How can manufacturers accelerate equipment quotes, design, and delivery without sacrificing performance and quality? What four disciplines do they need to digitally transform their design processes to move faster and get designs right the first time despite increasing complexity?
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Table of Contents
- Innovation Introduces Complexity
- Embrace Complexity without Compromises
- Adopt a Comprehensive Digital Twin
- Integrate and Streamline Design
- Enable Cross-Discipline Collaboration
- Operationalize Program and Process Management
- Move Faster with a Comprehensive Digital Twin and Digital Continuity
- Acknowledgments
Rapidly Developing Complex Equipment
Accelerate Equipment Design to Drive Profits
Speed is the key to top-line business performance. Equipment manufacturers must rapidly quote, design, and deliver machines to satisfy customers and drive revenue. But speed can’t come at the expense of performance, quality, and cost. Sacrificing product fundamentals leads to poor bottom-line profitability regardless of top-line growth. In addition, trading off quality, cost, and performance to meet due dates damages customer relationships and brand reputation. It’s time for equipment manufacturers to digitally transform equipment design and development so they can accelerate equipment design and get designs right the first time.
Embrace Complexity without Compromises
Adopt a Better Design Process
Despite the challenges, complexity isn’t an inherently bad thing. Manufacturers can embrace complexity to further technology advances like autonomous operations and connected work environments that allow them to bring new capabilities to market.
In addition, they can differentiate by increasing configurability to better allow customers to tailor equipment more exactly to their needs. Mastering complexity lets manufacturers help their customers dramatically improve efficiency and productivity.
Digitally Transform
To compete in this complex environment, however, equipment manufacturers must digitally transform their product design and development processes to be as efficient, agile, and adaptable as possible. They have to be able to design more quickly without compromising quality, reliability, or performance. Accelerating design requires a better way of doing things, a collaborative, systems-oriented product development process based on digital data and process continuity. This process should allow them to iterate and innovate without fear, with the comfort that their design and engineering processes are under control.
Improve Four Disciplines to Drive Speed with Quality
Mastering the design of complex products is an opportunity to rise above the crowd. It’s time to digitally transform equipment design and development to raise the bar on the competition through rapid, accurate product design. To support this, we’ve identified four key disciplines to drive speed while accommodating complexity:
- Comprehensive Digital Twin
- Integrated and Automated Design Tools
- Cross-Discipline Collaboration
- Program and Process Management
Improving any of these disciplines increases speed without negatively impacting quality, compliance, reliability, or cost. But, of course, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts when companies apply them in combination.
Move Faster with a Comprehensive Digital Twin and Digital Continuity
Improve Processes
Complex equipment manufacturers must reduce the time it takes to quote and deliver configured equipment to meet customer needs. Today’s markets are competitive and time is the key to winning business. However, companies can’t afford to increase design speed at the expense of performance, quality, or cost. Instead, manufacturers have to accelerate equipment design while getting things right the first time.
Embrace Complexity
Companies shouldn’t trade off complexity for speed, either. Equipment manufacturers have an opportunity to raise the bar on their competitors by not only managing the current complexity of mechatronic equipment but taking it to the next level. With process improvement, manufacturers can innovate with the confidence to incorporate new features and technologies including more electrified, connected equipment.
Improve Enabling Technology
Manufacturers can accelerate design without making compromises by adopting the following four key disciplines:
- Comprehensive Digital Twin
- Integrated and Automated Design Tools
- Cross-Discipline Collaboration
- Program and Process Management
These capabilities require a cohesive platform of solutions that supports a comprehensive, collaborative product development process. The solution should combine requirements management, design, simulation, data management, analytics, product verification, and program management capabilities. Equipment manufacturers should look for a product innovation platform that offers these capabilities but also recognize the need for the platform to integrate with additional design solutions. As with all new technology adoption plans, we suggest investigating cloud platforms for their inherent advantages and to ensure the chosen solution remains viable in the market well into the future.
Get Started
Complexity and short leadtimes are the reality now and into the future. Equipment manufacturers need to embrace both to their advantage as competitive levers. Companies can start by focusing on each or all of the disciplines identified to increase their equipment design maturity and performance. The results will be the ability to innovate without fear and accelerate equipment design without sacrificing quality – allowing them to outperform the competition. However, those who don’t improve will likely be left behind by competitors who do.
*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).
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