Is the Asian market more experimental or tentative when it comes to software purchasing?

I think they're organized differently than European and American EPCs and so forth. When you look at the large Japanese engineering companies, I think they…I don't want to say "experiment," but they're often times much more rigorous as they go through the implementation of tools that Cadcentre provides.

Cadcentre's foundation technology is data-driven; so how does this impact the role of the CAD operator? In other words: does Cadcentre primarily train CAD operators or engineers?

We've always trained designers and engineers. I'm a bad one to talk to about CAD because I don't think Cadcentre is actually into computer aided design, we're into plant data modeling, of which graphics is a byproduct. So how does it impact the CAD operator? Over the past five years you can see how we make empiric tools for the engineering desktop that process engineers and designers can use that are easy to start up and easy to use—I think you'll see a continued leading effort by Cadcentre on ease-of-use as well for designers, engineers, procurement people, project managers and so forth.

Ultimately, doesn't the production of bid documents become a CAD issue?

In the classical sense it could be a "secretarial" issue versus a "CAD" issue—I've been in the industry too long, to some degree, in that the traditional role of the CAD operator is someone that takes a piece of paper from a designer or engineer and then puts it into AutoCAD or PDS or PDMS I believe that certainly with the market pressures out there from an owner/operator and EPC standpoint, that's not the most cost-effective way to use the tools. It's almost a redundant step, and I think some [traditional CAD operations] will get squeezed out of the equation in the upcoming three to five years. I believe there is going to be a change in the work process and how people use these tools.

So you anticipate the CAD operator will become obsolete—that engineers will be pulling standard details from libraries and not needing to modify them…?

Well, even if they need to modify them they can be modified at the desktop, so to speak. If you take the classic automatic plant Mecca, or paradigm or whatever, you would be using HYSYS or a simulation process, right—running a hundred case studies, and then the two that you actually want to put to the next step you would push through to the engineering desktop to go through design iterations, out through costing, all the rest of it. I mean there will still be a lot of design work to do—I just think your classic CAD drafting function, one would hope would become squeezed out of the process.

The move from 2D to 3D is a significant advance in design methodology, as is the move from graphically-driven to data-driven design, and also the integration of plant design systems with enterprise IT systems. Cadcentre has always been on the vanguard. What's next?

I think when we talk about what's going to be next, the biggest thing we're working on and adding value to is the implementation of changes in the actual work process, and the time it takes, to not just implement tools, but to actually have the tools work through the process. Often times one has to change the way they do business or look at doing business in order to reap a larger dollar return on their investment. I think even though those tools are in place, our big challenge over the next two to three years is going to be the actual implementation of working processes to utilize those tools. So I think that's also another reason that Cadcentre is positioning ourselves with respect to our customers to say "let's not just load the software and start drafting, let's figure out how we minimize or streamline the work process to maximize the return on investment."

David Clendenen is the Editor of AECVision and Managing Editor of AECCafe.com

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