CAD software in Taiwan

Disclaimer: This document was created in 2000; the data is provided 'as-is' with no warranty implied or otherwise.

Taiwan provides the perfect opportunity for an ASP CAD CAM solution because Taiwan's incredibly competitive export-driven mentality forces Taiwanese manufacturers to seek innovative efficiencies in cross-border design and manufacturing.

In Taiwan, as in Europe, the USA and Japan, rapid-manufacturing technologies have matured to the point where it is now economically feasible to do very small custom production runs. Tooling costs and setup times have now reduced to the level where it is no longer necessary to produce thousands or tens of thousands of components to achieve reasonable cost per unit - in Taiwan economical costs, even for high quality precision components, can be achieved on production runs of hundreds or even just tens of units.

In Europe and the US the explosion in mid-range 3D CAD software in the late 1990s has seen hundreds of small industrial design companies acquire leading-edge rapid design capabilities previously only affordable by large manufacturers - the only factors preventing those designers from evolving into product vendors are the lack of:

1. financial capital required to initiate traditional volume production runs, and,
2. access to distribution channels.

The Internet provides solutions for both of those issues as:

1. an Internet based rapid prototyping collaboration meta-exchange can facilitate virtual collaboration between buyers (for example design firms) and Taiwanese manufacturers, and,
2. a Web site has immediate global reach and allows designers direct access to consumers worldwide.

There is a unique opportunity to create and lead Taiwan's e-manufacturing market by creating a unique custom manufacturing procurement and fulfillment exchange. Excess manufacturing capacity in Taiwan can be matched to design innovation in the US and Europe through a virtual e-manufacturing CAD CAM platform to create a new generation of lean manufacturers producing diverse, highlty individualized products for an increasingly sphisticated global market.

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