A recent ebook from Tech-Clarity, “Solving High Tech’s Top Six Critical Business Issues,” reinforces what many in the high-tech product development world know: it’s a tough marketplace out there. New technologies offer exciting opportunities for innovation, but they also create implicit requirements for companies whose success depends on responding to ever-changing consumer desires.
This is a particular challenge given that lack of response to market trends could mean irrelevance and even obsolescence. In the drive to make connected, smart products, the pressure is on to be first or early to the market to capture share, but also to deliver something new and exciting for the market. We are all aware of products we once used that are no longer in existence. I was an early adopter of the PalmPilot (several versions), now they are nowhere. One study projects that 50% of the current S&P 500 will be replaced over the next decade. It happens to the best of them… Polaroid, Prime, DEC, Wang, just to name a few. No one wants that to happen to their company.
What are the critical business issues that organizations need to address to prepare for the future? Tech-Clarity identifies six:
1. Taking cost out
It is noted that 70% of a product’s cost gets locked in during the design cycle. Are you using the right tools to fully optimize your design? Using a platform of simulation tools like 3DEXPERIENCE will help design teams fully assess a given design such as the best material, the ideal weight, the full load anticipated, hot spots on boards. Identifying these characteristics early in the design process will play a significant role in designing right the first time before producing a prototype.
Top Engineering Challenges in High Tech Source: Tech-Clarity
2. Avoiding quality problems
One solution to this is creating a single source of truth for data management. In a separate study, Tech-Clarity found that 20% of time engineers are not working with the right data. This is a big issue for high tech who have mechanical, electrical and systems engineers working on the same project. Using a collaborative PLM platform that manages all product data will enable greater team efficiency and reduce quality issues down the line.
3. Achieving shorter product development schedules
Productivity gains rarely happen by maintaining current processes. When the right process changes get put into place, significant gains can be realized. Creating a collaborative design process ensures that all the teams have access to the right data when it’s needed. In high tech, a combined ECAD-MCAD platform is the key to bringing all the pieces together to shorten the design cycle and mitigate risks by putting the right checkpoints in place. Tech-Clarity identifies that 23% of the time engineers spend their time just “looking” for the right information. This gets even more time consuming when companies have multiple systems to check. A platform approach like 3DEXPERIENCE can remove these roadblocks and increase the throughput of all involved.
4. Facilitating innovation
Being nimble and agile is critical for high tech companies due to the rapidly changing needs of their consumers. Many design teams need to pivot off a current design but improve on it and create more interesting capabilities. Managing across engineering disciplines is critical for facilitating innovation and enables cross-pollination of ideas. Having an ideation repository can help spur new approaches to old designs along with a platform that manages data and other information in one place to support real-time collaboration.
Cost Impact of Design Changes Source: Tech-Clarity
5. Ensuring performance and reliability
Heat and vibration are the two biggest culprits that cause performance and reliability problems. It’s important to work with a team who has deep experience with electromagnetic simulation such as low-frequency applications such as electric motors to high-frequency applications such as sensors and antennas. There are many aspects to setting up multiphysics models correctly, never mind understanding the tools behind them. The good news is when you do work with experienced consultants (like Adaptive), we can help establish a testing and analysis process from concept through to final validation phases. Further, the process will also document and incorporate these tests into your design process so that you know why decisions got made and have access to the supporting data behind it.
6. Compliance with environmental and regulatory requirements
Consumers are hot on environmental-friendly products, and high-tech companies have the opportunity to work with materials that are recyclable and have better sustainability. Beyond pleasing consumers, high tech companies need to make sure they are in compliance with RoHS and other local regulations as it relates to their product life and obsolescence. A strong PLM platform can help ensure that the right steps are documented and signed off to meet compliance regulations.
Overall, the eBook supports an integrated platform for PLM to bring together ECAD and MCAD systems, the mechanical, electrical and system engineering teams and their design processes. A single version of the truth for data and contextual information (2D and 3D drawings) need to be accessible and a fundamental building block for any product lifecycle management (PLM) platform. Implementing tools that will not only enable but also promote and even require collaboration and virtual simulation, among other functionalities, will enable companies to overcome many of the unique challenges faced by the industry.
To download the ebook, you will need to go to the Tech-Clarity site.
If you want to learn more about how your organization can address these critical business issues with a powerful PLM platform that addresses many of these challenges, call us at (440) 257-7460 or click below to schedule a demo.
Other resources that may be of interest:
On-Demand Webinar: Electromagnetic Simulation for Design & Analysis of Antennas & MW/RF Components
White Paper: Solving Critical Engineering Challenges for Electric Vehicles