Seeing is believing

Computer-aided technologies have always been an essential part of IT. Being a

dynamic market it has seen a number of changes which have come about due to the

numerous R&D efforts of vendors in the space. The computer-aided design and

computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) market in India is poised for growth with

foreign manufacturing players eying the country for its cheap skilled labor. The

Indian market has evolved over the years with respect to the manufacturing

companies who are faced with increasing demand for better products, higher

number of product variants and bringing new products faster to market at a

competitive price.

While CAD refers to the use of computer technology for the design of objects,

CAM refers to the use of computer-based software tools that help engineers and

machinists manufacture or prototype product components.

Benefiting from CAD/CAM


Speaking about the CAD/CAM market Vivek Marwaha, Director-Marketing, Siemens PLM

Software, India, said, “The challenge facing today's manufacturers is to be able

to turn more ideas into successful products quickly and while doing so take

greatest advantage of the resources that they have available to them through

greater productivity and more efficient processes. CAD/CAM software tools are

helping Indian manufacturing companies establish an environment to deal with

these issues and the complexity that they bring.” Marwaha explained that these

tools can help companies execute the activities that are required to build the

right product and build the product right.

Sharing his thoughts on the market, Jayant Keswani, Head, Marketing, Autodesk

India & SAARC said, “The CAD/CAM segment has witnessed a surge owing to an

increased importance of design as a competitive advantage for business. The

initial push came from the design-related work being outsourced to India by

companies in the West. The last few years have definitely seen increased

activity in the Indian CAD/CAM space with design product vendors realizing the

importance of India as a cost-effective destination for outsourcing work.”

Giving figures on the market, Keswani said that globally, the market size for

CAD-authoring tools is a bigger pie of approximately $20 billion, while

collaborative product data management or process-oriented tools have a market

size of close to $8-10 billion.

As local demand for design-related work steadily increases there is growing

potential for the growth of the CAD/ CAM business.

Rolta India is another player in the niche area of CAD/CAE/CAM. The company

offers computer graphics, mapping and engineering software. KK Singh, Chairman

and MD, Rolta India has been a pioneer in the space. Speaking about how the

company has continued to hold on to its position in the market, Singh said, “We

hold brain-storming sessions to keep a tab on the changing technologies and

changing scenarios. We sense the pulse of market needs and reorient and update

ourselves with the latest technologies.”

Hurdles on the way



While the fact is that many foreign manufacturing companies are eying India
for the cheap skilled labor, it is also the hurdle in its track to achieving

success. CAD/CAM's potential is not being realized due to the lack of skilled

labor. Getting customers to institute change in their processes and execution of

processes in a disciplined manner to be able to fully harness the capabilities

of such tools is also a challenge. While engaging with small to medium

businesses another difficulty comes in the form of overcoming their mindsets

that 3D CAD system are expensive, difficult to use and manage, and amount to

loss of their legacy 2D data.

Enhancing adoption


For a vendor to enhance the adoption of their solutions it is important that

they offer value-addition to their clients. Apart from offering the products and

solutions, it is important that vendors and their implementation partners offer

training and support infrastructure to their customers so that they can harness

the potential of these solutions.

Addressing the issue of lack of skilled manpower Keswani shared that Autodesk

is facilitating the availability of skilled resources through the setting-up of

centers of excellence at National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad and

Bengaluru campuses; IIT Kanpur; IIT Chennai; JJ College of Architecture; School

of Planning and Management in Mumbai.

CAD software market is witnessing an increase in demand due to the increased

adoption by SMEs. In recent times, there has been an increased focus on return

on investment (RoI) by companies.

Channel role



Today leading CAD CAM software providers are looking at additional capacity

in the sales and support capability through more number of sales and support

personnel serving the Indian market, to help address the growing demand for such

software solutions and services.

Giving his advice to channel partners, Marwaha mentioned, “Sales of CAD CAM

software tools provides a good platform to upgrade and scale up one's ability to

sell and support enterprise applications like product lifecycle management (PLM).

The natural progression of a customer's deployment from a CAD system to a PDM/PLM

system, can be matched by a CAD reseller's capability to offer similar systems.”

RUTH SAMSON


(ruths@cybermedia.co.in)