Accelerate Product Development by Moving to the Cloud

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The global pandemic has changed engineering and manufacturing—probably for good.

Worker safety requirements have also significantly increased. Related safety measures, including social distancing and other limitations, require extra time and money. And in many cases, workers must now perform their job duties offsite. Cost reductions, always a priority, are now critical as margins become tighter and tighter.

Therefore, eliminating operational and process bottlenecks has become critical for success in both engineering and manufacturing, not only to create high-quality products but to get them to market faster than the competition.

Successfully getting products from design to manufacturing requires pivoting and adapting to changing market and economic conditions. Many small to midsize manufacturers have turned to cloud-based product development technologies to become more agile in several ways, including:

  • Collaboration across internal functions and external suppliers
  • Accelerating product innovation
  • Improving document and workflow management

Let’s take a closer look at these three ways that cloud-based technologies, like 3DEXPERIENCE® Works, can make you more agile and help to optimize operations.

Increased Collaboration

Cloud-based technology tools enable organizations to unite multiple disciplines and stakeholders across time zones to work together to help get a single product to market. Engineers can move from ideation through delivery in one integrated environment. The integrated product development and built-in collaboration tools provide instant visibility into what your teams are working on and the status on each project.

Companies can eliminate communication silos, making it easy to work with people inside and outside your company, including partners, suppliers, and manufacturers. Engineers and designers can share designs easily, allowing key stakeholders—including non-engineers—to give feedback throughout the product development phase to help reduce downstream delays.

Decisions happen faster when managers and executives participate in design reviews from the earliest stages—a picture is worth a thousand words.

On the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, there is no need to install additional plugins to preview 3D and 2D models. This enables non-CAD/non-technical users to participate in reviews to identify issues earlier in the development process. In this environment, everyone can interrogate models—zoom, rotate, take measurements—regardless of whether you have access to a CAD tool on your device or not.

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Accelerated Innovation

Products may change on a day-to-day basis. The changes must be captured and recorded and stored for easy access and traceability in the future. Proposed changes also need to be reviewed by all key stakeholders to assess the value and benefits to the organization.

Cloud-based technology tools that make it easier to track, manage and automatically capture product changes are essential. Tools should provide a controlled, clearly defined process to manage products and production during the development process. Creating, assigning, and managing change actions for all project stakeholders should be simple, including remote employees, vendors, and suppliers. Everyone on the team must have visibility into the change status and the actions assigned to them.

The 3DEXPERIENCE platform apps can handle all these tasks and much more. In this secure cloud environment, you can accelerate product innovation and solve day-to-day product development problems as a team—real time. And remember, you work concurrently and can collaborate with your colleagues from any location, which rockets productivity and, therefore, speeds your product innovations to market.

More Efficient Workflows

A well-structured project is broken down into stages that involve several different people. However, many organizations rarely measure the success or failure of their business processes. Rework, delays, workarounds, and missed steps quickly turn into a chaotic pile of obstacles.

It is often tricky to spot where process hurdles are happening. Even when companies have robust development processes, rigidity in the process makes it almost impossible to get tasks done efficiently. When frustration begins to reign among the ranks of engineers and designers, project progress is in danger of screeching to a halt.

3DEXPERIENCE Works apps allow you to see who is assigned to do what and keep everyone updated with each completed stage—all from a single location. Plus, you can create visual workflows in a shareable dashboard that makes it easier to communicate and manage your entire team. Because workflows are often similar from project to project, you can automatically create workflows based on a previously used template, which is a huge time saver.

The reality of most projects is that some members have tasks for reviewing and commenting, while others have tasks for approving the spec. Therefore, defining precise roles and tasks are built in. Automated email reminders inform assignees to start their tasks to ensure communication is clear and expectations are met.

Learn More

The 3DEXPERIENCE Works portfolio from SOLIDWORKS brings all your key stakeholders together on a single collaborative cloud platform, allowing you to seamlessly move from ideation through delivery for efficient development. Connecting the people, applications, and real-time data from every aspect of your business helps you improve execution, increase productivity, and accelerate innovation.

If you want to speak with someone about leveraging the power of cloud-based product development tools at your company, contact your local reseller.

SOLIDWORKS

SOLIDWORKS

Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp. offers complete 3D software tools that let you create, simulate, publish, and manage your data. SolidWorks products are easy to learn and use, and work together to help you design products better, faster, and more cost-effectively. The SolidWorks focus on ease-of-use allows more engineers, designers and other technology professionals than ever before to take advantage of 3D in bringing their designs to life.
SOLIDWORKS

@SOLIDWORKS