is based on the Keynote Address given at
CAD-ED, TeessidePolytechnic, Middlesbrough, UK on 13 July 1977.
volume 10 number 1 january 1978
must work together, prodigiously, to educate the people in our charge to be a new breed of professional. And we cannot approach this task in a lackadaisical manner, for we are utilizing a most transient technology. You have probably all felt the change in peer attitude during the last five years. Prior to 1972, engineering educators who emphasized CAD/CAM were generally considered 'lower class'. We were the ones who ostensibly could not handle 'analysis'. However, a new age of awareness has developed. More than ever, engineering problems require the integration of many concerns other than technical. Teaching the fundamentals of CAD/CAM is unique in our lifetime from a pedagogical point of view. In his book The sciences o f the artificial, Herbert A Simon 2 eloquently explains how the sciences of the artificial have almost been driven from the engineering schools. 'Historically and traditionally, it has been the task of the science disciplines to teach about natural things: how they are and how they work. It has been the task of engineering schools to teach about artificial things: how to make artifacts that have desired properties and how to design. 'Engineers are not the only professional designers. Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. The intellectual activity that produces material artifacts is no different fundamentally from the one that prescribes remedies for a sick patient or the one that devises a new sales plan for a company or a social welfare policy for a state. Design, so construed, is the core of all professional training; it is the principal mark that distinguishes the professions from the sciences. Schools of engineering, as well as schools of architecture, business, education, law, and medicine, are all centrally concerned with the process of design. 'In view of the key role of design in professional activity, it is ironic that in this century the natural sciences have almost driven the sciences of the artificial from professional school curricula. Engineering schools have become schools of physics and mathematics; medical schools have become schools of biological science; business schools have become schools of finite mathematics. The use of adjectives like "applied" conceals, but does not change, the f a c t . . . 'The movement toward natural science and away from the sciences of the artificial has proceeded further and faster in engineering, business, and medicine than in the other professional fields...
3
'Such a universal phenomenon must have a basic cause. It does have a very obvious one. As professional schools, including the independent engineering schools, are more and more absorbed into the general culture of the university, they hanker after academic respectability. In terms of the prevailing norms, academic respectability calls for subject matter that is intellectually tough, analytic, formatizable, and teachable. In the past, much, if not most, of what we knew about design and about the artificial sciences was intellectually soft, intuitive, informal, and cookbooky. Why would anyone in a university stoop to teach or learn about designing machines when he could concern himself with solid-state physics? The answer has been clear: he usually wouldn't. 'The problem is widely recognized in engineering and medicine, today, and to a lesser extent in business. Some do not think it a problem, because they regard schools of applied science as a superior alternative to the trade schools of the past. If that were the choice, we could agree. 'That was, in fact, the choice in our engineering schools a generation ago. The schools needed to be purged of vocationalism; and a genuine science of design did not exist, even in a rudimentary form, as an alternative. Hence, the road forward was the road toward introducing more fundamental science. Karl Taylor Compton was one of the prominent leaders in this reform, which was a main theme in his presidential inaugural address at M.I.T. in 1930: "1 h o p e . . , that increasing attention in the Institute may be given to the fundamental sciences; that they may achieve as never before the spirit and results of research; that all courses of instruction may be examined carefully to see where training in details has been unduly emphasized at the expense of the more powerful training in all-embracing fundamental principles." 'Notice that President Compton's emphasis was on "fundamental," an emphasis as sound today as it was in 1930. What I am u r g i n g . . , is not a departure from the fundamental but an inclusion in the curriculum of the fundamental in engineering along with the fundamental in natural science. That was not possible in 1930; but it is possible today. 'The older kind of professional school did not know how to educate for professional design at an intellectual level appropriate to a university; the newer kind of school has nearly abdicated responsibility for training in the core professional skill. Thus we are faced with a problem of devising a professional school that can attain two objectives simultaneously; education in both artificial and natural science at a high intellectual level.. 'The kernel of the problem lies in the phrase "artificial science"., a science of artificial phenomena is always in imminent danger of dissolving and vanishing. The peculair properties of the artifact lie on the thin interface between the natural laws within it and the natural laws without. What can we say about it? What is there to study besides the boundary sciences - those that govern the means and the task environment? 'The artificial world is centered precisely on this interface between the inner and outer environments; it is concerned with attaining goals by adapting the former to the latter. The proper study o f those who are concerned with the artificial is the way in which
4
that adaptation o f means to environments is brought about - and central to that is the process o f design itself. The professional schools will reassume their
professional responsibilities just to the degree that they can discover a science of design, a body of intellectually tough, analytic, partly formalizable, partly emperical, teachable doctrine about the design process.' Simon then continues on to point out that this phenomenon is actually emerging. He cites programs in computer science and systems engineering. And of course, we know that these 'areas' are only two of the many analytical foundations of CAD/CAM. So my message to you on this point is simply that CAD/CAM, if taught in terms of fundamentals, can put engineering schools respectably back in the design and manufacturing arena. It is now generally agreed that our computer aids are the only viable means for integrating the ideas in the massive amounts of information. Therefore, we are de facto responsible for educating engineers about the fundamentals that will enable them to inegrate complex technical, economic, social and political ideas. Furthermore, CAD/CAM is a dynamic technology. If a technology is not static, then the university can be an agent of change. We have the power to educate people today with new knowledge and new attitudes. Tomorrow they will be able to attack the problems of society with a chance for more universally palatable solutions. It is with this realization and attitude that the phase 'new breed of professional' is used. This is not a call for us to establish the 'CAD engineer'. Rather, as we educate our student engineers in the well established disciplines, they must have a knowledge of the elements and ramifications of CAD/CAM. SCOPE
Having used 'CAD/CAM' several times already, it is probably obvious that I believe CAD and CAM are inextricably linked. Since the period 1961-66 when I designed my first NC milling machine and wrote my first interactive graphics CAD system, I have believed in the continuum of CAD and CAM. Yet, it is true that until recently, universities have pursued CAD and CAM as separate desciplines - CAD as computing applied by design engineers and CAM as computerized manufacturing. But, the fusion has taken place in industry and we must get in step. During a December 1976 meeting in Belgium, Dr Lewis Branscomb, Chief Scientist of IBM, was commenting on technology and productivity and said 'We have only just begun to realize the benefits from some.., innovations such as the use of computers for design automation, improved man-machine interaction, and process and assembly automation 3. It is interesting to note that some of these topics have traditionally been considered CAD, and others CAM. There seems to be international acceptance of the integration of CAD and CAM. In fact, all of the little advances in both areas have led to a result that is greater than the sum of the parts. This new communication and control structure is frequently referred to as 'computerintegrated production'. The general reason for this disappearing boundary between our young disciplines was stated at the same Belgium meeting by Philip Sadler, principal of Ashridge Management College at Berkhamsted.
computer-aided design
He said,'New technologies result in new systems or organization in the workplace, new relationships between men and systems of production, and requirements for new skills and abilities.' 3 A list showing how CAD/CAM can increase productivity is given in the Appendix. Looking at that list you can see how deeply CAD and CAM are intertwined. So with increasing productivity as our motivation, and CAD/CAM as the means, consider this a call for engineering educators to henceforth address CAD as a subset of the unified topic. Feel responsible for the whole area. ECONOMIC,
POLITICAL
AND SOCIAL
FORCES
The engineering designer has demands on him which are becoming increasingly severe. He is being asked to design products of higher reliability, for higher speed operation, at lower initial cost and at lower maintenance cost, yet incorporating safety assurances. On the other hand, he is to do this with a quicker response, incorporating constantly new technology and considering the latest manufacturing techniques. How then does CAD enhance productivity? CAD allows the designer to make more effective decisions per working hour. Drafting wages are going out of sight. 80% of a draftsman's time is spent updating archives. We are now beginning to see computer-aided drafting systems become available. Why not computer-aided design systems? What is the problem? Software! We have learned to use computer power effectively to produce new computer hardware. But we have not learned how to use computer power effectively to produce new computer software. This part of our profession is wide open for contribution. People who are now senior in industry have been out of school too long to have a computer background. In subjects other than computer applications they can expand and update their fundamentals. But for CAD/CAM they have no technical fundamentals to build on. Hence, we have a special responsibility here. In our own terminology, these experienced people need to be 'retrofitted'. This problem needs solving today, but will disappear as a problem by the year 2000 because we have initiated the remedy. We must seriously undertake this mission because of two distinct forces. First, even if there were a good selection of CAD/CAM educational programs available in the world, the output in terms of number of graduates would not meet the demand that we will experience in the next 20 years. Second, we need to capture the experience already possessed by the engineers being made methodologically obsolete. They know something that we do not know. They have the experience to show cost/benefit advantages. Knowing when to install CAD/CAM techniques is not only something we do not teach, we do not even know what to teach. This is well known to be an open problem and should be given serious study. Another very important loss of experience is occurring and we must train professionals who can do something about that too: the experience that resides with production personnel who now voluntarily override printed or tape errors is not being transferred to the new computer-based systems. CAD/CAM is not inherently good. It is only good if it takes one to a specific objective. This implies that one knows when one has reached one's goal. To date, there
volume 10 number 1 january 1978
are only three documented classes of industrial justification for CAD •
the output of precision production. lead-time savings. • better documentation.
•
The realities we are eager to see are listed in the Appendix. Since improving the quality of life for all mankind is our goal, let us look at some of the social forces that exist. CAD/CAM has changed the skill requirements of production workers from emphasis on motor or craft skills to emphasis on mental and perceptual skills 4. CAD/CAM is characterized as a sophisticated technology that requires multiskilled workers and worker-determined decentralized organization structures. While these changes in the traditional structure of our means of production have not been shown to be prerequisites for the introduction of CAD/CAM, there are indications that new structures could be more effective in dealing with sophisticated technologies. It can be anticipated that these new structures will raise many questions. The first question that usually comes to mind relates to job displacement. Management wants direct labour to be more productive, so we see encouragement for this shift from labour-intensive to capital-intensive technology. The theory is that, on balance, the increase in productivity will tend to reduce prices and hence expand output 3,s. So one should expect to see increases in employment accompany high productivity growth. However, the displaced individual, while he may see the net good, does not feel better about his need for security. This is discussed in great detail in a CI RP report by Dr Eugene Merchant on the technology assessment of the computer-integrated automatic factory 6 Furthermore, two assumptions are made in this reasoning which we must consider because we greatly influence the design of CAD and CAM equipment. First, it is assumed that capital will be available to develop capital-intensive means of production. However, there could be a serious shortage of capital over the next 10 to 15 years. So, we must reemphasize to our students the requirement for inexpensive CAD/CAM systems. Second, capital-intensive equipment is usually energy-intensive. Without saying more, it is obvious that we must educate students to develop energy-efficient means of production. There are other serious social questions, such as the increased leverage of large industries and the desirability of new small specialist industries. The point here is that we have a responsibility to include an awareness of these and other social concerns such as motivation and quality of life in our CAD/CAM teachings. But, let us not be too negative. There are positive social consequences also. CAD has the potential of providing designers with more complete information so that they can better achieve design goals. The potential exists for 'custom-made' products to be made available for small extra cost. Many other desirable possibilities, such as portability and comprehensive optimization, can be added to the list. The political issues related to CAD/CAM are not as Straightforward as the economic and social aspects already considered. In fact, they appear at a second level. Some of these issues have to do with energy, international law and the international monetary system. Applying this sophisticated technology to increase productivity is manifest as industrial substitution as I
5
have already described. But now, to accommodate the new roles for their production population, developed nations are systematically selling off their processing and assembling industries to countries of the Third World. We must realize when we teach CAD techniques, for designing electronic chips for example, that we have no CAM techniques to teach for some aspects of the production. Hence we force the exportation of assembly jobs. Another good example is international CAD networking. Several of my current PhD students are working on trying to quantify the economic, legal, political, security and sociological issues involved. And this whole topic can be raised either by our own multinational corporations or by developing countries of the Third World who do not want to have to relive our past. Clearly this 'new world order' or 'global-fairness revolution' is saying that our nations' means of production are having a new international role. So, let me remind you that in terms of political leverage we control the training of the people who will provide the new means of production. Question: Are we ready to be responsible for this kind of power?
TEACHING CAD/CAM On the subject of teaching CAD/CAM let me begin by making my point. We must teach fundamentals. If we teach only technique, we will produce students that will not understand what a CAD system is doing for them. And if we consider the few students who will be CAD system architects - without the fundamentals - they will not be able to conceive creatively of potential new configurations for our means of production. I have already discussed the fact that we are dealing with a dynamic topic. This means that our courses will have particularly short lives. So in terms of our curricula we have no choice. We must work hard to keep up-to-date and teach fundamentals. We are all going to be very busy trying to do a quality job. In a 1972 paper entitled 'Foundations of the many manifestations of computer augmented design' 7, I spelled out in detail what the foundations of CAD are. I also explained why they are important and in fact why they are indeed foundation topics. The foundations were grouped into four areas: mathematics, information processing, engineering analysis and hardware/software systems. In a 1976 meeting, the fundamentals of CAD systems were examined as reported in a book of the same title 8. There, the consideration was intentionally not application oriented. And the subject was covered by considering: executive systems, command languages, data structures and hardware. Why then, am I now calling on the one hand for teaching fundamentals - which have been well documented - while on the other hand I am asking you to include economic, social and political concerns in your teachings? The answer is easy even though accomplishment will be difficult. We have been techicians ourselves! And narrow-minded ones at that! We knew better, but it was too tough. Time is up. Consider the points that I made in the beginning of this address. Be intellectuals. Look at the big picture of the world order. Realize the keystone: productivity. Understand that this means we must view CAD and CAM. We must teach
6
fundamentals, but yet prepare students to enter a world crawling with economic, social and political problems. Let us stand tall, take a deep breath, grit our teeth and admit that we have been taking the uncomplicated road. Let us consider ourselves as a new class of educator. We will embrace all of our fundamentals - as difficult as that may be. We will stride full speed into the technical literature and expositions and we will become knowledgeable about fibre optics, variable-architecture microcomputers, optical computing, bubble memories, computer networking and more. We will continue our efforts in man-machine interaction by developing expertise in cognition and concept attainment. As we assume our rightful stance with one foot in design (planning) and the other in production (execution), we will relate our efforts to distributed computing, we will plan to take advantage of group technology and we will be cognizant of how new manufacturing techniques affect not only designs, but the design process. We wilt realize that increasing productivity using CAD/CAM means the design of fabrication schema. We will broaden our horizons and assert ourselves in teaching social and political concerns. Let me remind you again: we are educating the people who will develop the means of production for tomorrow's world. As the fanfare of CAD dies down in the coming years, our students will have all sorts of second-level sociological problems to solve on both the local and the international scale, lust as it takes a computer to test a computer, it takes a broad-gauge intellectual to educate one. What can we expect by the year 2000? If we do our job properly in the next 20 years we will not exist as a speciality at the turn of the century. All engineering will use our techniques and we will be amalgamated into the mainstream. Be prepared to become commonplace. I n a world that is anticipating cost-effective videophones, aquaculture farming to help avert a world food crisis, space manufacturing in zero-G environments, economical robots and direct augmentation of the human brain by computer, we are still trying to establish international hardware and software standards and guidelines for introducing CAD/CAM in new environments. If we try, we can keep up with technical developments that will provide us with new tools. But are we capable of focusing our efforts on the important problems? I am asking you to broaden your influence, and function as educators of people who will shape the world's new means of production.
CLOSURE In closing I will first list the major points I have made • • • • •
•
We influence the singlemost important aspect of our nations' means of production We can put engineering schools respectably back in the design and manufacturing arena Our methods hold the key to successfully integrating complex technical, economic, social and political ideas We must address and feel responsible for the unified topic of CAD/CAM We must teach fundamentals, but also prepare well informed professionals: it takes a broad-gauge intellectual to educate one We must be prepared to become commonplace.
computer-aideddesign
Ask yourself some questions. What really is the place of CAD in education? What sort of teaching schema do we need? If the topic is really this dynamic, how do we contrive a whole new approach to pedagogical interaction with industry? Most of us are going to be around in the year 2000 to usher in the post industrial age. So let me ask the big question: Is increased productivity a product of the information-processing revolution or will information processing become known as the most important tool of the productivity revolution? REFERENCES
1 Appleton, D S 'Productivity improvement through MIS strategies,' Society of Manufacturing Engineers, MS76735 (1976) pp12 2 Simon, H A The sciences of the art/f/c/a/ MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. (1969). 3 Valery, N 'The future isn't what it used to be,' New ScL (13 January 1977) pp71-73 4 Hetzner, W A 'Identification of socio-technical research affecting production' Fourth NSF/RANN Grantee's Conf. Prod. Res. Techno/. (1976) p153 5 Connole, A W 'Automation and the man - machine interface' Proc. Automation Res. Counc/I D/screte Manuf. Ind. Workshop (February 1974) p 125 6 Merchant, M E 'Final report of technology assessmentof the computer integrated automatic factory' Ann. CIRP Vol 25 No 2 (1976) 7 Vlietstra, J and Wielinga, R F (eds) Computer-o/ded des/gn, North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam, (1973) 8 Allan J J, III (ed) CADsystems North-Holland Publishing Company, New York (I 977)
volume 10 number 1 january 1978
APPENDIX.
WAYS CAD/CAM
CAN INCREASE
PRODUCTIVITY CAD/CAM can • shorten production lead times • make the response to requests for quotations quicker • in analysis, make the recognition of component interactions easier • even out the workload ( l a y o f f - hiring) • minimize transcription errors (design-to-NC) • help avoid subcontracting to meet schedules • make the management of design manpower more effective • enrich the engineering organization with technical cross-fertilization • shift the chronological order of the design process because of tooling lead-time savings • help initiate more meaningful R&D because of the integration with current production practice • provide better cost control • lead to easier customer modifications • provide the potential for using more existing parts and tool i ng • help ensure designs appropriate to existing manufacturing techniques • assist in providing more customer inputs into designs • savematerials and machining time by optimization algorithms • help provide better response to warranties • effectively integrate regulatory policies into the design process • reduce engineering manpower • provide better functional analysis to reduce prototype testing • provide operational results on the status of work in progress
7
MOTIVATION We all have a basic motivation that is independent of our national origin. That is, ~ve want our students to learn fundamental concepts that they can later apply to increase industrial productivity: productivity as used here means quantity and quality. Examining the production of goods and services, we clearly see that there are planning functions and execution functions. And we realize that there are two keys to productivity improvement • performing as many production activities as possible in parallel • identifying similarities among production elements and executing the required activities at minimum cost 1 . In practice then, we must educate our students to change the structure of the basic information and materialprocessing components of our means of production. We must teach principles that will allow a customer's goods and services to be produced with due attention, but with a functional focus on 'groups' of production elements. The industrial revolution contributed many ideas for increasing productivity. The foremost of these ideas was assembly-line production. Now, we are in the informationprocessing revolution. And I submit to you that during our professional lifetime, CAD/CAM will emerge as the major contributor to increased industrial productivity. This implies that what we teach and the way we teach it will influence the singlemost important aspect o f our nations' means of production. This awesome responsibility could be a very frightening prospect. However, while we are prepared intellectually for this challenge, we are not completely prepared. As citizens of the international engineering community we Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of Center for Special Studies, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275, USA. This article is based on the Keynote Address given at
CAD-ED, TeessidePolytechnic, Middlesbrough, UK on 13 July 1977.
volume 10 number 1 january 1978
must work together, prodigiously, to educate the people in our charge to be a new breed of professional. And we cannot approach this task in a lackadaisical manner, for we are utilizing a most transient technology. You have probably all felt the change in peer attitude during the last five years. Prior to 1972, engineering educators who emphasized CAD/CAM were generally considered 'lower class'. We were the ones who ostensibly could not handle 'analysis'. However, a new age of awareness has developed. More than ever, engineering problems require the integration of many concerns other than technical. Teaching the fundamentals of CAD/CAM is unique in our lifetime from a pedagogical point of view. In his book The sciences o f the artificial, Herbert A Simon 2 eloquently explains how the sciences of the artificial have almost been driven from the engineering schools. 'Historically and traditionally, it has been the task of the science disciplines to teach about natural things: how they are and how they work. It has been the task of engineering schools to teach about artificial things: how to make artifacts that have desired properties and how to design. 'Engineers are not the only professional designers. Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. The intellectual activity that produces material artifacts is no different fundamentally from the one that prescribes remedies for a sick patient or the one that devises a new sales plan for a company or a social welfare policy for a state. Design, so construed, is the core of all professional training; it is the principal mark that distinguishes the professions from the sciences. Schools of engineering, as well as schools of architecture, business, education, law, and medicine, are all centrally concerned with the process of design. 'In view of the key role of design in professional activity, it is ironic that in this century the natural sciences have almost driven the sciences of the artificial from professional school curricula. Engineering schools have become schools of physics and mathematics; medical schools have become schools of biological science; business schools have become schools of finite mathematics. The use of adjectives like "applied" conceals, but does not change, the f a c t . . . 'The movement toward natural science and away from the sciences of the artificial has proceeded further and faster in engineering, business, and medicine than in the other professional fields...
3
'Such a universal phenomenon must have a basic cause. It does have a very obvious one. As professional schools, including the independent engineering schools, are more and more absorbed into the general culture of the university, they hanker after academic respectability. In terms of the prevailing norms, academic respectability calls for subject matter that is intellectually tough, analytic, formatizable, and teachable. In the past, much, if not most, of what we knew about design and about the artificial sciences was intellectually soft, intuitive, informal, and cookbooky. Why would anyone in a university stoop to teach or learn about designing machines when he could concern himself with solid-state physics? The answer has been clear: he usually wouldn't. 'The problem is widely recognized in engineering and medicine, today, and to a lesser extent in business. Some do not think it a problem, because they regard schools of applied science as a superior alternative to the trade schools of the past. If that were the choice, we could agree. 'That was, in fact, the choice in our engineering schools a generation ago. The schools needed to be purged of vocationalism; and a genuine science of design did not exist, even in a rudimentary form, as an alternative. Hence, the road forward was the road toward introducing more fundamental science. Karl Taylor Compton was one of the prominent leaders in this reform, which was a main theme in his presidential inaugural address at M.I.T. in 1930: "1 h o p e . . , that increasing attention in the Institute may be given to the fundamental sciences; that they may achieve as never before the spirit and results of research; that all courses of instruction may be examined carefully to see where training in details has been unduly emphasized at the expense of the more powerful training in all-embracing fundamental principles." 'Notice that President Compton's emphasis was on "fundamental," an emphasis as sound today as it was in 1930. What I am u r g i n g . . , is not a departure from the fundamental but an inclusion in the curriculum of the fundamental in engineering along with the fundamental in natural science. That was not possible in 1930; but it is possible today. 'The older kind of professional school did not know how to educate for professional design at an intellectual level appropriate to a university; the newer kind of school has nearly abdicated responsibility for training in the core professional skill. Thus we are faced with a problem of devising a professional school that can attain two objectives simultaneously; education in both artificial and natural science at a high intellectual level.. 'The kernel of the problem lies in the phrase "artificial science"., a science of artificial phenomena is always in imminent danger of dissolving and vanishing. The peculair properties of the artifact lie on the thin interface between the natural laws within it and the natural laws without. What can we say about it? What is there to study besides the boundary sciences - those that govern the means and the task environment? 'The artificial world is centered precisely on this interface between the inner and outer environments; it is concerned with attaining goals by adapting the former to the latter. The proper study o f those who are concerned with the artificial is the way in which
4
that adaptation o f means to environments is brought about - and central to that is the process o f design itself. The professional schools will reassume their
professional responsibilities just to the degree that they can discover a science of design, a body of intellectually tough, analytic, partly formalizable, partly emperical, teachable doctrine about the design process.' Simon then continues on to point out that this phenomenon is actually emerging. He cites programs in computer science and systems engineering. And of course, we know that these 'areas' are only two of the many analytical foundations of CAD/CAM. So my message to you on this point is simply that CAD/CAM, if taught in terms of fundamentals, can put engineering schools respectably back in the design and manufacturing arena. It is now generally agreed that our computer aids are the only viable means for integrating the ideas in the massive amounts of information. Therefore, we are de facto responsible for educating engineers about the fundamentals that will enable them to inegrate complex technical, economic, social and political ideas. Furthermore, CAD/CAM is a dynamic technology. If a technology is not static, then the university can be an agent of change. We have the power to educate people today with new knowledge and new attitudes. Tomorrow they will be able to attack the problems of society with a chance for more universally palatable solutions. It is with this realization and attitude that the phase 'new breed of professional' is used. This is not a call for us to establish the 'CAD engineer'. Rather, as we educate our student engineers in the well established disciplines, they must have a knowledge of the elements and ramifications of CAD/CAM. SCOPE
Having used 'CAD/CAM' several times already, it is probably obvious that I believe CAD and CAM are inextricably linked. Since the period 1961-66 when I designed my first NC milling machine and wrote my first interactive graphics CAD system, I have believed in the continuum of CAD and CAM. Yet, it is true that until recently, universities have pursued CAD and CAM as separate desciplines - CAD as computing applied by design engineers and CAM as computerized manufacturing. But, the fusion has taken place in industry and we must get in step. During a December 1976 meeting in Belgium, Dr Lewis Branscomb, Chief Scientist of IBM, was commenting on technology and productivity and said 'We have only just begun to realize the benefits from some.., innovations such as the use of computers for design automation, improved man-machine interaction, and process and assembly automation 3. It is interesting to note that some of these topics have traditionally been considered CAD, and others CAM. There seems to be international acceptance of the integration of CAD and CAM. In fact, all of the little advances in both areas have led to a result that is greater than the sum of the parts. This new communication and control structure is frequently referred to as 'computerintegrated production'. The general reason for this disappearing boundary between our young disciplines was stated at the same Belgium meeting by Philip Sadler, principal of Ashridge Management College at Berkhamsted.
computer-aided design
He said,'New technologies result in new systems or organization in the workplace, new relationships between men and systems of production, and requirements for new skills and abilities.' 3 A list showing how CAD/CAM can increase productivity is given in the Appendix. Looking at that list you can see how deeply CAD and CAM are intertwined. So with increasing productivity as our motivation, and CAD/CAM as the means, consider this a call for engineering educators to henceforth address CAD as a subset of the unified topic. Feel responsible for the whole area. ECONOMIC,
POLITICAL
AND SOCIAL
FORCES
The engineering designer has demands on him which are becoming increasingly severe. He is being asked to design products of higher reliability, for higher speed operation, at lower initial cost and at lower maintenance cost, yet incorporating safety assurances. On the other hand, he is to do this with a quicker response, incorporating constantly new technology and considering the latest manufacturing techniques. How then does CAD enhance productivity? CAD allows the designer to make more effective decisions per working hour. Drafting wages are going out of sight. 80% of a draftsman's time is spent updating archives. We are now beginning to see computer-aided drafting systems become available. Why not computer-aided design systems? What is the problem? Software! We have learned to use computer power effectively to produce new computer hardware. But we have not learned how to use computer power effectively to produce new computer software. This part of our profession is wide open for contribution. People who are now senior in industry have been out of school too long to have a computer background. In subjects other than computer applications they can expand and update their fundamentals. But for CAD/CAM they have no technical fundamentals to build on. Hence, we have a special responsibility here. In our own terminology, these experienced people need to be 'retrofitted'. This problem needs solving today, but will disappear as a problem by the year 2000 because we have initiated the remedy. We must seriously undertake this mission because of two distinct forces. First, even if there were a good selection of CAD/CAM educational programs available in the world, the output in terms of number of graduates would not meet the demand that we will experience in the next 20 years. Second, we need to capture the experience already possessed by the engineers being made methodologically obsolete. They know something that we do not know. They have the experience to show cost/benefit advantages. Knowing when to install CAD/CAM techniques is not only something we do not teach, we do not even know what to teach. This is well known to be an open problem and should be given serious study. Another very important loss of experience is occurring and we must train professionals who can do something about that too: the experience that resides with production personnel who now voluntarily override printed or tape errors is not being transferred to the new computer-based systems. CAD/CAM is not inherently good. It is only good if it takes one to a specific objective. This implies that one knows when one has reached one's goal. To date, there
volume 10 number 1 january 1978
are only three documented classes of industrial justification for CAD •
the output of precision production. lead-time savings. • better documentation.
•
The realities we are eager to see are listed in the Appendix. Since improving the quality of life for all mankind is our goal, let us look at some of the social forces that exist. CAD/CAM has changed the skill requirements of production workers from emphasis on motor or craft skills to emphasis on mental and perceptual skills 4. CAD/CAM is characterized as a sophisticated technology that requires multiskilled workers and worker-determined decentralized organization structures. While these changes in the traditional structure of our means of production have not been shown to be prerequisites for the introduction of CAD/CAM, there are indications that new structures could be more effective in dealing with sophisticated technologies. It can be anticipated that these new structures will raise many questions. The first question that usually comes to mind relates to job displacement. Management wants direct labour to be more productive, so we see encouragement for this shift from labour-intensive to capital-intensive technology. The theory is that, on balance, the increase in productivity will tend to reduce prices and hence expand output 3,s. So one should expect to see increases in employment accompany high productivity growth. However, the displaced individual, while he may see the net good, does not feel better about his need for security. This is discussed in great detail in a CI RP report by Dr Eugene Merchant on the technology assessment of the computer-integrated automatic factory 6 Furthermore, two assumptions are made in this reasoning which we must consider because we greatly influence the design of CAD and CAM equipment. First, it is assumed that capital will be available to develop capital-intensive means of production. However, there could be a serious shortage of capital over the next 10 to 15 years. So, we must reemphasize to our students the requirement for inexpensive CAD/CAM systems. Second, capital-intensive equipment is usually energy-intensive. Without saying more, it is obvious that we must educate students to develop energy-efficient means of production. There are other serious social questions, such as the increased leverage of large industries and the desirability of new small specialist industries. The point here is that we have a responsibility to include an awareness of these and other social concerns such as motivation and quality of life in our CAD/CAM teachings. But, let us not be too negative. There are positive social consequences also. CAD has the potential of providing designers with more complete information so that they can better achieve design goals. The potential exists for 'custom-made' products to be made available for small extra cost. Many other desirable possibilities, such as portability and comprehensive optimization, can be added to the list. The political issues related to CAD/CAM are not as Straightforward as the economic and social aspects already considered. In fact, they appear at a second level. Some of these issues have to do with energy, international law and the international monetary system. Applying this sophisticated technology to increase productivity is manifest as industrial substitution as I
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have already described. But now, to accommodate the new roles for their production population, developed nations are systematically selling off their processing and assembling industries to countries of the Third World. We must realize when we teach CAD techniques, for designing electronic chips for example, that we have no CAM techniques to teach for some aspects of the production. Hence we force the exportation of assembly jobs. Another good example is international CAD networking. Several of my current PhD students are working on trying to quantify the economic, legal, political, security and sociological issues involved. And this whole topic can be raised either by our own multinational corporations or by developing countries of the Third World who do not want to have to relive our past. Clearly this 'new world order' or 'global-fairness revolution' is saying that our nations' means of production are having a new international role. So, let me remind you that in terms of political leverage we control the training of the people who will provide the new means of production. Question: Are we ready to be responsible for this kind of power?
TEACHING CAD/CAM On the subject of teaching CAD/CAM let me begin by making my point. We must teach fundamentals. If we teach only technique, we will produce students that will not understand what a CAD system is doing for them. And if we consider the few students who will be CAD system architects - without the fundamentals - they will not be able to conceive creatively of potential new configurations for our means of production. I have already discussed the fact that we are dealing with a dynamic topic. This means that our courses will have particularly short lives. So in terms of our curricula we have no choice. We must work hard to keep up-to-date and teach fundamentals. We are all going to be very busy trying to do a quality job. In a 1972 paper entitled 'Foundations of the many manifestations of computer augmented design' 7, I spelled out in detail what the foundations of CAD are. I also explained why they are important and in fact why they are indeed foundation topics. The foundations were grouped into four areas: mathematics, information processing, engineering analysis and hardware/software systems. In a 1976 meeting, the fundamentals of CAD systems were examined as reported in a book of the same title 8. There, the consideration was intentionally not application oriented. And the subject was covered by considering: executive systems, command languages, data structures and hardware. Why then, am I now calling on the one hand for teaching fundamentals - which have been well documented - while on the other hand I am asking you to include economic, social and political concerns in your teachings? The answer is easy even though accomplishment will be difficult. We have been techicians ourselves! And narrow-minded ones at that! We knew better, but it was too tough. Time is up. Consider the points that I made in the beginning of this address. Be intellectuals. Look at the big picture of the world order. Realize the keystone: productivity. Understand that this means we must view CAD and CAM. We must teach
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fundamentals, but yet prepare students to enter a world crawling with economic, social and political problems. Let us stand tall, take a deep breath, grit our teeth and admit that we have been taking the uncomplicated road. Let us consider ourselves as a new class of educator. We will embrace all of our fundamentals - as difficult as that may be. We will stride full speed into the technical literature and expositions and we will become knowledgeable about fibre optics, variable-architecture microcomputers, optical computing, bubble memories, computer networking and more. We will continue our efforts in man-machine interaction by developing expertise in cognition and concept attainment. As we assume our rightful stance with one foot in design (planning) and the other in production (execution), we will relate our efforts to distributed computing, we will plan to take advantage of group technology and we will be cognizant of how new manufacturing techniques affect not only designs, but the design process. We wilt realize that increasing productivity using CAD/CAM means the design of fabrication schema. We will broaden our horizons and assert ourselves in teaching social and political concerns. Let me remind you again: we are educating the people who will develop the means of production for tomorrow's world. As the fanfare of CAD dies down in the coming years, our students will have all sorts of second-level sociological problems to solve on both the local and the international scale, lust as it takes a computer to test a computer, it takes a broad-gauge intellectual to educate one. What can we expect by the year 2000? If we do our job properly in the next 20 years we will not exist as a speciality at the turn of the century. All engineering will use our techniques and we will be amalgamated into the mainstream. Be prepared to become commonplace. I n a world that is anticipating cost-effective videophones, aquaculture farming to help avert a world food crisis, space manufacturing in zero-G environments, economical robots and direct augmentation of the human brain by computer, we are still trying to establish international hardware and software standards and guidelines for introducing CAD/CAM in new environments. If we try, we can keep up with technical developments that will provide us with new tools. But are we capable of focusing our efforts on the important problems? I am asking you to broaden your influence, and function as educators of people who will shape the world's new means of production.
CLOSURE In closing I will first list the major points I have made • • • • •
•
We influence the singlemost important aspect of our nations' means of production We can put engineering schools respectably back in the design and manufacturing arena Our methods hold the key to successfully integrating complex technical, economic, social and political ideas We must address and feel responsible for the unified topic of CAD/CAM We must teach fundamentals, but also prepare well informed professionals: it takes a broad-gauge intellectual to educate one We must be prepared to become commonplace.
computer-aideddesign
Ask yourself some questions. What really is the place of CAD in education? What sort of teaching schema do we need? If the topic is really this dynamic, how do we contrive a whole new approach to pedagogical interaction with industry? Most of us are going to be around in the year 2000 to usher in the post industrial age. So let me ask the big question: Is increased productivity a product of the information-processing revolution or will information processing become known as the most important tool of the productivity revolution? REFERENCES
1 Appleton, D S 'Productivity improvement through MIS strategies,' Society of Manufacturing Engineers, MS76735 (1976) pp12 2 Simon, H A The sciences of the art/f/c/a/ MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. (1969). 3 Valery, N 'The future isn't what it used to be,' New ScL (13 January 1977) pp71-73 4 Hetzner, W A 'Identification of socio-technical research affecting production' Fourth NSF/RANN Grantee's Conf. Prod. Res. Techno/. (1976) p153 5 Connole, A W 'Automation and the man - machine interface' Proc. Automation Res. Counc/I D/screte Manuf. Ind. Workshop (February 1974) p 125 6 Merchant, M E 'Final report of technology assessmentof the computer integrated automatic factory' Ann. CIRP Vol 25 No 2 (1976) 7 Vlietstra, J and Wielinga, R F (eds) Computer-o/ded des/gn, North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam, (1973) 8 Allan J J, III (ed) CADsystems North-Holland Publishing Company, New York (I 977)
volume 10 number 1 january 1978
APPENDIX.
WAYS CAD/CAM
CAN INCREASE
PRODUCTIVITY CAD/CAM can • shorten production lead times • make the response to requests for quotations quicker • in analysis, make the recognition of component interactions easier • even out the workload ( l a y o f f - hiring) • minimize transcription errors (design-to-NC) • help avoid subcontracting to meet schedules • make the management of design manpower more effective • enrich the engineering organization with technical cross-fertilization • shift the chronological order of the design process because of tooling lead-time savings • help initiate more meaningful R&D because of the integration with current production practice • provide better cost control • lead to easier customer modifications • provide the potential for using more existing parts and tool i ng • help ensure designs appropriate to existing manufacturing techniques • assist in providing more customer inputs into designs • savematerials and machining time by optimization algorithms • help provide better response to warranties • effectively integrate regulatory policies into the design process • reduce engineering manpower • provide better functional analysis to reduce prototype testing • provide operational results on the status of work in progress
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