Onshape MBD: Single Source of Truth from Design to Manufacturing and QA

For the first time, every engineer, manufacturer, supplier, and quality inspector on a project can open the same live part model in a browser, see every tolerance and annotation exactly as the designer defined them, and make decisions without waiting for a drawing to be released, a file to be exported, or anyone to answer an email.

That’s what Onshape MBD for parts makes possible, and it’s a meaningful shift from how product information has traditionally moved from design to market.

Your 3D Model Can Do More Than Hold Geometry

Model-Based Definition (MBD) is the practice of embedding all Product Manufacturing Information (PMI) directly into the 3D part model, so the part itself carries everything needed to manufacture and inspect it. PMI covers the full picture of design intent: dimensions, tolerances, GD&T, datums, surface finishes, and notes, all attached to the geometry they describe rather than living in a separate 2D drawing.

With semantic PMI, each annotation is machine-readable and structurally linked to the geometry it references. A tolerance on a bore isn’t just a number floating near a hole but connected to that feature in a way that downstream tools like drawings for documentation, CAM software, CMM inspection systems, and quality workflows can read and act on directly. Every requirement, its nominal value, and its permissible tolerance range are captured in a form that both humans and machines understand.

Why Most MBD Implementations Have Fallen Short

In legacy CAD systems, capturing PMI has typically been treated as a documentation step performed after design work is complete, implemented through a bolt-on schema loosely connected to the geometry and accessible only to users with specific licenses.

The result is that manufacturing teams still end up translating annotations manually, suppliers still receive static files that drift out of sync the moment a design changes, and the promise of a single source of truth never quite materializes.

With file-based MBD implementations, only a handful of people can actually access the annotated model; the collaboration benefits of MBD are limited to a small part of the product lifecycle.

How Onshape MBD is Different

Onshape is the first fully cloud-native implementation of MBD built directly into the CAD and PDM platform. The cloud architecture changes how MBD works in practice across every role that touches a part.

Onshape MBD is for everyone, not just a select few. No add-ons, no extra licenses, no restricted tiers. Every Onshape user can view and interact with PMI, and light users or external stakeholders can directly access 3D models via publications. No CAD software to download or maintain, no static files that risk becoming outdated. Suppliers, shop floor workers, and quality teams all work from the same live, annotated part without anyone needing a full CAD seat.

It’s part of the modeling workflow, not a step after it. Sketches, features, and custom features are MBD-ready and tolerance-aware from the start. Tolerances added anywhere in the feature tree are semantically linked to the geometry itself rather than visual annotations layered on top after the fact.

It’s dynamic, not static. Onshape supports live filtering of PMI data on the part, so instead of toggling predefined views, users can interactively see exactly what they need. Invalid annotations trigger warnings, and changes to geometry immediately surface their impact on associated dimensions and tolerances.

Standards are encoded, not assumed. Default tolerances can be defined and stored in company libraries, and custom features built with FeatureScript can write MBD data programmatically, encoding your team’s tolerancing standards once and applying them automatically across every project. It’s a level of automation that's both industry-leading and fully customizable to fit how your team works.

Configurations keep parts flexible without duplicating work. When a part has multiple variants, configurations let teams manage different sizes, materials, or specifications within a single part model. Each configuration carries its own PMI, so the right tolerances and annotations follow the right variate downstream without manual intervention.

Export to STEP AP242 for downstream workflows. When it’s time to hand off to suppliers, inspection systems, or CMM tools, Onshape exports to STEP AP242, the ISO standard for model-based manufacturing. That means the semantic PMI data travels with the part in a format that downstream tools can read and use, rather than a PDF that someone has to reinterpret and re-enter manually.

Fewer Handoffs, Fewer Misunderstandings, Faster Decisions

A costly reality in manufacturing today is the back-and-forth that happens when information is ambiguous, out of date, or only accessible to some people on the team.

A supplier interprets a tolerance differently than the designer intended. A manufacturer builds a prototype to an old revision because the updated drawing hadn’t been distributed yet. A quality inspector spends time reconstructing inspection criteria that were already defined upstream.

Each of these moments represents a decision made without full context, and they compound across a product development cycle.

With Onshape MBD, manufacturers and suppliers see the same part, with the same annotations, at the same revision as the engineering team. There are no file attachments to manage, no version naming conventions to decode, and no ambiguity about whether the drawing someone is referencing reflects the latest design intent.

When an engineer updates a tolerance, that change is immediately visible to everyone with access to the part, which means fewer clarification emails, fewer incorrect prototypes, and faster alignment at every stage, from design review to first-article inspection.

Decisions that used to require a meeting, a marked-up PDF, and a follow-up email can happen in the model itself. The result is fewer late engineering changes, fewer interpretation errors downstream, and a quality process that starts at the source.

In Practice: Aura Aero’s Digital Manufacturing Floor

Aura Aero is a French aerospace company that has a digital DNA of how it operates, not as a tooling choice but as a company strategy. Their two-set Integral aircraft became the first aircraft to be certified entirely digitally. Their next program is the Electric Regional Aircraft (ERA), a 19-seat hybrid-electric regional commuter aircraft currently in development alongside a drone program.

Onshape and PTC’s Arena are at the foundation of Aura Aero’s workflows, allowing designers to collaborate in real time, giving manufacturing and support teams access to the same live data, and helping the company build a full digital twin for each aircraft.

“As our team grows, Onshape will be essential in our production because everyone’s work is visible to other departments in real time. … There’s no waiting for design updates. Everyone can keep working without delays,” Physical Design Manager Alban Semond said.

Onshape MBD Supports Digital Acceleration

MBD has existed for decades, but widespread adoption has lagged because legacy systems made it too hard to implement broadly: too many add-ons, too many exports, too much friction between the tool and the people who need the data.

Onshape removes those barriers with no installations, no special licenses, and no disconnect. The result is a single, always-current source of truth that supports better decisions across the entire product development team, and a foundation ready for the digital-first manufacturing workflows already taking shape.