Engineers are also consumers. This

inescapable fact was not so important in

times gone by when engineers would specify

components either direct from individual suppliers

or from weighty catalogues that were protectively

filed on a shelf above the drawing board.

While the web has made the whole research,

specification and purchasing process significantly

quicker, the online business experience of the

engineer has fallen well short of the consumer

experience. And an additional factor is that mobile

devices and the communications infrastructure

might, we complain, make us ‘always at work’,

there is also an element of us also being ‘always a

consumer’.

Consequently, the same people who can

download a remastered prog rock album (we are

talking about engineers here!) in a couple of clicks

are starting to expect this level of functionality

within their CAD environment. But, according to

Colin Johnson, managing director of CADENAS

Solutions UK, expectations are not being met. He

said: “What I find with UK suppliers websites is

that they don’t really quite measure up to the

expectations that we have as consumers. What I

think manufacturers [suppliers] need to realise is

they should be looking at their own websites as if

they were the engineer. There is a subtle difference

- as consumers we find and research information

through choice. For engineers, it is their job.”

As a trend, despite the slow take up in some

quarters that Johnson describes, it would appear

inevitable that online information will be required to

be instantly available. “Some of the distributors

are already catching on and realising they need

some form of an e-shop type functionality or to at

least be able to select and choose the right

information on a product,” said Johnson.

But is that going far enough? Is it supplying

what engineers actually need? Not so according to

Johnson: “When you think about an engineer who

is researching and designing, most now use a 3D

CAD tool. And when they’re researching, they

need to be able to configure, tailor and select and

download content in 3D, the reason being because

they want to be able to incorporate that into their

designs. Without that 3D content, they have to

remodel it themselves from the data sheets. It is

time they don’t have.”

The notion of having 3D files available to email

when engineers ask, as many companies do,

shows a lack of understanding of how engineers

are developing their designs, claims Johnson. “By

the time he gets to picking up the phone and

speaking to a company, he’s a long way down the

sales cycle already; he’s done a large proportion of

his research. Actually, if you haven’t got the tools

and the 3D content already on your website, he’s

probably moved on to a competitor who already

has.” The argument follows that the decision to use

a component is made much earlier in the design

process and that decision may well be influenced

by the ready availability of a 3D CAD file.

Consumers drive engineersexpectationsThe way that engineers are specifying components is undergoing a rapid and radical transformation.

www.cadenas.co.uk

Colin Johnson, managingdirector of CADENASSolutions UK

VISION2O2O

According to a survey by CADENAS if an

engineer was looking for a particular product and it

wasn’t available in 3D format, 75% said they

would choose an alternative supplier. In coming

years that last figure is only go to rise. Another

interesting figure is that 87% of engineers, who

download the 3D CAD of a part, end up purchasing

it and including it in their final design.

It is a business need that CADENAS

endeavours to satisfy with its online catalogue that

features the 3D CAD files from around 700

suppliers. Although new to the UK the company

has actually been around since 1992, launching its

first Electronic Product Catalog three years later

and in 2014 achieved 100,000,000 CAD file

downloads, now running at a rate of 15 million

downloads a month. All main 3D (and 2D) file

formats are supported including Creo, Inventor, NX

and Solidworks, and this includes all previous

versions not just the current one.

Johnson claims that this immediate availability

of useable models supports another emerging

trend – that of customisation. It is something that

consumers are increasingly looking for, possibly as

simple as changes of colour or materials, but again

it applies to engineers who are looking to tweak

performance for their customers. “In the design

environment the trend is more and more, to have

the ability to configure and customise designs

online. This is where we can help, where it’s not a

unique design, with the ability to configure options

and variants to tailor the actual end product.”

This is not just relating to individual parts but

can be applied to a whole system. “The engineer

can provide the requirements of the application,”

said Johnson “We can look at all the options and

variants and within minutes you can get full bill of

materials, full quotation online price and the actual

PDF custom quotation.”

Having immediate and free access to 3D CAD

files is a progressing and inevitable trend. It is hard

to imagine any area of information provision where

such a trend is not replicated as that consumer

expectation rapidly filters through to the business

and technical domains. There are obvious big

advantages for the engineer, but are there

disadvantages as well? Is there a risk that

expertise is undermined or lost. Often the supplier

has more to offer than just products, they provide

invaluable application experience and knowledge.

“Absolutely, there will always be a place for

that face-to-face customer interaction,” added

Johnson. “In more complex design projects then

the partnership approach between engineer and

suppliers can be critical to success. But even in

these cases, when the relationship is set up

engineers can use a system like ours for

repurchasing or when they are working on

fundamentally the same product but making small

differences to it when they no longer require that

personal touch.”

A platform such as CADENAS represents a

breakthrough in the way that the business world

has caught up with the faster moving consumer

sector, but having got there we are now more likely

to see B2B and B2C developing more in parallel.

Johnson said: “For example, I see in the future the

ability to combine both images and material

information and use that in order to search and

interrogate catalogues. So not only will you type in

your text, you combine both a 3D scan with

material information that you’ve picked up, and you

aggregate that together to be able to search.”

Johnson concluded: “If I could pick one trend

for engineers it is that they can now realistically

expect their expectations to be realised.”

3d cad

CADENAS Solutions UKCADENAS is a leading software manufacturer in the areasStrategic Parts Management and parts reduction(PARTsolutions) as well as Electronic Product Catalogs(eCATALOGsolutions). With its customised software solutionsthe company acts as a link between componentmanufacturers and their products, and the buyers.With its 300 employees in 17 locations worldwide, the nameCADENAS (Spanish for ‘chains’) has stood for success,creativity, support, and process optimisation since 1992.

25,3 %

74,7 %

No

YesWill you choose one supplier over another because they have 3D CAD data for you to download?

86,6 %

11,1 %2,3 %

Yes

NoIndifferent

When you download a 3D CAD part into your design will this part be purchased?