In the last two months, there have been two disaster stories that affect the CAD software industry:
* In June, Airbus announced its super-giant airliner won't fly for another six months or longer. The delay is being blamed on wire harnesses + other stuff. Stock price plummeted, sales by Boeing sky-rocketed, upper management was shuffled, Franko-German pride wounded.
* In July, a ceiling panel in Boston's brand-new Big Dig collapsed, killing a motorist traveling through one of the tunnels. The fault is being blamed on the epoxy holding bolts that hold cement panels in place, but the day I left Boston, headlines warned half of the Big Dig was being rejected by the transportation authority. Tunnels are closed, traffic is more congested, and here's a story you wouldn't have heard unless you're local to Boston: because cars have to take other routes, the city has shut down road construction to help ease traffic flow, putting employees of four road construction companies out of work.
Both of these multi-billion-dollar projects are in failure mode. At AECnews.com, Randall Newton quotes the US Department of Transportation investigating the Boston mess:
"We are at [Turnpike Authority] offices searching their records for the test results. At present that is 62 boxes of records." And Randall asks the question: what are records doing in paper form in sixty-two boxes?
Tomorrow I'll have commentary on the failure of Airbus to deliver Vista A380 on time. Meanwhile, this question needs to be asked: What role did CAD/PLM play in these failures?
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