Computer-aided design (CAD) in the apparel industry: An exploration of current technology, training, and expectations for the future

The relative newness of textile and apparel related Computer-Aided-Design (CAD)/Computer-Aided-Manufacturing (CAM) technology requires an ongoing exploration of technological developments in order for the apparel industry and higher education to remain well informed. The purpose of this study was to explore current CAD technology, how CAD technology is actually being used, and sources and forms of training for that technology without the textile and apparel industry.; Two separate populations were surveyed in order to obtain the desired information. The first population consisted of all identified suppliers of CAD hardware and software designed for use in the textile and apparel industry who had offices or divisions within the United States and Canada. The second population consisted of a list of customers of CAD suppliers. Two hundred CAD users were randomly selected from the list of customers provided.; Two surveys were designed, one for CAD suppliers and one for CAD users. The final response rate for CAD suppliers was 100%. Thirty-eight usable surveys were returned from CAD users which constituted a response rate of 19%.; Data obtained from each set of surveys were analyzed by means of cross-tabulations, Chi-Square Tests, one-way analyses of variance designs and t-tests. Significance was measured at the alpha {dollar}<{dollar}.05 level.; CAD suppliers tended to: (a) sell similar CAD products, (b) have similar expectations for future development, and (c) estimate similar training times required to gain proficiency on CAD products. CAD suppliers did, however, require vastly different types of computer hardware to operate their CAD products.; CAD users tended to use similar types of CAD products and had similar beliefs about the importance of specific training aids. Several important differences were noted: (a) CAD users required significantly more training time to gain proficiency on CAD than was estimated to be required by CAD suppliers, (b) CAD users ranked the importance of certain CAD products differently than CAD suppliers, and (c) there was a significant difference between the types of products available from CAD manufacturers and the types of products owned by CAD users.