Effects

The Effects of CAD:

Starting in the late 1980s, the development of readily affordable CAD programs that could be run on personal computers began a trend of massive downsizing in drafting departments in many small to mid-size companies. As a general rule, one CAD operator could readily replace at least three or five drafters using traditional methods. Additionally, many engineers began to do their own drafting work, further eliminating the need for traditional drafting departments. This trend mirrored that of the elimination of many office jobs traditionally performed by a secretary as word processors, spread sheets, data bases , etc. became standard software packages that "everyone" was expected to learn.

Another consequence had been that since the latest advances were often quite expensive, small and even mid-size firms often could not compete against large firms who could use their computational edge for competitive purposes. Today, however, hardware and software costs have come down. Even high-end packages work on less expensive platforms and some even support multiple platforms. The costs associated with CAD implementation now are more heavily weighted to the costs of training in the use of these high level tools, the cost of integrating a CAD/CAM/CAE PLM using enterprise across multi-CAD and multi-platform environments and the costs of modifying design workflows to exploit the full advantage of CAD tools. CAD vendors have been effective in providing tools to lower these costs.

The adoption of CAD studio or "paper-less studio," as it is sometimes called, in architectural schools was not without resistance, however. Teachers were worried that sketching on a computer screen did not replicate the skills associated with age-old practice of sketching in a sketchbook. Furthermore, many teachers were worried that students would be hired for their computer skills rather than their design skill, as was indeed common in the 1990s. Today, however, (for better or worse, depending on the authority cited) education in CAD is now accepted across the board in schools of architecture. It should be noted, however, that not all architects have wanted to join the CAD revolution.