Opportunities, limits and potential for the future
Text, sound and images can now be created with AI applications in record time and at the click of a mouse. This has long since led to discussions in many sectors. What good is the machine-generated content? What impact do they have on the respective sectors and the labor market? Do the opportunities and benefits outweigh the risks? This is more than enough reason for us to look at the potential uses of AI applications for engineering.
Expertise, experience and creativity
Before we deal with the question posed at the beginning, we should answer another one: What skills are critical for engineers? The most obvious answers are probably competence and expertise. If you don’t have good theoretical knowledge, you can’t develop good products or processes. This aspect includes the basics of mechanics as well as many other areas of knowledge. But in addition to theoretical knowledge, capable engineers also bring experience to the table. They learn from other experts and from their own mistakes, they continue to develop and can therefore fall back on established solution strategies when faced with challenges and adapt them if necessary. Last but not least, creativity also plays a decisive role here, in the field of tension between physics and mathematics. How can a customer’s specifications be achieved? The aim is to apply knowledge and experience in such a way that something new is created, a solution to a unique and previously unknown problem.
Many tools are already firmly established in engineering
Let’s remember these considerations and first look at modern technologies that are already an integral part of engineering. We would like to mention three of them here as examples. As a leading CAD software, AutoCAD enables engineers to create precise 2D and 3D models. The wide range of functions and tools facilitate the design of complex components and a seamless workflow – from the initial sketch to the finished drawing. SolidWorks, also a CAD software, is ideal for creating complete assemblies and offers advanced simulation tools. This allows engineers to analyze the behavior of their models under different conditions and save time and costs with meaningful prototyping. ANSYS, another simulation software, also offers these advantages. It can be used to carry out reliable analyses of structural mechanics, fluid dynamics and electromagnetic properties. All these solutions have one thing in common: they serve engineers as a tool for dealing with standardized problems and processes. We ourselves use Visi Mecadat as our CAD software and Stampack as our FEM system. The latter offers additional functions for the pre- and post-process and helps us to optimize the implementation of projects.
Limits and opportunities of AI use in engineering
The inventory analysis shows that many modern software solutions are already in use in engineering as support. They help to simplify aspects of day-to-day engineering work and save time. In short, they increase efficiency and make it possible to make theoretical predictions about the behavior of a component in practice. AI can also become a valuable tool for engineers to optimize their workflow in the future. It is therefore conceivable that AI could be used to bundle the various functions of individual solutions – for example, a simulation of structural mechanics, fluid dynamics and so on could be carried out at the same time as a design draft in AutoCAD. Similar to applications in medicine, for which AI is already making test diagnoses today, the CAD data of a component could also be examined for weak points.
Great AI potential for process and project consulting
As engineers, we suspect that AI systems can also significantly increase efficiency and precision in the planning and execution of projects – provided that experts use them sensibly as a tool. In project management, for example, AI algorithms could be used to identify risks at an early stage, optimize the use of resources and create realistic, data-based schedules. For process consulting, AI is likely to enable the analysis of complex business processes so that optimization potential can be exploited on this basis. With sufficient basic data, the systems could even be able to adopt best practices from various industries and develop customized solutions that are not only efficient but also innovative.
Excursus: Legal dimension
With all this potential, however, one thing should not be forgotten: The legal responsibility or liability still lies with people. Regardless of how strong the influence of AI applications in engineering could become in the future, data input, control and evaluation of the results must still be carried out by human experts. This results in a clear answer to the question of whether engineers will become superfluous at some point: no.
Potential of AI applications in the future
Instead, we assume that the focus of work will shift. Instead of dealing with the small-scale implementation of projects, engineers will, thanks to AI, focus exclusively on the customer’s actual problem and the specific requirements of the project as well as the respective approaches to solving the problem. AI applications will be just one more, but very powerful tool in the planner’s toolbox, helping to realize groundbreaking new products, processes and projects – with maximum reliability, precision and at record speed.
