One of the biggest collateral losers in the rush to take manufacture to low labour cost countries was the design engineer. As a young engineer, myself, working in the space industry, I found it invaluable to go down to a manufacturing hall to see how my CAD model turns into something physical. Inevitably, I would be told by an experienced hand that my design was a nightmare to manufacture and that ‘in theory’, ‘on paper’, and ‘on screen’, does not mean that in practice it is the best design... or even a good one. Invaluable lessons learnt.
I’ve spoken to so many over the years that recall bad experiences with the Far East; that don’t see an end product until it is shipped back to the UK six months later. Then, they see compromise, poor build quality and even deviation from a drawing. But, what do you expect? The factory was probably trying to meet the exceptionally low unit cost they promised and have had to compromise certain aspects to make the physical product. The problem is the dialogue has been lost and compromise made without discussion. Neither engineer or manufacturer fully understands the other, ignoring the importance of a certain fillet or the limitations of a particular machine.
VR has the potential to allow the sorts of collaboration that makes design engineers rounded. To not only talk with colleagues in any location as if they are in front of you, but to walk through the manufacturing process, to visualise designs with production colleagues and be told, like I was, that ‘this, here, will be a problem’.
VR will do for design, what the mobile phone has done for communication. It will allow different skill sets to collaborate so all parties are fully aware of the physical limitations of their digital design decisions.
