The article is an extended version of the verbal summary presented at the concluding lunch of the workshop on “Computing Futures in Engineering Design.” In the paper, the first person is used to differentiate my observations or reactions from the summaries of the speakers' presentations. The common themes that emerge during the workshop are: the need to set the discipline-specific context before computational tools are used; the incompatibilities between point tools that hinder their use; the paramount importance of teamwork; and the need to understand and treat design as a social process.

Hewlett-Packard develops and markets a family of computer-aided engineering products used by high-frequency designers to model the signal path in contemporary communications systems. As design frequencies, clock speeds and packaging densities continue to increase, more designers are finding that system and circuit simulation products need to be complemented by electromagnetic simulation software to develop models for basic circuit functionality or to characterize and compensate undesired parasitic effects. The HP High-Frequency Structure Simulator (HP HFSS) is a frequency-domain, finite element-based simulator, which enables engineers to characterize high-frequency behavior in 2D (transmission lines) and arbitrary 3D structures. Links with mechanical computer aided design (CAD) software have also become more important as the 3D structures to be analyzed by HP HFSS can involve packaging parasitics when the housing in which the electrical circuitry is enclosed becomes an influence on the signal path. Depending upon the complexity of the structure to be analyzed, HP HFSS can require hundreds of Mbytes of RAM and disk during automated adaptive solution convergence processes which determine field and circuit parameter solution results to user-specified accuracies. Although computer resource requirements will always be an important consideration for users of this type of product, another important situation to address for the future involves the exchange of data between the different simulation and modelling tools required to take design from concept through simulation to manufacture. The introduction of physical simulation tools into the traditional circuit simulation arena changes the design process flow and increases the demand for improved integration and interoperability of circuit simulators, numerical EM simulators, and mechanical CAD software. This paper provides an overview of data exchange issues in high-frequency electrical–physical–mechanical design processes.

Rapid development and delivery of high-performance, high-quality new products is the key to survival and success for many firms in today's high technology, global marketplace. However, shrinking time to market for complex, high technology products can be extremely difficult and costly. Even the most successful engineering managers have experienced the escalating costs of overtime, coordination and rework that are so common in fast-track, high technology, product development efforts; and they know the quality problems that can result when coordination breaks down in the face of aggressive—often “impossible”—development schedules.

I would like to begin with a list of some of the things that are happening today in the arena of engineering design and how it is to be taught.

In the late 1980s someone in the CAD software arena coined the phrase in the main title. A decade passed by and the appealing idea is still not realized. Is it ever going to be or is there an inherent fallacy in the idea? The following is the author's position on the subject, admittedly biased by a structural engineering background.

The intellectual content and social activity of engineering product development are a constant source of surprise, excitement, and challenge for engineers. When our students experience product-based-learning (PBL), they experience this excitement (Brereton et al., 1995). They also have fun and perform beyond the limits required for simple grades. We, their teachers, experience these things too. Why, then, are so few students and faculty getting the PBL message? How, then, can we put the excitement back in engineering education? In part, we think this is because of three persistent mistakes in engineering education:

1. We focus on individual students.

2. We focus on engineering analysis versus communication between engineers.

3. We fail to integrate thinking skills in engineering science and engineering practice.