Since the early '80s, the drive for automation has pushed manufacturers to invest billions of dollars in various computer-aided design systems to design their products, highly automated robots and other computer-controlled equipment for the shop floor. By the '90s, these systems had matured into various sophisticated enterprise systems for product data management, manufacturing execution, supply chain management and enterprise resource management. These tools have become industry standards and manufacturers are investing elsewhere in order to shorten time-to-market, increase quality and lower manufacturing costs.
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