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Autodesk Lays Out Vision for Future of Manufacturing

Categories: Sustainability in PD&M

From CAD to CAM and PLM; Making Great Products at Autodesk University

The global manufacturing industry is at the edge of a new era where industry forces are disrupting the status quo and reshaping how products are designed and made.

Three major catalysts for disruption echoed throughout the hallways of Autodesk University (AU) this week in Las Vegas: The means of production is changing; consumer demand is shifting; and products themselves are being redefined.

“In this new era of manufacturing, breakthrough innovation is within reach for the start-up, just like the industry titans,” said Diego Tamburini, Manufacturing Industry Strategist at Autodesk. “The democratization of the means of production has leveled the playing field, enabling a new set of players to compete with the incumbents, and – in some instances – even bring innovation to market faster. The design, engineering and manufacturing tools and processes people relied on in the past to be successful are not the same tools they will need in the future.”

During AU, Autodesk also discussed the recent advances in Autodesk software that are helping manufacturers succeed in this new era. The cloud plays an increasingly important role as a natural collaboration hub that brings with it incredible agility. 

Fusion 360

Autodesk Fusion 360 is central to the future of making great products; therefore, Autodesk announced that it will be made available at no additional cost for all Product Design Suite 2015 subscribers by the end of this quarter.

With Fusion 360, users can explore and iterate on product ideas quickly from concept to production. It also provides the context to understand all aspects of a project and collaborate with everyone participating through the use of A360. A360 modernizes the way people work together and captures all project information and activity, giving teams a central place to collaborate.

To extend Fusion 360 to anyone, anywhere and from any device, Autodesk also announced that in the future Fusion 360 will run entirely in the browser. For more information about updates coming to Fusion 360 next year, visit the Fusion blog.     

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)

Autodesk also officially unveiled a major advancement to Autodesk PLM 360: the inclusion of engineering CAD data management, or Cloud PDM, directly within the product. This new functionality will allow engineers to collaborate on designs and manage their work-in-process CAD data as intuitive and comfortable as opening and saving designs as they had when working without a PDM system. With the addition of CAD data management, PLM 360 now covers the entire concept-to-market workflow from engineering and beyond, making it the first ever end-to-end PLM solution in the cloud.

Other enhancements for PLM 360 include a new mobile app, an improved user interface and the ability to be able to upload, edit and share files from any application in any format. This includes not just documents and spreadsheets, but also imagery, graphic designs, presentations, videos, etc.

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Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM)

Finally, Autodesk announced the release of Inventor HSM Pro 2015, which adds support for 5-axis machining to Inventor HSM and includes a powerful CAD upgrade to Inventor Professional 2015.

Inventor HSM Pro will include Autodesk CAM’s 5-axis Contour and 5-Axis Swarf strategies, which allow users to benefit from the capabilities of their 5-axis machining centers and reduce setups. Inventor HSM Pro also takes CAD software to the next level with the inclusion of enhancements that aid in working with molds, tools and dies, and simulation and FEA for design validation. Inventor HSM Pro is an ideal tool for the small shop looking for a complete design-to-manufacturing solution.

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The Era of Connection

It’s clear that the future of manufacturing will be characterized by complex, multi-disciplinary systems, interconnected things and changing customer behavior and Autodesk is working to offer manufacturers big and small the tools they need to be successful. The output of our software in this era is no longer drawings or 3D models – it is better business outcomes. For more on making great products, refer to this video.