Is Progress Slowing you Down? |
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We operate in a different world today, with our competitors ready to make the most out of any misstep we make. Because competition is so fierce, we often turn to technology to help us move our products to market more quickly. Often we employ engineering tools to help develop our products more quickly, accurately, and efficiently. A by-product of using these tools is an explosion of data that eventually becomes difficult to manage. Do you ever wonder why we actually spend more time managing this data than creating it? Getting caught in this vicious circle actually sabotages the development of our own products by adding additional overhead without adding any value. With the stiff competition we face every day, we have to continually improve how we do business. In order to stay competitive, we have evolved from Engineering centric, paper based; throw it over the wall mentality, to sophisticated multi-dimensional designers who are driven by a variety of inputs. We can no longer afford to “throw it over the wall” when the competition is ready to make the most of any mistake made. “I know we designed a part just like this last year. Why can’t I find it?” “Why is it completely different than when I saved it last?” – CAD Designer Somehow, we continually save our work in multiple locations, with multiple copies of the same files, possibly without revision control. Is it any wonder why we continually here complaints like these? Often our engineering tools are blamed, when in reality it is actually we to blame. We don’t follow good data management practices, and even if we do, the amount of time we spend actually managing all of our data becomes the majority of our job function. A solution should offer an automated way to store parts with complete revision history and control to allow people to access data when appropriate. Designers will benefit by spending less time managing data, searching for data, and correcting data, and more time developing product. “I can never be sure which revision is the right one to build to. I should always be able to access the right one at any time!” – Manufacturing Engineer With the number of duplicate parts, poor revision practices, and mediocre distribution processes, our Manufacturing Engineers cannot build a product with the confidence they are building to the correct information. Moreover, when they finally do get correct information, Engineering is usually screaming for it to be finished immediately! The goal should be to allow controlled access to engineering data by Manufacturing. Manufacturing benefits by knowing they have the latest correct data, and both Engineering and manufacturing benefit through reduced rework. “Our backlog of Engineering Changes is out of control. We need to be able to effectively push changes throughout or company.” – Engineering Manager Engineering changes can be a vicious circle. Instead of being a vehicle for improvement, it usually becomes a drain on productivity by being the never-ending fix it circle. Engineering ends up drowning itself in ECO’s, which not only drain motivation, but is also a drain on the project itself. One unnecessary ECO could mean an extra 2K in development cost, plus an extra week to market. Consider the sum total in both money and time to market over the lifecycle of a product, and the costs begin to add up. An automated solution would revision control engineering documents as well as any other supporting documents such as customer specifications or test information. All of this information can be routed throughout the company through an electronic workflow, which eliminates the bottlenecks typically associated with the ECO process. As our tools have evolved, the amount of information that defines our products has grown exponentially. We typically extend ourselves to the extent of our knowledge of the capability of our tools. Our products are defined by more than paper drawings; they are defined by requirements documents, mil-standards, shop docs, spreadsheets, schematics, photo-rendered graphics, change history, and so on. Just trying to manage this explosion of product data in fact slows us down. By automating the product development process, we can reduce concept to market time by as much as 30 percent, cut the number of design changes in half, and cut manufacturing planning time nearly in half. Production increases while manufacturing costs fall. This is why there is a need for PLM. PLM manages the processes, applications, and information required to design, manufacture and support a product throughout its life cycle. To remain competitive, companies need to take a hard look at what they are doing to inadvertently sabotage their product development process. They need to take a good look internally to see how PLM can help address the issues of long development times, increasing development costs, and an inability to control product data. The more information is shared to and from a company, the more important it is to be able to collaborate effectively. Implementing PLM will provide major benefits to a company in product development process automation. InFlow Technology provides superior skill and experience implementing PLM solutions through numerous successful engagements. We always strive to provide solutions most suitable for each client. Let us evaluate your data management issues to see how we can help your company become more competitive. For more information, or to schedule an appointment, please contact your nearest CATI or InFlow account representative today. |