CAD/CAM as an analogy for data processing algorithms

My last couple of posts (here, here) have been focused on manufacturing automation as an analogy for big data software techniques along with some discussions on the topic.

Here I thought I'd just jot down how CAD/CAM in particular might be an analogy for algorithmic data processing.

CAD/CAM is all about manufacturing physical things required for a physical process and ultimately, a physical product:

Algorithms are all about manufacturing digital things (e.g., datasets, results) required for a business process and ultimately, some sort of product (digital or physical) :

The process is the same, but results in a digital artifact for use in a business process.

I'm sure that there's an argument that what's been done here is to essentially abstract each process to such a degree that it's not representative. But the fact is that production is automated in manufacturing by assigning small, discrete packages of work to many actors, with as much parallelisation as possible, in order to produce a high quality output.

Seems a good analogy to me.