Design World – August 2019

Leslie Langnau • Managing Editor

[email protected]

On Twitter @ DW_3Dprinting

Technology Forward

8 August 2019 http://www.designworldonline.com DESIGN WORLD

What’s the “next big thing” to

boost productivity and innovation

in design? A couple of the more

recent innovations were additive

manufacturing and generative design.

These technologies have had some

success at boosting innovation, but

perhaps not as much as expected.

So, what’s next on the horizon?

Perhaps AI?

Well, according to a recent

independent research study, “The

State of Product Development &

Hardware Design 2019,” (released

by Onshape) it’s not some new

hardware or software. The next big

thing is actually two things — better

communication and better version

control — more procedural processes

than technology.

At least 850 executives, engineering

managers, product designers, project

managers, sales technical engineers,

CAD administrators, and quality

assurance engineers from companies

of all sizes, using the most widely

adopted professional design and

manufacturing tools, identified these

areas as the next ones needing

improvement in the design field.

According to the study, 89% of

respondents said they want earlier

and better communication between

members of their extended design

team. Respondents want to address

miscommunication, insufficient

communication between internal

teams or with external partners, and

missed opportunities to get design

feedback from contributors who could

have game-changing ideas.

For version control, 86% of

respondents said they need to reduce

errors from working on the wrong

version of a design or receiving

important information too late. These

preventable data management issues

often result in costly manufacturing

mistakes, and ultimately, a slower time

to market.

An interesting comment in the

report was, “89% of respondents

say they want the ability to monitor

their product design team’s progress

anytime without having meetings,

sending emails, or making phone

calls. As in other industries,

executives at manufacturing

companies want real-time

information and actionable data.”

“Engineers, managers and

executives say they are still

wasting too much time in the

product development process,”

says Onshape co-founder David

Corcoran, “Whether it was expressed

as reducing mistakes, poor

communication, inadequate visibility,

too many meetings, time wasted

working on the wrong data, getting

important information too late, or

time spent on IT and other soul-

crushing overhead, the single biggest

problem is process complexity and

inefficiency.”

For some, it might be surprising

to see that additive manufacturing

or other recent technologies are not

viewed as the key to faster time to

market. Better team communication,

visibility, and data management

clearly can improve the design

process. But will they be the key

to better product design, or a

potential problem as that moment

to moment monitoring, that real-

time information need potentially

overwhelms the design process? DW

What is the key to better design?

DESIGN WORLD http://www.designworldonline.com June 2019 11

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