Managing CAD in heavy electrical engineering

This paper draws on work carried out at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), for the Engineering Industry Training Board (EITB) during 1988. This was the culmination of an eight-year programme, of case-study based research, considering the implications of CAD for skills and training in UK engineering. It concluded that, despite investments in sophisticated systems, firms found implementation problematic and promised benefits slow to materialise. The experiences of five heavy electrical engineering establishments which participated in the study illustrate many of these difficulties. The novel approach to managing CAD in one of these companies, however, brought commercial success and holds out some interesting lessons for other companies