General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Fast-Food Strikes Expand Across U.S. to 50 Cities [View all]Flatulo
(5,005 posts)I have first hand knowledge of this.
I started my professional career in 1977 as a mechanical engineer in the disk drive industry. In those days, everything was done on the drawing board - sheer tedium. It took days to make even minor changes. A design team had about 20 mech engineers and it took 2 years to turn a product out.
In 1982 the first major mechanical CAD program, Unigraphics, made its debut. Design teams went from 20 to 12 and mistakes became much rarer. Many different design iterations could be tried.
In 1986, Pro/Engineer made its appearance, and this was a truly disruptive technology. An engineer could now fulfill the job of both designer and draftsman, and a whole class of job was eliminated. Mistakes became almost impossible to make, and the design cycle went down to 8 months.
CAD and finite element software continued to become faster, more capable, and easier to use, until we got down to 4 people on a team. The entire design could be digitally mocked up and verified without cutting a single piece of metal.
Similar efficiencies have been realized in the automotive and who knows how many other industries. GM now makes the same number of vehicles with 60,000 people as it used to with 600,000 people.