Over the past 70 years, product design has undergone many important changes due to the impact of contemporary digital technologies (i.e. digital design).

To support digital design and information flow throughout the product lifecycle, the digital-driven technologies currently in use rely on the evolution of CAD and PLM systems to address new design and manufacturing challenges generated by the new era of 4.0 digital transformation.

This paper will discuss the past and present coevolution and shortcomings within industrial organisations, the digital technologies employed in the product development cycle and will illustrate the current challenges and future prospects of the digital thread for design.

70年来，由于当代数字技术（即数字设计）的影响，产品设计发生了许多重要的变化。

为了支持整个产品生命周期的数字化设计和信息流，目前使用的数字化驱动技术依赖于 CAD 和 PLM 系统的演进，以应对 4.0 数字化转型新时代带来的新设计和制造挑战。

本文将讨论工业组织中过去和现在的共同进化和缺点、产品开发周期中采用的数字技术，并将说明数字设计线程的当前挑战和未来前景。