Any successful MBD initiative needs executive buy-in. However, overestimating the benefits of transitioning to MBD is a common mistake, as this finding proves.

Some organizations blindly pursue a Model-Based Definition initiative by trying to take everything traditionally included on a fully annotated drawing and transitioning that to a fully annotated model. That, unfortunately, results in unexpected, and unwanted, results.

Instead of replicating fully annotated drawings as fully annotated models, some organizations are only minimally annotated their models. Such practices yield a number of benefits.

Migrating to Model-Based Definitions isn't the only documentation oriented initiative in engineering. Some organizations are looking to save time by only including the absolutely required information to define the part to be manufactured. Such efforts are paying off.