Michelangelo used the principles of reverse engineering to create great sculptures. Today, manufacturers use it to create images of products to speed up prototyping, manufacturing and testing processes.
As a technique for making products, reverse engineering used to be viewed as a not-so-ethical process of copying successful designs by OEMs but with less design capability than the originators. Indeed, 30 to 40 years ago, a number of noteworthy products were copied and produced, from complete aircrafts to motorcycles. But since then, reverse engineering has come to be viewed in a more positive light because it speeds up and simplifies many developmental procedures for OEMs. Today, it is in almost universal use because it enables OEMs to be more competitive across several disciplines.
Ergonomics and dimensional control
Reverse engineering enables OEMs to evaluate competitors' products-or their own early products-and compare them to their latest designs. From an ergonomic standpoint, reverse engineering brings greater understanding of human factors. Using a measuring-arm coordinate measuring machine (CMM) as a reverse engineering tool enables engineers to precisely define the physical capabilities of the human physique with respect to tasks that must be performed. Available tables provide the limits of some human factors, but they do not define the comfort range of human motion and effort. An engineer studying ergonomic factors must do so on a case-by-case basis, and the arm makes the task easy.