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)