What does MES need for manufacturing IT agility and to stay current in our uncertain world? It’s more than fit and functionality: a modern IT architecture. We talked to leading high-tech manufacturers to understand their vision for this. Please enjoy the summary below. For the full paper, please visit our sponsor Critical Manufacturing (registration required)….
- Executive Summary
- Nothing is Stable
- Production Process Impact
- The Challenge of Enterprise MES
- Modern MES Capabilities
- Containerization for Deployment Choice
- Container Orchestration to Optimize IT Performance
- DevOps Environment for Progress
- Extending DevOps for Ecosystem Access
- Deployment Coordination
- Conclusion
- References
- About the Author
Executive Summary
Digital transformation aims to enhance agility. It must encompass every aspect of a business, including information technology (IT), business teams, and production operations, including the operations technology (OT) teams. Manufacturing execution systems (MES) and related plant floor software have been challenging to implement, maintain, and upgrade. However, manufacturers operating in uncertain times need better agility to succeed with continuous improvement and operational excellence. The ability to change quickly has become more complex. Today, it involves greater collaboration. Investment in new digital technologies, operating systems, and software applications has become a top strategic priority. This shift is now driving a digital transformation across manufacturing IT systems. Upgrading to a modern Manufacturing IT system unlocks exponential performance improvement by improving responsiveness. Manufacturers can leverage containerization strategies and DevOps environments by investing in new IT solutions with an advanced technology architecture to improve efficiency, customer satisfaction, and profit margins.FIGURE 6: OPENING DEVOPS FOR ECOSYSTEM ACCESS BEYOND THE SOFTWARE PROVIDER TO SERVICES PARTNERS AND MANUFACTURING IT TEAMS ENABLES ALL PARTIES TO KEEP THE SOFTWARE CURRENT AND OPTIMIZED
Conclusion
Today’s relentless pace and scope of change have forever altered how manufacturers operate. This requires companies to change the evaluation and selection process for purchasing software and systems. Companies can no longer risk staying with legacy IT systems or MES software applications in a world of extreme change and uncertainty. Even many current MES products cannot keep up.
Innovation in the software industry has yielded an array of new architectures, deployment methodologies, and hosting options. They are finally arriving on the factory floor. These advanced technologies can overcome the challenges associated with uncertainty by streamlining the configuration, standardization, and update processes related to application management. Orchestrated containerization and new DevOps platforms improve collaboration and facilitate enterprise MES deployment. This agility in architecture and tooling is fundamental to overcoming extreme uncertainty.
Manufacturers can implement a modern MES to unlock these benefits – provided it is built on a fully up-to-date architecture. With this foundation, is it possible to:
- Establish a perfect fit in every site and line, even with special one-off needs
- Manage, customize, and update applications consistently from a Center of Excellence (CoE)
- Boost performance and progress from a digital transformation strategy by using a single enterprise manufacturing software suite that is agile, responsive, and fully supports both line of business and IT needs.
Tech-Clarity Celebrates 20 Years of Making the Value of Technology Clear
A message from Jim Brown, President of Tech-Clarity...
Why Tech-Clarity?
Seeing how software technology can help improve business performance in manufacturing is a fascinating thing. I had the chance to experience it from a variety of angles – in manufacturing, as a management consultant, and as a product manager and marketing leader in the software industry. Everywhere I went, I saw a consistent need. Tech people didn’t understand business people, and business people didn’t understand tech people. Somebody needed to bridge the gap in understanding between software and the business value it drives. That’s why Tech-Clarity was created with the mission to make the business value of technology clear.Time has Passed, Surely People “Get it” Now?
So much has changed over the last 20 years. Technology has evolved at a blistering pace. Business has transitioned from business process re-engineering, to lean, to digital transformation. The way people educate themselves about software has also changed, from attending conferences and reading paper reports to consuming eBooks, videos, infographics, interactive benchmarking tools, animations, and more. The web and the rise of social media put extensive information at everyone’s fingertips. Yet, even as younger, more tech-savvy generations have entered the workforce, the need – and our mission – has not changed. In fact, we believe it’s more important today than ever because business people are a more significant part of the process.What Now? Thanking Everyone (and sorry for inevitably missing some)
After 20, what I feel most is grateful. I have so much to be thankful for and so many people to thank. First, I want to thank Michelle Boucher for being the “A-Team” and helping us continuously improve. You have been the stable presence in “Team Tech-Clarity.” Thanks to Julie Fraser, who expanded our coverage as product innovation and engineering converged with manufacturing operations, and for all of the wisdom you provide. And thank you to Mandy Jiang for helping our research reach and inspire so many people. I also want to thank James White and Jeff Hojlo for the roles they played on our analyst team. I also want to express my gratitude to my team at Aberdeen Group. I learned a lot from them as Tech-Clarity was acquired to create the Product Innovation and Engineering practice. I also learned from the manufacturing team when they joined us before I left to resume the Tech-Clarity mission independently. I was fortunate to work with some talented and amazing people, many of whom have gone on to bigger and better things. Thank you to Chad Jackson for helping create and lead the practice, and to a team that always made things work, including Michelle Boucher, Risa Barnett, Dave Houlihan, Maura Buxton, Marjorie Westerman, Dave Mesgar, Adam Hollander, Scott Mitchem, Ric Stanley, and Dave Ableman. A special thanks also to Matt Littlefield, Mehul Shah, and Cindy Jutras, who put up with me as we merged our teams – we were ahead of the times! Thanks to my friends at COFES, including Brad Holtz and Joel Orr, for trusting me as a part of the team. Thanks also to Pete Wells, Lynne Allen, and Jim Doxey for teaming up on the Board of Directors to keep the spirit alive. May it rise again in some form. Thanks to our partners along the way. Thanks to my clients. There are too many of you to name, but please know how much I appreciate your support over the years. I am deeply touched and appreciative for your trust and willingness to support our mission. Thank you to the multitude of manufacturers that I’ve surveyed, interviewed, and worked with for keeping me grounded in the reality of what it takes to design and produce products amidst increasing complexity. Thanks to my family and especially my wife Cori Brown for their support and understanding of why what we do at Tech-Clarity means so much to me.Time to Get Started on the Next 20 Years
In addition to feeling grateful, I feel energized. I am excited about how digital transformation is fundamentally changing the manufacturing industry in profound ways. There are so many cool things happening in manufacturing itself and the engineering, manufacturing, and enterprise software that supports it. With the technological evolution and advances and the lines blurring between business and technology, we still need education on how tech drives better business results. The Tech-Clarity team and I are looking forward to the next 20 years!Be a Part of It
I invite you to be a part of it. Click the follow button on the Tech-Clarity, Inc. LinkedIn page. Visit our website to sign up for our newsletter and surveys. And most of all, keep us up to date on all of the cool, innovative things you’re seeing and doing. Let’s keep moving forward. There is still a lot of business value to be uncovered and realized. Thanks again for the opportunity to be a part of it.Our History in Visuals (Just for Fun)





Table of Contents
- Introducing the Buyer's Guide
- The Collaboration Imperative
- What to Look for: Digital Thread
- What to Look for: Design for X
- What to Look for: Concurrent Engineering
- What to Look for: Partner Collaboration
- Considerations by Role
- Special Considerations
- Implementation and Adoption
- Vendor Considerations
- Conclusions and Next Steps
- Acknowledgments
Introducing the Buyer’s Guide
Structure of the Guide This buyer’s guide analyzes the strategic necessity of effective multi-enterprise collaboration and shares the criteria companies should consider when choosing a supporting PLM solution. The guide begins with functional requirements needed to streamline collaboration and create digital continuity across the product lifecycle. The guide looks at collaboration capabilities along four critical categories:- Supporting the digital thread
- Allowing “design for x”
- Enabling concurrent engineering
- Ensuring secure partner collaboration

Conclusions and Next Steps
Effective Multi-Enterprise Collaboration is Mandatory Better multi-enterprise collaboration streamlines and improves product innovation processes to get the right products to market, the right way, at the right time. It helps companies get products to market faster and avoid costly, time-consuming errors. Beyond that, collaboration allows manufacturers to embrace product and product development complexity to push the boundaries of product innovation, product development speed, and agility. To operate effectively in this complex environment, manufacturers must collaborate effectively across departments, customers, the supply chain, and regulators. PLM Serves as the Backbone for Multi-Enterprise Collaboration PLM is the backbone for multi-enterprise collaboration. Companies must choose a PLM platform that can serve as the foundation to improve product development collaboration to create agility, speed, and quality in product innovation. To do this, they must select a PLM system that allows them to:- Support the digital thread
- Allow “design for x”
- Enable concurrent engineering
- Ensure secure partner collaboration

Table of Contents
- Executive Summary
- Importance of Machine Design
- Identifying Machine Design Top Performers
- Strategies to Reduce Non-Value-Added Work
- 1. Access Product Data from Anywhere
- 2. Maximize Reuse
- 3. Improve Collaboration
- 4. Automate Machine Design Tasks
- 5. Streamline Mechanism Design Tasks
- 6. Solicit More Feedback
- Conclusion
- Recommendations
- About the Research
- Acknowledgments
The Value of Increasing Engineering Bandwidth
Imagine the Impact of Reducing Non-Value-Added Engineering Work in Machine Design How much better would your machine designs be if engineers wasted less time on non-value-added work? Engineering work is critical to competitive machine designs. However, as designs become more complex, engineering decisions become more challenging. Unfortunately, engineers waste so much time on non-value-added work, it impacts their bandwidth. Consequently, it can be hard to identify conflicts and find the time to fully evaluate essential engineering decisions affecting quality and cost. As a result, many struggle to avoid cost overruns and risks to delivery dates. About the Research Based on a survey of 228 manufacturers, this research study examines machine design practices, where engineers waste time, and best practices to avoid non-value-added work. These best practices will improve your ability to produce higher quality machines in less time, while improving your ability to meet your customers' expectations.Importance of Machine Design


Conclusion
Ideal Machine Design Solution Regardless of their performance, machine designers indicate numerous business advantages to using an ideal machine design solution (see graph). While products will still get out even without an ideal solution, engineers waste so much time on non-value-added work, companies miss out on opportunities that would give them a competitive advantage. An ideal solution that supports easy access to product data from anywhere, maximizes reuse, improves collaboration, enables design automation, including mechanisms, and facilitates more opportunities for feedback will reduce this non-value-added work and free up engineering bandwidth. As a result, engineers will have more time to improve design quality, lower costs, and innovate. There will be less risk for errors, which will save time. The result will be happier customers, helping you win customer loyalty and capture market share.Recommendations
Recommendations and Next Steps By limiting the time machine designers waste on non-value-added work, you can increase engineering bandwidth, empowering them to produce higher quality designs, in less time, at a lower cost. Based on industry experience and research for this report, Tech-Clarity offers the following recommendations:Ensure machine designers can easily access product data in real-time from anywhere. This will limit their time searching for data, recreating work because they couldn't find the data, or reworking designs due to outdated information.
- Maximize reuse by making data easier to find and with a reuse library. This will save engineering time by using previously proven work, reducing the risk of introducing new errors.
- Improve collaboration by making it easier for stakeholders, especially analysts, to access design data in real-time.
- Automate machine design tasks to limit the amount of time engineers waste on tedious tasks.
- Streamline mechanism design tasks with specialized applications tailored for mechanism design that enable engineers to design mechanisms in the context of the entire assembly.
- Solicit more feedback by improving the efficiency of design reviews by extending access to all stakeholders, including customers. A cloud platform allows the flexibility to extend access to third parties and then turn it off so that you never lose control of your intellectual property.

Table of Contents
- Introducing the Buyer’s Guide
- Flexible Flows to Meet Enterprise Needs
- Enterprise-Capable
- Enterprise IT-Capable
- Functionality
- Visibility and Optimization
- Software Technology
- Vendor Requirements
- Implementation and Service Criteria
- Optimize and Reoptimize
- Acknowledgments
- Selecting the Right WMS
Optimizing Warehouse Operations into the Unforeseeable Future
Today, many enterprises are finding their business transformation path. Companies must change, whether it's changing up suppliers or customers, moving into new product lines, regions, or markets, offering new services, or adjusting to unpredictable demand and supply situations. Competitive advantage and strategy are no longer fixed. As a result, companies need to select warehouse management systems (WMS) carefully. What are the primary considerations, and how can choosing the right WMS impact a company’s ability to succeed in their business and digital transformations today and into the future?Introducing the Buyer’s Guide
Perfect Orders in a Changing World Every industry has been suffering from disruptions and radical changes in supply, demand, and business realities. As a result, supply chain responsiveness for perfect orders is often top of mind, and enterprise warehouse management systems (WMS) are foundational to achieving that. Warehouse performance is crucial, not only for wholesale and distribution enterprises but also for retailers, e-tailers, producers, and manufacturers. Structure of the Guide This buyer’s guide describes the needs of larger enterprises to transform and continue to improve their business. It then lays out a set of critical considerations for selecting a WMS that will support the strategy now and into the future. Functionality is just the beginning of the considerations. Technology is also crucial and needs to be future-ready as the digital transformation continues. Even if the software is good, the solution provider partner or vendor plays many vital roles. To gain business value with an excellent total cost of ownership, implementation, and the ongoing relationship matter also.Optimize and Reoptimize
Get WMS that will Fit





Table of Contents
- Collaborative Systems are Key to Successful NPD
- Missing Product Development Targets is the Norm
- Collaboration Basics are Challenging
- Collaboration Challenges Impact the Business
- Collaborating Across Boundaries is Hard
- Collaborating Out of the Office is Difficult
- Why do Some Companies Better Meet NPD Targets?
- Top Performers have a Collaboration Advantage
- Top Performers Use More Cloud File Sharing
- Cloud File Sharing is Attractive for Collaboration
- The Ease of Cloud with Engineering Context
- Conclusion and Next Steps
- About the Research
- Acknowledgments
Improving Product Development Performance
Leveraging CAD and Product Development Collaboration to Hit Product Development Targets Rapid new product development (NPD) is critical for success in the manufacturing industries, but 85% of manufacturers routinely miss their project due dates. Our survey results show that Top Performers, those that more frequently hit their product development targets, have better collaboration capabilities and are more likely to use the cloud for both CAD and project collaboration. It finds, however, that these Top Performers are not necessarily just using general cloud file sharing solutions like Dropbox, Drive, or OneDrive. The leaders’ cloud solutions include more design and engineering-specific collaboration capabilities.Collaborative Systems are Key to Successful NPD
Collaboration is Mandatory, but Challenging Collaboration is crucial to efficient and effective new product development. Today’s products are complex and typically require input from multiple design and engineering disciplines. Beyond technical product design, developing a profitable commercial offering demands input from a variety of other departments and the supply chain. But our research1 shows that about 40% of companies say collaborating with other departments and 3rd parties on NPD is a challenge. Leverage Structured Solutions Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Product Data Management (PDM) are proven to help drive better NPD collaboration and performance. Our surveys2 show that Top Performers are more likely to use data management tools to collaborate – both externally and internally. This study confirms that, showing that Top Performers are more likely to use PLM. But we also recognize that although many smaller companies see the value of PDM / PLM, they feel it’s out of reach. Turn to the Cloud The cloud can help make structured, collaborative solutions more attainable. The cloud has clear collaboration benefits, and a recent study3 shows that companies using the cloud for product development are more likely to report that collaboration is “very easy.” That same study shows that Top Performers are 21% more likely to use cloud systems to support product development. But, not all of the solutions that companies use are structured, formal PDM or PLM. Data from that study also shows that 62% of Top Performers (and 60% of companies overall) use cloud file sharing solutions for product development, although those tools are not necessarily the only solution they use. This study further investigates how leading companies leverage the cloud for better CAD and product development collaboration.
Conclusions and Next Steps
Better Collaboration Leads to Better Product Development Performance Top Performing manufacturers, those that better hit their product development targets, have better collaboration capabilities than the poorer-performing Others. These companies, particularly larger ones, are more likely to use formal systems like PDM and PLM. But they are also more likely to use cloud SaaS file sharing tools. Cloud File Sharing has a Place in CAD and PD Collaboration Despite the shortcomings for engineering data, cloud / SaaS file sharing solutions can provide significant value in CAD and product development collaboration. Cloud file sharing can help improve product development collaboration, leading to the ability to better meet product development targets. To be most effective, however, the solution must address the challenges of CAD and Product development collaboration – primarily sharing CAD with non-engineers and multi-CAD. Engineering-enabled cloud file sharing solutions have the potential to improve performance by complementing formal, proven PLM or PDM systems. For smaller companies, who may find cloud file sharing more accessible than formal solutions, these solutions have the potential to add value to NPD performance even as standalone solutions. We believe that cloud file sharing solutions are worth investigating and may be able to play an important role in CAD and product development collaboration. *This summary is an abbreviated version of the research and does not contain the full content. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Siemens (registration required). If you have difficulty obtaining a copy of the report, please contact us. [post_title] => Leveraging the Cloud for CAD and Product Development Collaboration (eBook) [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => product-development-collaboration-ebook [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-12-15 17:21:33 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-12-15 22:21:33 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://tech-clarity.com/?p=11430 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [9] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 11396 [post_author] => 2 [post_date] => 2022-06-02 09:00:30 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-06-02 13:00:30 [post_content] =>
Table of Contents
- Risk and Disruption Demand Change
- The Evolution of Engineering
- Choosing PLM
- The Basics
- Expanding PLM for Operational Excellence
- Expanding PLM - Process
- Expanding PLM - People
- Expanding PLM - Lifecycle
- Expanding PLM - Product
- Conclusions and Next Steps
- Acknowledgments
Expanding PLM for Operational Excellence
The Four Dimensions of PLM Expansion
- Process: Improving processes beyond basic revision control and release to manufacturing
- People: Including more people and departments beyond Engineering, including partners, the supply chain, and customers
- Lifecycle: Supporting upstream and downstream capabilities beyond design
- Product: Expanding beyond product design to a full product definition
- Inbound: Enabling engineers to better use information coming out of other business areas such as Procurement, Quality, Manufacturing, and others to design for operational excellence
- Outbound: Making better use of information coming out of Engineering in other areas of business such as Marketing, Sales, Service, and more to support broader product innovation, development, manufacturing, and support process to drive operational efficiency
"To start, PLM supports document management, design control, and training. That sets the foundation for product development process compliance. Then, you can build on that to support operational needs like NCMR, suppliers, CAPA, change control, and complaint handling as you go to the commercial phase." - Scott King, Director, IRIDEX CORPORATION
"We started with ECOs, took some small bites, then expanded it more broadly by implementing it with supply chain, customers, drawings, orders, contract tracking, and source tracking. They lend themselves perfectly to PLM." - John Baumann, CEO, THINGAP, INC.
Conclusions and Next Steps
Moving Toward Operational Excellence Manufacturers have to recognize the need for innovation, agility, and operational improvement. Business risk and disruption are threatening profitability and survival for many businesses. Products and markets have changed, demanding more. Recognize the New Role of the Engineer To support more supply-chain centric, operationally-focused product development processes the role of engineers has changed. They must be able to access a wider array of information in order to make broader product-related decisions. This, in turn, changes the requirements for the PLM systems that support them. Choose the Right PLM Solution to Drive Operational Excellence

- Why plant floor software must reach beyond functional fit into MES architecture
- How to be ready for anything: M&A, new plants, new regulations, moving products between plants
- The benefits of easily moving software to public or private cloud, on-prem, or hybrid
- Why containerization, orchestration, DevOps, and one-click deployment from a central CoE can avoid the MES trap of fit that fades over the years

- Transitioning to a data-driven process
- Digitalizing tech transfer data and processes
- Taking a holistic approach to product data modeling



Table of Contents
- Executive Overview
- The Importance of Effective Data Management
- Data Management Must Address Today's Challenges
- Data Management Challenges Reduce Productivity
- Evaluating the Practices of the Top Performers
- Data Management Practices of the Top Performers
- Enabling Top Performing Product Development
- Top Performers are More Likely to Embrace the Cloud
- Conclusions and Recommendations
- About the Research
- Acknowledgments
Leveraging Data Management to Enable Product Development
Analyzing Data Management Practices for Successful Product Development How do design data management practices impact product development performance? We surveyed 131 companies that design, engineer, and/or manufacture products to understand how they manage design data like CAD files, bills of material, and other product-related information to find out. We conducted this study as a follow-up to our previous studies to understand what has changed over time.Executive Overview
Survey Approach
- Find the data they need
- Share it with others
- Manage their design projects
- Provide the correct data to manufacturing
- Are more likely to use advanced features of their data management systems beyond simply storing and controlling CAD files
- Are 70% more likely to share data using the cloud for design and/or engineering
- Have 3 times as many people using their PLM system*
- Are 4.3 times as likely to have third parties such as customers and suppliers use their PLM systems *
Conclusions and Recommendations
Conclusions Effective design data management fundamentals enable better product development performance. The data shows, however, that companies face significant challenges in managing their critical design data due to product complexity. These challenges can lead to quality problems and inefficiency, and prevent companies from taking advantage of strategic opportunities such as design reuse. Addressing these challenges with effective design data management practices and technology leads to significant business advantages, including improved efficiency, quality, and time to market. Top Performers are more effective at data management and take a more collaborative approach to managing designs. To enable this, Top Performers leverage more mature use of their design data management systems. The fundamentals of design data management, supported by an effective data management solution, provide significant business value and provide a foundation that can be expanded on for future benefits. But to differentiate today, companies must go beyond controlling and accessing data. Recommendations Based on industry experience and research for this report, Tech-Clarity offers the following recommendations:- Ensure that your business has the basic fundamentals of data management in place, but expand the maturity of data management usage to drive higher value
- Improve design data management effectiveness to improve business performance in product design and development
- Explore the use of cloud collaboration to improve data management and product development performance

[post_title] => Is it Time to Transform Manufacturing Engineering? (webcast) [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => manufacturing-engineering-webcast [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-11-14 22:27:10 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-11-15 03:27:10 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://tech-clarity.com/?p=11354 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [14] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 11306 [post_author] => 2 [post_date] => 2022-04-20 09:15:40 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-04-20 13:15:40 [post_content] => Is PLM ready to support the future of the digital consumer packaged goods industry? Join an interactive panel discussion featuring:
- PepsiCo Senior Director of Global R&D Susan Hamel
- Kalypso Consumer Goods Global Director Colin Speakman
- Tech-Clarity President Jim Brown


- David Heiny, Co-Founder and CEO of SimScale
- David Weir-McCall, Industry Marketing Manager Architecture – Epic Games
- Eveart Foster, Director Technology Adoption of BuiltWorlds
- Igal Kaptsan, General Manager Software of GE Additive
- Igor Tsinman, Co-Founder and President of AMC Bridge
- Yuan Qinghui, Director Modeling and Data Science of Donaldson



Table of Contents
- Executive Summary
- Product Development Is Critical to Business Strategies
- The Time Wasters
- Implications of Time Wasters to the Business
- A Solution to Avoid Time Wasters
- Defining Product Complexity
- Business Value from PLM
- Extending PLM Use Results in Greater Satisfaction
- How Companies implement PLM
- Additional Values Due to the Cloud
- Conclusions
- Recommendations
- About the Research
- Acknowledgments
Executive Summary
Engineers Impact Business Success Exceptional products are critical to success, regardless of whether a company's business strategy is to grow or improve margins. Likewise, engineers are crucial to ensuring products have what it takes to succeed in the market. Therefore, empowering engineers is key to the successful execution of business strategies.
Conclusions
Reclaiming Lost Time Smaller and medium-sized companies prioritize their future growth and sustained success on winning in the marketplace with better, differentiated products. To support this, they can give their product development capabilities a significant boost by eliminating the time wasters that consume engineers' valuable time. Companies of all sizes find that PLM can empower their engineers to innovate by significantly reducing engineers' time on non-value-added tasks. As a result, they can enjoy a competitive advantage. In addition, technology advances, such as cloud-based offerings, can reduce implementation time, cost, and difficulty, making PLM more accessible to smaller and medium-sized companies.Recommendations
Next Steps
- Consider the business impact of engineering time wasters on your company and make investments to minimize them. By empowering engineers to focus more time on value-added work, you will get to market faster with better, more differentiated products.
- Consider how challenging it can be to find and recruit engineering talent in today’s business climate. Freeing engineers from time-wasting tasks can help take some pressure off your existing staff, improving their work environment and productivity, and reducing the need to add more.
- Look at PLM as a potential solution to reduce engineering time wasters. Smaller and medium-sized companies report that PLM offers benefits such as centralizing data, supporting multiple domains, managing processes, and improving collaboration. This frees engineers from tasks that waste their time so they can focus more on engineering and innovation.
- Use PLM for more than managing data. Those most satisfied with PLM also use it to manage engineering change processes, access control, requirements, and release processes.
- Extend the use of PLM to a broader audience beyond engineering. Those most satisfied with it include management, manufacturing, quality, and sales as users.
- Select a solution that has the flexibility to configure to your processes. An overwhelming 74% who found the implementation easy, identified this as helpful to the implementation.
- Consider a cloud solution. Interestingly, 78% of those who implemented a cloud solution considered the deployment easy and implemented it in half the time required by those using a non-cloud solution.

Table of Contents
- Executive Overview
- The Business Value of Systems Engineering
- Start with Process Definition
- Manage Requirements
- Design the System
- Design the System to be Modular
- Support Product Line Variants
- Enable Detailed Design
- Support Connectivity
- Verify and Validate the System
- Assess Service Requirements
- Consider Vendor Attributes
- Identify Specific Needs for Your Company
- Conclusion
- Recommendations
- About the Author
- Acknowledgments
Executive Summary
Fierce global competition continues to drive companies to seek new ways to competitively differentiate their products. Many achieve this differentiation through smarter and more connected products. This approach creates many innovative possibilities for new products and services.
While smarter products and connectivity create exciting opportunities for innovation, they also bring unique challenges and add new levels of complexity. Much of this complexity comes from requirements to integrate mechanical components, electronics, and software. Connectivity adds further complexity as you add sensors, streaming data, and an ecosystem of connected systems. Whether you are a systems engineer, product architect, or domain-specific engineer, addressing this complexity requires expert systems engineering practices.
To set the foundation for expert systems engineering practices, companies should focus on the entire systems engineering process, ensuring there are solutions for all aspects of systems engineering. Expert systems engineering practices will help companies become even more competitive in ways that will lead to higher growth and greater profitability.
The right technology is an essential part of implementing and supporting these expert systems engineering practices. The right technology will enable improved collaboration, better traceability with a digital thread, and earlier visibility to potential problems. This will result in a more efficient development process while reducing the risk of finding errors late in the process, helping to avoid delays and increased costs. This buyer’s guide will help manufacturers select the right software to support systems engineering.
This guide comprises four major sections covering systems engineering software tool functionality, service requirements, vendor attributes, and special company considerations (Figure 1). Each section includes a checklist of key requirements to support your selection process for systems engineering software tools.

Conclusion
Expert systems engineering practices are vital to take advantage of innovation available through embedded software and the Internet of Things. The opportunities to create smart, connected devices can help companies set their products apart from the competition, helping them win new customers and increase revenues. However, bringing together systems of mechanical components, electronics, and software is complex. That complexity grows exponentially as companies try to meet the various needs of customers with different configurations. Connected systems add even further complexity as you add sensors, streaming data, and connected ecosystems.
Complexity increases the risk that things will go wrong. The impact of these problems can have a significant business impact and hurt product profitability. Implementing expert systems engineering practices, with the right software tools to support them, can manage this complexity, making it easier to successfully bring profitable products to market. Even if today’s smart, connected devices are relatively simple, as they evolve and offer critical services such as those that impact safety, they will increase in complexity and need the same level of expert systems engineering practices.
These practices and the supporting solution are not just limited to systems engineers either. There are a variety of IoT-related roles involved with planning, designing, and architecting connected systems, such as IoT solution architects, who will struggle with the exact same challenges as systems engineers. Companies planning for growth should consider both current and future needs.
However, there are so many aspects of systems engineering; determining the right solution for your company can be very difficult. Using a high-level list of tool and process evaluation criteria such as the ones in this guide can help narrow down potential solutions. The lists provide a quick “litmus test” to determine if a solution and partner are a good fit before conducting detailed functional or technical reviews. In the end, it is crucial to ensure that functionality, service, vendor, and special requirements are all considered when selecting a solution.

Industry Disruption is the New Normal
Today’s global manufacturing industry is more susceptible to global disruptions than ever. In the past decade, we’ve had to recover from earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, political uncertainty, and a global pandemic. These events have led to demand volatility, supply chain disruptions, and workforce impacts. Consequently, our research finds that about three-quarters of companies have experienced an increase in business risk and disruption over the prior five years.Responding to Adversity by Bouncing Forward
The manufacturing industry, however, did not give up. Instead, our research shows that:- 86% of companies increased their focus and attention on digital transformation as a response to disruption
- 49% of companies accelerated technology adoption.
Top Performers Get More Value by Acting on Digital Data
One of the keys to success is digitalizing data and processes. Our research shows that Top Performing companies are:- 50% more likely to have fully digital design data than poorer performing companies.
- Three times as likely to have fully digital design and development processes.
- Three times as likely to integrate IT and OT data and systems.
- More than three times as likely to be able to provide access to manufacturing data in time to impact performance.
Interested in More?
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn how to navigate your smart factory initiatives at our exclusive event on April 28th 12:00pm-4:30pm at the Great Lakes Brewery in Cleveland, OH. The jam-packed agenda includes industry expert panel, a networking Lunch, a deep dive roundtable session, and a happy hour (where the real secrets are revealed)! This is your opportunity to learn how industry leaders took advantage of the emerging technology and lowered costs while simplifying operations. Register now to network with industry peers and experts. Limited seating at this intimate event! For full event information and registration please visit the event sponsor, FactoryEye. Click here to view the full list of speakers. You can also view the event brochure here.

Table of Contents
- Executive Summary
- Nothing is Stable
- Production Process Impact
- The Challenge of Enterprise MES
- Modern MES Capabilities
- Containerization for Deployment Choice
- Container Orchestration to Optimize IT Performance
- DevOps Environment for Progress
- Extending DevOps for Ecosystem Access
- Deployment Coordination
- Conclusion
- References
- About the Author
Executive Summary
Digital transformation aims to enhance agility. It must encompass every aspect of a business, including information technology (IT), business teams, and production operations, including the operations technology (OT) teams. Manufacturing execution systems (MES) and related plant floor software have been challenging to implement, maintain, and upgrade. However, manufacturers operating in uncertain times need better agility to succeed with continuous improvement and operational excellence. The ability to change quickly has become more complex. Today, it involves greater collaboration. Investment in new digital technologies, operating systems, and software applications has become a top strategic priority. This shift is now driving a digital transformation across manufacturing IT systems. Upgrading to a modern Manufacturing IT system unlocks exponential performance improvement by improving responsiveness. Manufacturers can leverage containerization strategies and DevOps environments by investing in new IT solutions with an advanced technology architecture to improve efficiency, customer satisfaction, and profit margins.FIGURE 6: OPENING DEVOPS FOR ECOSYSTEM ACCESS BEYOND THE SOFTWARE PROVIDER TO SERVICES PARTNERS AND MANUFACTURING IT TEAMS ENABLES ALL PARTIES TO KEEP THE SOFTWARE CURRENT AND OPTIMIZED
Conclusion
Today’s relentless pace and scope of change have forever altered how manufacturers operate. This requires companies to change the evaluation and selection process for purchasing software and systems. Companies can no longer risk staying with legacy IT systems or MES software applications in a world of extreme change and uncertainty. Even many current MES products cannot keep up.
Innovation in the software industry has yielded an array of new architectures, deployment methodologies, and hosting options. They are finally arriving on the factory floor. These advanced technologies can overcome the challenges associated with uncertainty by streamlining the configuration, standardization, and update processes related to application management. Orchestrated containerization and new DevOps platforms improve collaboration and facilitate enterprise MES deployment. This agility in architecture and tooling is fundamental to overcoming extreme uncertainty.
Manufacturers can implement a modern MES to unlock these benefits – provided it is built on a fully up-to-date architecture. With this foundation, is it possible to:
- Establish a perfect fit in every site and line, even with special one-off needs
- Manage, customize, and update applications consistently from a Center of Excellence (CoE)
- Boost performance and progress from a digital transformation strategy by using a single enterprise manufacturing software suite that is agile, responsive, and fully supports both line of business and IT needs.
All Results for "All"
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