Did you know that engineers spend, on average, about a day a week on non-value-added data management tasks? That’s a lot of time spent on design data management that could be spent on driving product innovation and performance. That NVA time has a big business impact as well, including missed design deadlines that can delay time-to-market and damage company profitability.
What are the top time wasters that cause engineers to spend so much time on data management? How can effective Product Data Management (PDM) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) help them spend less time on those cumbersome activities?
See our Saving Time in CAD Design: Winning the Engineering Productivity Challenge to learn how better design data management helps companies avoid engineering time wasters to meet their design due dates.
Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Siemens (registration required).
Table of Contents
- Reduce Non-Value-Added Time in CAD Design
- Engineers Don’t Have Time to Waste
- Engineering Teams Can Do Better
- Time Saver – Finding and Reusing Data
- Time Saver – Effective Collaboration
- Time Saver – Managing Multi-CAD Complexity
- Realize the Benefits of PLM
- Time Saver – Cloud PLM
- About the Research
- Acknowledgments
Engineers Don’t Have Time to Waste
Too Much Wasted Time on Design Data Management
Engineers today face high product complexity and tight deadlines. They have no time to spare. Our survey results, however, show that designers only spend about one-half of their time on design, engineering, and innovation on a typical project. In fact, they spend 19% of their time, about one day a week, on non-value-added (NVA) data management tasks such as finding information, working with the wrong data, recreating data, translating formats, and other common time wasters.
Wasted Time Hurts the Business
NVA time is frustrating to engineers. This wasted time may keep them from breaking for lunch or leaving the office at a reasonable time. That’s bad, and there’s more to it than that. Not only does it impact individual engineers, it keeps their teams from hitting their targets. Two-thirds of responding companies say that NVA time leads them to miss deadlines, about three out of five companies say it drives product cost higher, and over one-half say it causes them to go over budget. It also hurts their work, as 42% of companies say it creates an inability to innovate and optimize products and about one-quarter say it directly reduces product quality.
The impacts on new product development are significant. In fact, for a typical project, our benchmarks show:
- Only 17% of companies typically meet or beat their design deadlines
- Only 30% meet or beat their budgets
- Only 33% meet or beat design quality goals
- Only 37% meet or beat their design scope targets
Missing these metrics hurts a company’s ability to compete and reduces their profitability. Something has to change. It’s time for them to stop wasting time in CAD design.
Realize the Benefits of PLM
Implement CAD Time Savers with Best Practices
It’s time to stop wasting time in CAD design and win at the engineering productivity game. Top Performers, those that are the best at hitting their design project targets, are showing the way. They are more likely to use PLM, which helps them improve product data search and retrieval, collaboration, and multi-CAD management that would otherwise waste precious engineering time.
PLM Benefits
You don’t have to be a Top Performer, though, to get value from PLM. PLM value is available to all. The benefits uncovered by the survey include:
- The vast majority, 85%, say PLM helps them find data.
- Almost three-quarters say it helps them ensure more accurate data, and over two-thirds report more timely design data.
- Over two-thirds say it improves collaboration
- About the same number say it improves their workflows / processes
These are compelling benefits that help engineers avoid wasting time on non-value-added activities.
From a business perspective, companies report PLM provides speed and efficiency:
- Almost three-quarters report faster design cycles and more efficient use of engineering time
- Over one-half report overall faster product development projects
PLM also delivers additional business benefits and strategic advantages beyond saving time:
- Over one-half report fewer design errors and improved product quality
- Approximately one-half report reduced product cost
- 44% report better innovation
- 38% share improved sustainability
Our conclusion is that PLM helps engineers hit design targets and helps their companies grow both their top- and bottom-line profits.
Overcoming Time Wasters
Get Started
The ability for PLM to overcome time wasters and hit project targets is not new. However, PLM is now more accessible due to the availability of mature PLM solutions that deliver the operational, implementation, IT-related, and strategic advantages available from the cloud. It’s time to get started and win at the engineering productivity challenge, and using the cloud is like a “cheat code” to unlock that value faster.
*This summary is an abbreviated version of the ebook and does not contain the full content. For the full report, please visit our sponsor Siemens.
If you have difficulty obtaining a copy of the research, please contact us.