Engineers had years-long development cycles, now it’s only months. How can cloud help?
Siemens has sponsored this post.
Engineers are working in a changing and challenging landscape that calls for a transformation in the way they do their work. Modern engineering organizations need new, more powerful tools to support design and development so that they can meet new and often competing pressures head-on.
Innovative cloud-powered engineering solutions allow engineers to design across different engineering domains and easily collaborate with fellow designers, supply chain representatives, outside partners and other key stakeholders. The adoption of these transformative tools can help modern engineering processes and workflows evolve to support the demands of today—and tomorrow.
The Need for Engineering Transformation
The engineering landscape has changed dramatically. Products are growing increasingly complex. A few years ago, engineers who worked on automotive drive trains only had to contend with mechanical design duties. Now, drive trains have evolved into electromechanical devices that require embedded software.
Engineering organizations are also facing pressures to deliver new products to market rapidly, so design and development schedules have been substantially compressed. Where once engineers had years-long development cycles, they must now complete their work in a matter of months.
Engineering teams must also find ways to think ahead and develop new capabilities to stay competitive—especially as smaller, more agile companies can enter new industries and markets more easily.
These issues are challenging even with a team of talented engineers on hand, but product design and development organizations are also facing talent and skills shortages across the board. Companies struggle to recruit and retain skilled engineers to work on complex projects. The younger engineers entering the workforce need modern tools to manage the increased complexity of today’s products.
Finally, beyond the increased complexity of today’s products, engineers must also manage tighter sustainability goals. As they develop new products—or simply enhance old ones—they must be mindful of sustainable materials and manufacturing processes, reduce waste and find ways to reuse components when possible. And they must do it all while maintaining a set budget.
Even one of these changes to the engineering landscape requires manufacturing organizations to think differently about how they manage the product development cycle. Organizations now must leverage cloud platforms so engineers can quickly, reliably and cost-effectively deliver value across the design, development and production timelines. There is a critical need for total engineering reinvention to support these goals.
Reimagine Engineering Through Cloud-Powered Solutions
Over the past few years, many popular computer-aided design (CAD) and product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions have moved to the cloud. Despite the speed and efficiency that such cloud-enabled technologies bring, most engineering organizations have been quite slow to embrace cloud transformation. There are several reasons for this. To start, many organizations aren’t fully aware of what the cloud can do. They may think cloud-enabled technologies simply allow them more access to a shared document or domain-specific model they used to run on premises. But, today, the cloud offers much more.
Modern cloud-powered technologies offer engineering organizations a comprehensive IT infrastructure that supports every step of the product lifecycle. These technologies support easy collaboration as well as digital threads that ensure data is shared across design domains. This makes it easier for engineering organizations to address the ongoing skills shortage. If they need specific expertise, they are not limited to a geographic area to obtain it. They can empower engineers across the globe to participate and solve problems.
These cloud-powered solutions also support both rapid and scaled improvement across engineering processes, leveraging tested methods and tools to help engineers collaborate, design, iterate, develop, manage, manufacture and maintain complex products. When implemented and integrated correctly, cloud-powered tools can support design and development in a secure manner, protecting organizations’ intellectual property (IP) through data encryption as well as identity and access management.
Cloud-powered technologies in combination with model-based engineering (MBE) are a force multiplier. When used in tandem, they bring data, people and solutions together, providing engineers with access to the latest technology, more efficient processes, the most accurate and up-to-date data and the right engineers to get the job done on time and within budget.
For example, engineering organizations in the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) industry have had to contend with a remarkably changed market. This transformation has meant that companies must rethink their existing processes. Successful organizations are now using cloud-powered technologies and MBE processes to assist them as they design and manufacture hyper-personalized products. With innovation and transformation layers in place, these companies can be more flexible in their manufacturing. They gain the agility required to alter the product definition itself when needed, as well as the packaging, supply chain and manufacturing processes. What’s more, they can do so on a tight schedule. They can also find ways to meet evolving sustainability goals by changing packaging or product ingredients on short timelines.
To learn more about how proactive CPG organizations are managing the intersection of complexity, sustainability and other industry challenges, check out Siemens’ white paper “Revolutionizing the CPG industry: Siemens and Accenture’s innovative solution.”
Executing the Transformation to Greater Value
When engineers can leverage this new way of engineering by combining cloud-powered technologies and MBE processes, they can realize significant value. They gain the tools and solutions needed to support greater innovation through hyper-automation and generative artificial intelligence offerings. Such tools can also aid organizations in their greater digital transformation efforts. The end result is scaled value across all engineering functions and product lines.
Siemens and Accenture are jointly developing solutions to execute engineering reinvention that will help organizations realize greater value in their digital transformation journeys. The Siemens/Accenture cloud-powered solutions establish a dependable digital thread that can connect diverse technology platforms ranging from CAD to PLM solutions. These solutions facilitate collaboration between engineering stakeholders and the seamless exchange of critical data, ultimately empowering organizations to adapt, pivot and innovate as the market demands.
Engineers may be wary of large-scale changes to the way they conduct their day-to-day work—and engineering executives may suggest taking a piecemeal investment approach, picking up a new solution here and there as needed. But organizations can obtain maximum value when they embrace innovation and transformation simultaneously. The adoption of cloud-powered technologies and MBE addresses the myriad challenges that product design and development teams face today.
For more information, download this whitepaper to learn more about an enhanced approach for proactive CPG organizations to manage the intersection of complexity, sustainability and other industry challenges.
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