New products typically go through several prototypes—in the case of cars, even up to 100—before a market launch. But if the emerging concept of virtual product design or computer-aided engineering, or CAE, has its way, companies could leapfrog to the final stages by simulating most of the product development and manufacturing processes in the virtual environment.
"A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a
person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as
possible" - Freeman Dyson