Nowadays, design engineering is playing a much more significant role. The world’s largest organizations employ a third of design engineers and 67% of engineers are employed by startup companies. Newer companies are understanding the need for these experts in the technical field since everything that is made is designed by them through innovative technology.

New software has enabled a futuristic way of designing virtually anything. CAD and CAE are computer-aided drafting and engineering programs which create a virtual model of the product engineers design. This way of designing has mostly replaced the physical replica and small-scale models. The old way was expensive and took quite a bit more time to make.

Now, let us look at some of the things engineers use and the design trends for this year:

1.       Green Products And Energy Efficiency

Many companies are finding it difficult to move their products when they do not use green production practices. Considering this, there is a very high demand for new machines, or other products, that need to be as energy efficient as possible. The design engineers must incorporate these features into their designs. The technology is better for the environment, saves the company money, and is not more expensive to make.

2.       Make Way For All Smart Products

A lot of designs are demanding for incorporating ways to make smart products. This is especially true for products that are used during construction, such as ICON trench box whose engineers work hard to create an ultra lightweight design with the highest quality and maximum strength.

Innovation in designing products and manufacturing them don’t go unnoticed to dedicated companies. By visiting Weiss-Aug.com, you will see that they recognized this need and used it to provide innovative and technically sophisticated custom insert injection molding, precision metal stamping and automated assembly solutions.

And we don’t have to go that far. Thermostats, lights, heating and cooling, in-house Wi-Fi, and other technologies are now able to communicate with each other. They are also mostly controllable through your smartphone, tablet, or computer even if you are not in the building. Smart products are being manufactured increasingly because they save companies time and money.

3.       CAD is in the Cloud

New software is being engineered all the time. This year, the big hype about CAD is that it is moving to a cloud-based system. This means that all work that is done by one person can be securely accessed by another on their team, so the collaboration between them is seamless. This has increased efficiency and decreased design time, saving the company a lot of money. More products can be designed each year as well.

4.       CAE Is The New Way

Computer-aided engineering is the new norm for designing products. It is a much more advanced software for improving and optimizing products. Some engineers will use both CAD and CAE depending on the budget their department has because licensing for these programs can be expensive.

CAE gives the engineer more features such as heat sensing in the product, conductivity, and circuitry. People that make electronic chips and boards use this software to design the product before it is made.

Moving Forward

These engineering trends are the new way of designing products with modern technology. Every day, they are evolving, changing, and improving.

By Chakraborty

Dr Chakrabarty is the Chief Innovation Officer of IntuiComp TeraScience. Earlier she was Assistant Professor of Delhi University, a QS ranked university in India. Before that she has held research positions in IIT Mumbai, IIT Chennai and IISc Bangalore. She holds 2 patents and over 20 research publications in her name which are highly cited. Her area of research is in smart technologies, integrated devices and communications. She also has a penchant for blogging and is an editor of Business Fundas.