How does Reverse engineering differ from other types of engineering?

Forward engineering is the oldest form of engineering technology used in developmental process. The products are invented by a manufacturer by applying the engineering abstractions and concepts . But reverse engineering starts with the final product. Reverse engineering is the method of knowing the technological principles of object, device or a system through analysis. It is a process in which an object, device or system is broken down carefully to their most basics forms to determine how every part has been created to work unanimously as a single, functional unit.

Reverse engineering is very different from other forms of engineering that involves creation of a product from the start. In this form of engineering products are broken in their purest or most basic form to see how they are bonded with other parts to create the original product.

Value engineering is a form of engineering which is successfully applied to strategic quality improvement, strategic planning, manufacturing, management studies and construction has demonstrated both its durability and versatility as a management practice. It relates to making of a better product or system to the actually analyzed. While creating new products, systems or devices engineers might make mistakes applying the technology properly or while testing the newer technology, value engineering gives another chance to analyze the product and rectify its mistakes to make it work and thus save money, energy and enhance output.

There is often an overlap between the processes used in reverse engineering and value engineering. The main aim of reverse engineering is enhanced documentation on what principles an original product works by revealing the underlying design. The product which is an outcome of reverse engineering is imitated to the original system without necessarily adding improvements or modifications to the actual design.

Reverse engineering was first applied for military and corporate purposes. With its increasing advantages and more functions, it is now also used in variety of fields. The other traditional form of engineering is more focused on inventing new products by applying the principles and logics of engineering.

The application of engineering principles for newer products may or may not be successful in creating a product, reverse engineering, on the other hand makes use of the technology that has already been developed and applied. It is a form of engineering which is usually successful and is also able to enhance the value of the product, system or device. The reasons for implementation of reverse engineering are:

Interoperability.
Lost documentation: if a documentation of a product was not written ever or is lost then reverse engineering can be done on it. The integrated systems that have been designed on wrong or obsolete systems can be redesigned and made to work properly only by the process of reverse engineering.
Product analysis: Product analysis is used to determine how a product works and what all components are used to create it.

Reverse Engineering is thus a form of design recovery and helps in analyzing the principles and designs that were used in creating an original product to either make similar products or enhance the applied technology further.

Metal finishing technique adds to modernization and leasing Strategies

Technology is developing and progressing at quite a rapid pace today. It is not just adding more flexibility and comfort to our life but it is also making it fast and comfortable . Such new technology not just makes life easier for designers, contractors, building owners, leasing agents, tenants and facilities maintenance crews but for everyone else involved. There are so many techniques that are being introduced and invented from time to time to make human life more comfortable and reduce human effort. The technique of applied design is actually a process that allows the building owners to make a personalized artwork for metal panels, elevator hatchway doors and signage with various optical effects and colors. The applied designs can be changed overnight and as per your likings.

With newer designs one can get more options for decorating a particular area and enhance its overall ambience. A recent introduction of applied designed technique can be seen lobby of the four seasons hotel in New York. The doors of the hatchway are mirror finished around the elevator vestibule which is selectively retained to emphasize a symmetrical design. Afterwards oxidized and brushed satin finishes were used to outline the geometric shaped in its panels.

Afterwards the technique was chosen for a high profile job to impart a three dimensional, shimmering look to the design of the elevator’s door. This technique helped in saving money and eliminated the need of new panels. The alteration in the design of the elevator panels cost 1/3 of the one half of the cost of new panels. Therefore, the technique of applied designs is not just able provide a new look to a particular area but also helps in cutting down the cost of change considerable thus adding to its utility and durability. Also this method can also be used to modernize the elevator as many times you want in stainless steel, clad in bronze or aluminum. Therefore, leasing agents and building owners can offer prospective, customized tenant doors with letterings, designs and logos for their dedicated elevator lines or floors.

The redesign consumes much lesser time than fitting new panels. The redesigning work can be done on the site within the same day saving time, effort and interruptions on the working days. It also eliminated the risk of transporting the panels for the contractors.

Applied redesign technology is different from the decorative etching which leaves metal surfaces un-refinishable. Redesign technology allows you to change, restore and refinish designs as many times as you like.

Therefore, you can help save a lot of money, time and resources of your company by choosing redesigning techniques over choosing new panels.

Benefits of Using 3D CAD Design & Modeling Compared To 2D Method

The design of objects using a CAD software program can be rendered in either 2D (2 Dimensional) or 3D (3 Dimensional) forms. Traditionally, hand drawn designs were 2 dimensional renderings. However, with the advent of CAD software programs, object design and modeling. can be rendered in a 3 Dimensional format. There are several advantages to rendering your designs and models in 3D. Lets have a look at those benefits.

A 2D drawing environment a designer has many restrictions, and so does the viewer. One can see the placement of the different objects using different views. However, an object that is seen in one view may not be seen in another view. All of this can result in incorrect placement of objects, and often result in object collisions.

3D Drawings and Models give a complete picture of the design, enabling you to see your object from all the sides and angles of view. Such a complete picture of your model can prove to be very helpful for you, especially when you want to ensure minimal errors in your design.

In a 3D environment, a designer can easily avoid errors in the placement of objects within the design. These objects can be placed in such a manner that they do not collide with each other. Accuracy of the measurements can also be maintained by using a 3D visualization because the designer can now clearly see which object goes where and how it looks in the overall design.

All of this combines together to create an accurate design rendering, where quantities and measurements are also correct. This results in a better estimation of quantities and materials required.

The process of conveying the ideas of the designer to the viewer is also more simple and streamlined. A 3D visualization of the design and model helps everyone get a very fair idea of what the final product will look like.

Such 3D object design and modeling processes have found their applications across a variety of industry verticals such as manufacturing, fabrication, civil and structural engineering and architecture, to name a few. All these industries have been greatly benefitted with the use of 3 Dimensional viewing of their products and have been able to provide accurate and high quality products and services to their clients.

3D design and modeling services have, over a period of time, led to the creation of highly competitive and cost effective expert services that the clients are very eager to have.

Using 3D design and modeling techniques as compared to 2D modeling, thus have several advantages, which benefit both the designer and the clients of your organization.

BIM and Design Support Services

CAD or Computer Aided Design and Drawing involves using a computer software to render the drawings, designs and models of objects such as buildings and products, to name a few. .While creating such drawings, various types of data and information are used to render a complete picture of the final product. Building Information Modeling uses this data and information to help you to use this data to create comprehensive and informative reports.

While creating a drawing or model, a variety of data is usually inputted into the CAD software program. For example, this data includes the dimensions of the objects, and the materials used in that object. If one also factors in the costs of these materials along with this above mentioned data, it is easy to calculate accurately the actual quantities of each material required, along with the total costs of the materials required.

In a typical project, there are several different materials used in a variety of dimensions. Keeping a track of all of these can be a very daunting task. Several CAD software programs have built in BIM modules which help you to keep a track of all these things very easily.

Using the data generated by the Business Information Modeling or BIM module, thus helps to generate reports that help you to calculate your materials requirements accurately, which in turn helps to reduce costs and increase your profits while saving a lot of time.

There are a number of Design Support Services that can be offered via BIM. They are:

1.Conversion of 2D designs and drawings, or even hand drawn designs into CAD based 3D drawings.
2.Creating a 3D visualization of your entire project, including walk-throughs and sequencing of the construction process.
3.Embedding and extraction of the different data variables involved in the creation of the final product.
4.Detecting or identifying and removal of object collisions within the design.

The advantages of such BIM Design Support Services can be summarized as:

1.Accurate cost estimation.
2.Accurate materials estimation.
3.Improvement in Project Planning.
4.Improvement in Delivery Schedules.
5.Improvement in Project processes, including streamlining processes.
6.Improvement in Overall Productivity along with cost reduction.

BIM and Design Support Services have, due to these advantages, found their application across several industries like Engineering, Building and Construction, Architectural and Civil Planning, to name a few.

Availing of these BIM and Design Support Services can prove to be very beneficial for your organization and help your company take that leap into a modern design environment.

CAD Conversion Services and Its Benefits

CAD or Computer Aided Design is the use of computer technology for the design of objects. Such designs can be 2D (2-dimensional) or 3D (3-dimensional). CAD has its applications across several industries, right from automotive, aerospace, ship building, architectural, and structural, to name a few.. With computers becoming commonplace in each and every aspect of our lives, CAD has enabled many professionals in such industries to build and expand their design and development processes manifold.

The days of designing and drawing by hand are long gone. With the advent of computers, and CAD programs, such processes are easily and quickly conducted on computers. There are several advantages to having and creating these designs and drawings on a computer. Chief of them being the ability to easily add parameters that help in visualizing the drawing in several dimensions and from several angles. Another main advantage of having designs and drawings on the computer is the added ability to save time and costs when changes to the drawings have to be made and visualized. CAD programs make light work of such seemingly daunting tasks, which in the days before these CAD programs took a lot of time and added a lot of costs to a project.

In order to bring such functionality and scalability to your project, it is very important to convert your designs and drawings, and bring them from your paper based format into a digital, computer based format. The best way to do so is to convert your paper drawings into a CAD format. And in order to help you in this process, there are several organizations which offer CAD conversion services.

Here is a short list of the benefits that your company will reap after availing of such CAD conversion services:

1.Your drawings and designs will now be easily changed and adjusted to suit your changing design requirements.
2.You can easily collaborate with your designers and engineers – even if they are in the next cubicle or in another city or in another country. All you have to do is email them your drawing file.
3.Most CAD programs allow you to add your measurements manually, which thus helps to create more accurate drawings.
4.Visualization in a variety of dimensions and angles can help you design better.
5.You will be able to easily archive and save your drawings and designs, while being able to easily access and refer to your old drawings whenever you want to.

Using a CAD conversion services provider will help you to focus on training your engineers and architects, rather than focus on the nuts and bolts of conversion processes. This is especially true for large organizations which have a huge amount of paper based drawings which need to be converted into a CAD format. Essentially, using a CAD conversion services provider helps your organization save time and money and gear up towards becoming an organization that is up-to-date with the latest technological advances made in the field.

Engineering: The Last Frontier of Business Process Outsourcing

Engineering is one of the main areas of expertise on which any industry builds and develops to its best advantage. Outsourcing of core and non-essential engineering functions has been highly debated, and yet profitably deployed across many industry verticals. Let us see how engineering can become one of the most productive business processes to be outsourced.

Outsourcing per se has many advantages. As an organization, what one needs to consider is how outsourcing a particular function or business process can be advantageous to the business at large.

Engineering is a core technology that has matured and developed across the board, and can span across a variety of industry services right from design and development to production and maintenance. And all of these different engineering functions can be profitably and effectively outsourced.

There are several things to be considered while taking this business decision. Let us see what these factors are:

1.By using services of an outsourced engineering services provider, a business has access to a variety of resources that are well versed in the different aspects of the engineering function. The staff at such an outsourced services provider are well trained and knowledgeable about the various aspects involved in their job.
2.Outsourcing to a offshore engineering services provider can, naturally, help reduce a number of costs: From the training costs of (possibly) new employees to generating a reduction in the costs and time generated due to a faster turnaround time – the benefits of such a decision can have an all round impact on the revenue of your organization.
3.The outsourced engineering services providers have the latest tools and technologies at their disposal in order to provide the best of services to their clients. As their clients, naturally, you would also have access to the best and latest technologies, without burdening your organization with the costs of acquiring these tools yourself.
4.Outsourced engineering services providers provide high quality output at low costs and at a faster turnaround rate. Your business can, via a collaborative effort, ensure that your outsourced engineering services provider knows your systems and quality standards. Your organization can also be involved in the QA Process, and ensure that the highest quality output is produced.

All of these basic advantages have barely scratched the surface of the benefits of outsourcing of engineering process. While implementing such a strategy in your organization, it is of paramount importance to develop a cooperative and collaborative relationship with such an outsourced services provider. Building such professional relationships can only benefit the eventual output generated.

Outsourcing of engineering services, thus, can prove to be an extremely sensible and profitable option for several industries. And while Engineering may be the last frontier of business process outsourcing, it can certainly prove to be one of the most profitable one for your organization.

CAD/AutoCAD for Civil engineering design and drafting

Civil Engineering involves designing and drafting drawings of buildings, roads, dams and such other man made constructions. In the past, the design and drafting of these drawings used to be done by hand. However, nowadays many different software programs provide the CAD (Computer Aided Drawing) facility to civil engineers, designers and draughtsmen to create their drawings and designs.

There are many advantages to using CAD or AutoCAD (a CAD software program) for civil engineering design and drafting. Chiefly, the advantage is in the process of implementing changes within the drawing. Previously, when changes had to be implemented within the drawing, the engineer had to redraw the entire drawing by hand. However, using CAD or AutoCAD gives the engineer the advantage of simply making those changes in a computer program, and then just rendering the drawing again.

The time and effort that gets saved by using CAD or AutoCAD within the design and drafting process then leads to huge savings in the production timelines and also in the costs. Naturally, CAD and AutoCAD have gained and earned their place within the design and drawing process.

CAD and AutoCAD software programs can also create more accurate renderings of the drawings and designs. These software programs allow engineers to use complex objects within their drawings, and use techniques such as parametric and solid modeling techniques along with wireframe techniques to render a drawing.

The CAD and AutoCAD software programs also have a variety of rendering aids that help create very realistic and accurate renderings of the drawings – which more or less creates an almost actual picture of the building that will be constructed. This enables designers, engineers and planners to include and incorporate a variety of concepts within the design process and visualize a variety of options and ideas without wasting time and saving costs in the process.

Along with these obvious visually oriented benefits, CAD and AutoCAD software also offer a variety of in-built documentation reports. These are beneficial on several levels as they are based on the data used while creating these designs and provide businesses with a variety of intelligent and informative reports which prove to be extremely useful during the planning and implementation stages of the actual construction process.

Thus, one can easily see that there are a number of benefits of using CAD or AutoCAD for the civil engineering design and drafting process: savings in terms of time and costs, along with added advantages in the visualization and documentation outputs of the design.

Structural Drafting: The Essential Structural Engineering Service

Structural Engineering is a field within Engineering that deals with the analysis of structures, and especially with the support and resistance of loads on those structures. Structural Drafting is a process via which the structural engineers convey their ideas to contractors and such other people who are actually constructing them. Structural Drafting is, therefore, a very essential and important part of Structural Engineering.

Structural Drafting is defined as a process of converting the building’s design calculations and structure drawings into detailed and descriptive drawings. Accurate and high quality renderings of the drawings are required to be created so that the people who are actually involved in the construction of those buildings can easily understand what they have to do. Naturally, this is a very highly skilled discipline and very much in demand.

A typical Structural Drawing includes detailed descriptions of the building using a variety of design symbols and information about the dimensions and structures along with detailed working drawings for the concrete and steel structures used in that building.

There are many other benefits of structural drawings and drafts. Chiefly, this helps people estimate how much materials are required during the process of construction. One can also estimate which materials are required in which part of the construction.

In today’s highly evolved and fast paced world, structural drafting services have greatly increased in demand. Use of several software programs (like CAD software) to render these detailed structural drawings has also been on a rise. These computer aided design software have created a high level of accuracy within the process of rendering the plans and structural drawings. Along with these high quality drawings, one can also use these software programs for getting more detailed information using their built-in documentation and reporting functions.

All of this adds together to create a niche segment of Structural Drafting professionals who use these software programs to render very high quality drawings and drafts, and provide a greatly enhanced data report for those who require the information while on the actual job.

It is with the help of Structural Drafting that the Structural Engineers are able to convey their detailed calculations and ideas to the rest of the world. Structural Drafting has therefore become a very important and essential part of Structural Engineering services.

CAD: Bringing Productivity to Engineering

CAD or Computer Aided Design, in very simple terms, is the use of computer technology to design a variety of objects, both 2 Dimensional and 3 Dimensional. CAD has found its most popular usage in the engineering industry, for purposes like drafting and drawing. The use of this technology has helped boost the productivity of various engineering functions across the board.

Several plans and ideas often need to be designed and shown in a way that makes the design or placement of internal objects in a better fashion. CAD helps engineers visualize and implement several best practices in this regard.
With technology and the use of computers becoming increasingly commonplace in various industries, the engineering design industry is not far behind. CAD packages and their relevant upgrades can consistently help engineers and design technicians create better and more efficient designs for a variety of products. Right from drawing plans for a construction site to designing the interiors of cars, CAD has found its applications in almost all industrial sectors. In the end, the user experience is something which has to be placed at the top of the priority list, and CAD helps designers achieve this goal brilliantly.

Naturally, one must not disregard the fact that both engineers and design technicians need to have real-world industry exposure to understand each and every aspect of the design that they are undertaking. When this knowledge is coupled with the use of CAD in their everyday work life, most engineers find an increase in their productivity. It is possible to create and visualize a myriad of options and ideas using the technological advances created by CAD software programs. Also conceptualizing of designs and ideas becomes easier.
CAD software is not just about designing. For engineers, these software programs bring in a lot of technical advantages. For example, dimensions and tolerances according to application specific conventions can be very easily worked into the calculations of the product design and development. Using such tools can help engineers configure and craft a variety of designs and tools which eventually fulfill several industry specific requirements.

CAD also incorporates a variety of visualization tools – helping the designers and engineers to see an object in both 2D and 3D. These objects can be rotated and viewed from a variety of angles, including from the inside out. These views help designers integrate several internal components within the object so that it suits the requirements of the project. You can say that visualization with CAD can actually help one see the product and test its tolerances right on the computer. This can be quite a time-saver, and not to mention, a money-saver for several organizations.

All of this adds to the quality of time spent on research and design, and thus works towards adding a healthy dose of benefits on the productivity side of any product design cycle. Also, CAD software have built in tools which also help with the documentation side of product design – thus saving a lot of time for when the design goes into actual production.

Therefore, it is easy to see that CAD adds to the productivity of engineering design in the most effective and efficient way possible.

Is computer design a substitute for hands-on experience?

CAD stands for Computer Aided Design. The key word here is ‘Aided’. This means that the computer will only help you with rendering the design on screen or on paper (when you print it out) – but the inputs are most definitely human. The computer will show you the designs that have been put into the software by engineers and designers. Therefore, it is essential that these designers and engineers have real-world, hands-on experience so that it can translate effectively into the designing software program.

Nowadays, most of the products we use have been designed from within software programs. This includes cars, airplanes and even computers themselves. However, it is very important to realize that the software doesn’t design the product for you. It is the engineer or the designer who has put in the raw data – the input – within the software. And the software is merely rendering that information on your computer screen.

Therefore, it is very important to understand what kind of hands-on, real-world experience the designer or the engineer has in the field. Because it is going to affect the quality of his / her input into the software. If the input is wrong, so will the output.

Let me explain with an example. Many of us have used wrenches to remove the screws from our car tires – especially when we have a flat tire and have to replace it. Designing the wrench to use it with the screws of the tire is not a easy prospect. The tire screw often has a lot of dirt and grime on it. Many a times, it may even be a bit rusty. So the wrench has to be such that it can work with such screws – which means, it should hold on to the screw tight and not slip. Also, it must take into account the fact that the person who is using said wrench may not be physically capable to perform miraculous feats of power with it – many a times users of that wrench may be elderly people or women or even men who are not so very strong. Thus, the design has to be such that someone who is not so strong can still use the wrench to remove a screw which can be dirty, grimy, rusty and even stuck.

Given such conditions, only a person who has in fact changed a couple of tires in his life can have some ideas (especially if he / she is an engineer or a designer) as to how to design a wrench that can be useful in such conditions.

Such an experienced person can then input the data and details properly within the design software and thus get a better design rendered on the screen.

However, if an engineer or a designer does not have such kind of experience, it will not be an effective and useful design.

In the real world, however, such expectations can be quite difficult to reach. Computer software programs are not used simply for designing wrenches. They are also used to create complex machinery. And it is not possible that each and every designer has used that machinery or repaired that machinery in his lifetime.

However, using ones imagination and creative, out-of-the-box thinking capabilities, it is possible to overcome such hurdles. It is therefore very important to understand how the machine is used and how it is repaired. This kind of knowledge definitely will help the engineer and designer design a product that is effective.

Also, it is equally important to keep your eyes, ears and mind open when you receive feedback. Because the actual users are telling you what problems they are facing and where. You can thus, incorporate this feedback within your design cycle and eliminate these hurdles from your design, thus creating a product which works for the end user. This way you are using the hands-on experience of someone else in the design process.

Thus, hands-on experience is very important for design. A computer software cannot be a substitute for designing. It is merely the means of helping a designer render the design onto screen or paper.