Whilst 3D CAD isn't the source of a new design, it's certainly an indispensable tool for developing the concept into a manufacturable design. We use Solidworks for in house design projects, but there are other packages available.

One of our clients recently invested in Creo, as their parent company had been using this system (previously Pro/Engineer) for some time.

In the interest of providing the best possible service to our customers, I attended a 3 day Creo training course, aimed at familiarising existing CAD users with the Creo interface and modelling process.

I was a little wary that with many years experience of Solidworks, I would be a novice again using Creo. Actually there are many more similarities than differences between the two packages. There are some really nice tools in Creo, the live preview as you create a new feature is really useful. I cant see us swapping our in house CAD system, but I can see either package offers a professional designer a very similar suite of tools and features. Of course a good designer should be able to create fantastic results using any one of the high end CAD packages, the real creativity comes from the design team and process, not a piece of software!