7 essential mechanical engineering tools in 2024

Being a mechanical engineer in 2024 has it’s modern challenges. Work being distributed since Covid. Increased demand for faster time to market, and supply chain challenges remain. Working from home has made it easier to focus and get things done, but harder to work as a team. Here are 7 essential tools for mechanical engineers (+1 bonus tip at the end) to increase your productivity in 2024.

1.    CAD software

Seems obvious, but CAD software is a must for a mechanical engineer designing products. You need to be proficient in your CAD software. How can you make your designing more efficient? One way is to use keyboard shortcuts. Using the mouse disrupts the flow and can take time to go back and forth between the keyboard and mouse. Little improvements can have big gains over time. Here are some keyboard shortcuts for popular mechanical engineering CAD software’s:

SolidWorks: https://help.solidworks.com/2022/english/Visualize/c_visualize_keyboard_shortcuts.htm

Inventor:

https://www.autodesk.com/shortcuts/inventor

AutoCAD:

https://www.autodesk.com/shortcuts/autocad

Onshape:

https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/shortcut_keys.htm

2.    File Organization System

Whether it be a system to store and manage your files or a PDM software tool, it is important to outline a system for organizing your design files. It is easier at the beginning of the project to outline and structure your files to save you less headache in the future. You also want a place to store them and protect these files. Check out my article about CAD Document Management to learn more. Here are two common folder organizations structures.

By State

1. Work In Progress
2. Shared
3. Finalized
4. Archived

By Type:

1. CAD
2. Images
3. PDFs
4. STEP
5. Reports
6. Presentations
7. Analysis

3.    CAD version control

Cad version control can help you save time and reduce rework having to go back to a previous design. Many Product Data Management (PDM) systems typically include version control. Some tools like Vistapoint can be used as a simple solution to get your CAD data under control with version control. Having version control can give you a productivity boost and peace of mind knowing that you will never lose work. You can design with the freedom of going back to previous versions if you require.

4.    AI tools

It would seem silly to have a list of tools in 2024 without AI somewhere. AI is powerful, but we need to be cautious about how and where we use it -especially as engineers. Uses cases today are mainly focused on language and text manipulation. Maybe shortly in the future we will have more use cases around design prototyping and enhancements. But today, one popular tool is Chat GPT of course. Be cautious of submitting any sensitive information and using it for any technical information. However, here are some possible practical use cases you might consider.

1. Use cases

1. Excel formula creation for calculations. Use it to help you come up with an excel formula.
2. Draft MATLAB or Python code. Not sure how to tackle a programming challenge? Let it give you some ideas. Make sure you understand the code and test.
3. Format and proofread documents. If you are an engineer, you might prefer math and science over writing. I wouldn't advocate for letting AI tools create documents from scratch, but you could use it to proofread non-critical emails or correspondence.

5.    FEA Analysis Software

Once you’ve designed your product, you need to test out the structural integrity and make sure it will hold up in the real world. Some popular FEA analysis tools include Ansys (which is what I learned in college), Abaqus, or some are built into the CAD software.

6.    CAD sharing platform

If you work on projects or with a team, you need somewhere to share your CAD designs. It’s better to have a single place instead of multiple systems that result in scattered information that becomes lost. You might consider online tools like Dropbox or SharePoint for sharing files -but these have challenges when it comes to CAD files (see this article for more). Vistapoint can also be used to share and collaborate on your projects with teammates. Vistapoint is an online tool that you can use to upload your designs and access your projects from anywhere -built for engineering teams.

7.    Programming Languages - Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), Python

Many mechanical engineers could benefit from knowing some programming languages. Programming languages can be used to automate file management tasks, automate data manipulation tasks, or help create reporting metrics. VBA can be used inside of Excel to automate Excel based tasks. Python is one of the easier programming languages to learn and has broader applications that can help with automating general day to day tasks.

Since you made it this far, here is a bonus tip for a tool that could be useful to the prototyping engineer.

Bonus:

8.    3D Printer

If you do a lot of prototyping, you might find a 3D printer useful. You can easily create a simple concept with a 3D printer. They are increasingly becoming more advanced. I used a 3D printer in college for a research project, and it was quick and easy to design something, upload it, and have a finished product. They are even building houses with 3D printing now. Check out this modern 3D printed house in Austin. With 3D printing you can remove a lot of the constraints that are there with traditional building. For example, you can have many rounded walls and curves which are harder to replicate with traditional methods of building houses.

Conclusion

Having the right mechanical engineering tools for your workflow can help your team be more productive and make your work easier. I am excited to see how these tools will change over the years with easier online collaboration tools, AI, and 3D printing. If you want to learn more about how Vistapoint can be used to help your team with version control and collaboration, book a demo with one of our product specialists.