Enterprise-scale manufacturers continue to expand the use of precise 3D data and connected annotations, called Model-Based Definition (MBD), in place of traditional engineering drawings.
The extent to which downstream suppliers are able to respond effectively to this ongoing, cross-industry change will be a significant determining factor on the structure of the manufacturing supply change in future decades.
Guidelines from the United States Department of Defense (DoD) are major agents for change in this process. The DoD recognizes that MBD's capacity to support interoperable reuse of data across multiple production systems can accelerate engineering and manufacturing, improve quality, and reduce costs.
When major private sector institutions like Deloitte produce findings showing how larger enterprises can gain efficiencies through these practices, expectations grow for the downstream suppliers to align themselves to these changes.
For example: Lockheed has already made public that it expects its suppliers to be able to provide inspection data generated in downstream processes to be returned to them, a level of data exchange — the Digital Thread — only possible through integrated MBD processes.
Understanding the factors that are currently limiting the expansion of MBD practices, and how technologies are being deployed to overcome those limits, gives perspective to today's manufacturing supplier on how they can prepare for the most imminent developments likely to arise.
Significance/Importance: Industry advancement towards model-based definition (MBD) grows with each passing day in many key industries; leading the way are aerospace and defense. Major OEM manufacturers are deeply invested in this process evolution, and there are few if any market pressures influencing factors towards any other direction. Only inertia and cost of entry are acting to constrain this fundamental change.
