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Back-Loading: A Potential Side Effect Of Employing Digital Design Tools In New Product Development, Sebastian K. Fixson, Tucker J. Marion

Tucker Marion

Over the past twenty years, the use of digital design tools such as Computer-Aided-Design (CAD) has increased dramatically. Today, almost no product development project is conducted without the use of CAD models. Major advantages typically ascribed to using CAD include better solutions through broader exploration of the solution space as well as faster and less expensive projects through faster and earlier iterations. This latter effect, the shifting of simulation and testing traditionally accomplished with help of physical prototypes late in the process–a slow and expensive activity–to doing similar activities with virtual prototypes faster and earlier in the process, has been …