There is no denying that engineering is an important department within manufacturing companies. Product creation starts within engineering, and every decision made in the design phase influences the following processes and departments – sometimes even in unforeseen ways,
Engineering is not only about the creation of products; it is also about solving product problems and improving them.
Common challenges within engineering
Effectively designing and optimizing advanced products remains a constant challenge. These challenges are getting more complex due to incompatible tools, the inability to reuse design data, and the difficulty of collaborating across teams and departments in the company. In addition, new issues also arise around sustainability.
Here you have a summary of challenges we have seen in various engineering departments:
Due to customized products and increasing customer demands, projects are becoming increasingly complex.
Material prices and labour costs are increasing, making it important to design as efficiently as possible with the right materials.
The
speed at which technologies change also causes engineering departments to need
to innovate.
An engineering department does not work alone but is connected to different departments such as production, R&D and service to optimize designs.
Most products being designed need to have certain certifications or perform certain tests. Documenting these tests, and their results, can be challenging.
The quality of designed products must be tested to reduce the risks of defect.
Untap the business value of your engineering department
As the decisions made in the engineering process have a huge influence on the rest of the product lifecycle and thereby also other departments in your organization, there is also an enormous potential to be found.
In your engineering department, you want to reduce your development costs, identify and eliminate errors as early as possible in the design cycle, and optimize product designs through cross-department collaboration. With the goal of reducing costs and meeting the ever-increasing customer requirements.
Below are the key objectives every engineering department should strive for:
✓ Being able to complete complex projects easily.
✓ Easily bring different designs together, regardless of the tool used.
✓ Collaborate efficiently with other departments.
✓ Easily link certificates and tests to products.
✓ Get the correct information on the latest version of the product.
✓ Create a single version of the truth for all product information.
It is essential that your engineering department collaborates with other departments – understand why:
The engineering department must be able to easily hand over designs in the right form to specific departments, and sometimes receive input from them. To make this possible, data must be able to flow through these departments via a so-called digital common thread.
Below are some departments where collaboration with engineering is essential:
The engineering and production departments must be able to look at the same and newest product related data. This is the only way to avoid manual errors and misunderstandings. Furthermore, problems during the production process must be easily transferred to the engineering department.
The Field Service department can pass on common product defects to the design department so that they can make the necessary adjustments. Visa versa, Field Service needs access to the latest product information, like drawings, to be able to identify the right spare parts and repair approach.
The sales department can show 3D designs to potential customers to give them a better idea of the product. Furthermore, they must also be able to present the necessary certificates when selling and easily need access to the latest improvements of products.
By improving the collaborations between the purchasing and engineering departments, you ensure that the designers have insight into the prices of different components. This allows them to reduce any costs by using alternative/cheaper components. Visa versa, the purchasing department must be notified instantly when a new product update is out, so they can update or change orders made with suppliers.
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We'd love to help you with your engineering solution.
Whether you're considering optimizing your engineering department, are already working with engineering software and need support, or want to talk about how to get even more out of your existing engineering solution, we're here to help.
