Shrinking world extends design teams

Whether the world is becoming flat or just shrinking, its change is posing a challenge for engineers who have to design bigger products with flat manpower budgets.

Globalization, also called flattening by pundits, is undoubtedly changing the way engineers work together. It's forcing engineers to work with teams located around the country or across oceans, posing big challenges as they race to finish complex designs in ever-shorter development periods.

But most observers agree that the effort has a big payoff: bringing in new ideas. “The big challenge is to capture as many people's intellect as possible to contribute to the design.” said Carl Bass, Autodesk's CEO.