The problem has a name: repetitive expertise
In special-purpose machinery, in plant engineering, wherever customers order configurable products, the same pattern plays out every day. An engineer with five or ten years of CAD experience opens Autodesk Inventor, reads the requirements sheet, and builds a variant that draws on parameters he has seen dozens of times before. Then he starts again from scratch on the next one. Not because there is no better way. Because no process exists to carry his knowledge forward.
The consequence is not dramatic. It is mundane, and that is precisely the problem. Lead times of two to five days per variant. Errors introduced when CAD data gets transferred to the PDM system by hand — mismatched file names, incorrect revision states, bills of materials that need to be completed after the fact. Every manual handoff is a point where something can go wrong, and in high-variant manufacturing it goes wrong regularly.
Where the knowledge actually lives
The real asset of a mechanical engineering company is its codified product knowledge: which parameters drive which geometries, which combinations can actually be manufactured, which rules apply to each product family. In most organisations, that knowledge lives in people's heads, not in systems. When the expert leaves, the rules leave with him.
Design automation addresses this directly. Rather than asking an engineer to apply his knowledge manually on each new order, it captures that knowledge once — as a rule set — and executes it automatically. Tacton Design Automation runs embedded inside the Autodesk Inventor interface. A customer specification goes in; a valid 3D model, drawing set, and bill of materials come out. Every generated variant is checked against the rules before it leaves the system. Invalid combinations do not get built because they cannot be configured in the first place. And maintaining the rule set requires no programming knowledge — product managers and design leads can update it directly.
"In engineering, automation also freed up 75 percent of capacity, which is now used for additional orders and new models."— Michael Väth, Standardisation Manager, Gebhardt Logistic Solutions GmbH
Half-automating is a different kind of mistake
Here is where many implementations stall. A company automates CAD generation — a real step forward — and then hands the output back to an engineer to enter into the PDM system manually. The metadata still needs typing. The documents still need filing. The bill of materials still needs checking. The media break has moved one step downstream, not disappeared.
Lino Automate PDM closes that gap. Once Tacton generates the CAD data, Lino Automate PDM transfers it directly into the PDM system: documents created, metadata populated, bill of materials structured and filed — all according to the naming conventions and revision logic already defined in the system. No engineer re-enters information the configurator already knows. Currently, adapters are available for four systems: Autodesk Vault, Solidworks PDM, PRO.FILE, keytech PLM, and SAP PLM.
What companies actually gain
- Up to 90% less engineering time on standard variants — rule-based generation in Inventor replaces manual modelling
- 75% of engineering capacity freed (Gebhardt Logistic Solutions) — redirected to new product development and additional orders
- Zero manual PDM entries for automated variants — Lino Automate PDM handles transfer, filing, and metadata in full
- No invalid variants reach manufacturing — the rule set validates every configuration before output
- Product knowledge stays in the system when engineers leave the company
Parametric modelling without a configurator simply moves the decision-making burden back onto the engineer. Excel-based scripts solve isolated problems but create no system integration. A CPQ tool that does not connect to CAD produces quotes, not models. Only a constraint-based configurator running inside the CAD environment — and passing output directly into PDM — closes the loop completely.
The question manufacturers should be asking is not whether they can afford this. It is how many engineering hours they spent last year on variants a rule set could have generated. That calculation tends to answer the investment question on its own.
Context and next steps
This approach works for any manufacturer that produces variants according to defined rules — from a mid-size special machinery builder to a full system integrator. The entry point is a proof of concept on real product data, not a year-long implementation project. Lino's webinar on 21 May 2026 shows how Tacton Design Automation and Lino Automate PDM work together in practice — live, on actual workflows, not on slide schematics. An English-language recording will be made available to all registered participants.
