"Have we ever designed or built something similar to this shape? If so can I re-use it? What was its cost and did we manufacture it ourselves or did we purchase it? If so, where and at what cost?"

In most organizations it is almost impossible to get answers to such a question. Organizations with multiple departments or sites, or that have dealt with mergers, will find it all the more complex to resolve these kinds of questions. Shape search is focused on disclosing 3D CAD information based on the shape of a specific part or assembly. The application is able to locate similar parts and assemblies independent of textual information or metadata from the CAD or PDM-system. Shape search is often used to clean up an organization's CAD files prior to a legacy data migration or PDM implementation. The cost savings concerning the implementation of the PDM alone will easily justify the investment in Shape Search.