TABLE OF CONTENTS I have asked several recognized experts in the field of dimensioning and tolerancing to assess what they think the future holds in the area of dimensioning and tolerancing. The opinions below represent the voices of corporate management, practitioners, authors, and college professors. They represent many years of study, training and practice. These voices, along with the ones you have already heard from in this book (see section 5.17, The Future of GD&T), have expanded our horizons and broadened our understanding of a field once narrowly interpreted and dismally misunderstood.
I thank the contributors for their wisdom and insight. I look forward to seeing how these predictions unfold.
Paul Drake
Timothy V.Bogard
President, Sigmetrix
Dallas, Texas
Dimensional management as a methodology will continue to gain in acceptance with the more sophisticated companies, where high volume and high complexity exist in the product lines. The concept of dimensional management will be of interest in other types of companies where low volume and low complexity exists, but the cost of implementation in terms of training and process change will be the major barrier.
GD&T will continue to gain acceptance. The standard(s) will need to continue to evolve to (1) eliminate ambiguity, (2) improve assembly level tolerance definitions, and (3) be further consolidated to simplify the concepts for more practical usage.
Standards in the area of geometric definitions, like...
