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"Even today, most schools don't offer engineering students GDA&T training unless specifically requested," says Thompson, general manager of the CAD business at Boston-based PTC Inc. That's a shame. Because of what I learned back then, I couldn't bring myself to do design work without thinking about the manufacturing process." What was once little more than a confusing set of symbols on a 2D drawing has since become a critical component of model-based definition (MBD), a building block of the digital thread. Because of the latter, job shops and OEMs alike are seeing one of the most significant strategy shifts in decades - the move to digital manufacturing. Here, team members enjoy cross-functional integration between design, manufacturing and the supply chain while gaining closed-loop feedback and robust data management across a products entire lifecycle. "GD&T and its subsequent role in model-based definition has been around for quite some time," notes Hiren Kumbhojkar, senior director of Go-to-Market Strategy for Hexagon's Nexus, part of the company's Manufacturing Intelligence division, North Kingstown, R.I. "For instance, I began working in the CAD space during the late nineties and was already hearing about MBD, a concept that was initially led by aerospace companies," he says, "but then, because of its significant value, started to trickle down into other industries." [...]the 3D CAD modelis quickly becoming the authority, greatly reducing the dependence on paper drawings. "Because GD&T is inherently geometry-based, this trend is actually increasing its importance," Olson says.