Unit16 Product Design and CAD/CAM  Unit Introduction  Product Design and CAD  CAD System Hardware  CAM, CAD/CAM, and CIM 16.1 Introduction  Product design serves an important function in the production system. It helps determine the eventual commercial success of a product;  it determines how the production system should be created, and exactly what equipment should be bought; and it determines how easily, and how cheaply, the product can be manufactured. 16.3 Product Design and CAD Computer-Aided Design (CAD) is the use of computer systems (or workstations) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. CAD software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve communications through documentation, and to create a database for manufacturing. 16.3 Product Design and CAD Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) is the use of software to control machine tools and related ones in the manufacturing of workpieces 16.3 Product Design and CAD Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) is the manufacturing approach of using computers to control the entire production process 16.3.1 The Design Process  Recognition of need—this involves the realisation that a problem or need exists that may be solved by design.  Problem definition—this involves a thorough specification of the item to be designed.  Synthesis—closely related with the following step, analysis, synthesis refers to the bundling of information that occurs after problem definition, and concurrently during analysis, and after re-analysis. 16.3.1 The Design Process    Analysis and optimization—closely related to the previous step, analysis is concerned with the investigation of design specification information, and the optimization of this information, as well as a synthesis of new information, as required. Evaluation—involves measuring the design against the specifications established in the problem definition phase. Presentation—

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