SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR EMPLOYING A DISTRIBUTED COMPUTER-AIDED DESIGN (CAD) SYSTEM TO MANAGE THE DESIGN OF A MANUFACTURING FACILITY

A distributed CAD system includes a server computing device comprising a reference CAD object database and a workstation database. The reference CAD object database comprises a plurality of reference CAD objects, and the workstation database includes a plurality of workstation entries. The distributed CAD system includes a plurality of client computing devices. Each client computing device from among the plurality of client computing devices comprises a client database, and the client database comprises one or more local CAD files and one or more local properties associated with each of the one or more local CAD files. Each client computing device is configured to: select a given local CAD file, identify a given workstation entry associated with the given local CAD file, selectively modify a set of one or more master properties defined by the given workstation entry and a set of the location-based information defined by the given workstation entry.