Little more than a decade ago computer-aided design and manufacture (CAD/CAM) was a very esoteric field indeed, not one that was of much practical concern to a manager or industrialist unless his business was on the scale of, say, a major automobile manufacturer or in a field of high technology such as aerospace. Like so much else, this situation was revo- lutionized by the invention of the silicon chip, the arrival of the micro- processor and the dramatic fall in the cost of computer hardware. Today, CAD/CAM has spread down the market, and down the price scale, to the point at which it is both a feasible and an affordable technology for a wide range of small-and medium-sized companies in areas as various as architec- ture and general engineering, plastic moulding and consumer electronics. But the explosion - there is no other word for it - in the variety and capabilities of CAD/CAM systems, and their spectacular climb to the top of the hi-tech hit parade, has placed the potential purchaser and user of the new technology in a difficult position.
On the one hand he is assured, not least by the manufacturers of CAD/CAM equipment, that a failure to invest in it will leave his company stranded in the industrial Stone Age.
- ISBN10 0850388171
- ISBN13 9780850388176
- Publish Date March 1986
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 10 August 1995
- Publish Country NL
- Publisher Springer
- Imprint Kluwer Academic Publishers
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 228
- Language English