Even your engineering process is governed by Newton’s first law – a body at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by a force.  I often hear (and it’s killing me not so softly), “we can’t put new projects at risk by applying new engineering methods”.  For some reason, as engineers (and our IT counterparts make the same mistake) we equate risk with change and security with the status quo.  We find it difficult and risky to overcome the inertia of our age-old engineering systems and processes.  But the truth of the matter is that the status quo may indeed be the riskiest path – and change may be your competitive salvation.

I recently visited a high-tech division of a high-tech company.  They have been using CAD/CAM/CAE for years and have successfully applied solid modeling and simulation on some pretty intricate products, thereby proving to themselves the benefits of a 3D-based process.  Rightfully proud of what they have accomplished, they plan this year to expand their implementation from 5 seats to 10 seats and over the next 5 years move the remaining 100 users of the legacy 2D drafting system into the 3D world.  I was of course pleased with the direction vector change, but disappointed with the lack of acceleration.  They replied that they “can’t move faster” than this.  This I don’t buy.  Motivated by the business benefits that await, I’ve seen companies successfully move 100 users from 2D into 3D in a matter of months, not years.  So “can’t move faster” really means that you “choose to not move faster” because it’s a significant investment of effort and money.

If you manage change based only upon what it “costs”, you’ll procrastinate and continually delay the change.  To have any chance of real, sustained success you also need to quantify the “opportunity”, i.e.  the monetary return that becomes the target for your investment.  Let’s say that getting all 100 users moved to 3D within one year would allow subsequent development projects to get to market faster with higher quality, provide a step change in market share of 2% and thereby an investment return of $5M per year.  Plug in your own numbers, but the key here is to quantify (in hard cash, as best you can) the “opportunity”.  Then company execs can rank this opportunity against other business opportunities and “choose” to implement, not based on the cost or pain of change, but rather on the financial opportunity.  Driving for top/bottom line benefit (not just cost control) will also help eliminate the all-too-human tendency to procrastinate and slip implementation schedules.

My visit to another division of the same high-tech company proved to be on the more hopeful side of the ledger.  In reviewing their first 3D pilot project, the lead engineer began by explaining how painful the project had been – lengthy period of formal training and on-the-job learning curve, modeling techniques to apply fillet/shell/draft, waiting for 1500 step part updates, and occasional software instabilities.  I was waiting for him to say (as I’ve heard more than a few times before) that this was just too difficult and that they’d wait a few years until the technology was perfected.  But undaunted, he then switched to the opportunity side of things and detailed the specific project benefits of innovative space layout, eliminated communication problems with mold suppliers by direct exchange of 3D data, a prototype that fit and functioned as designed the first time – and in fact a superb product that got to market on an aggressive schedule.  His bottom line was that these process changes are indeed a struggle but that the financial gain is many multiples of the cost.  They are now accelerating their implementation plan.

With some trepidation, I selected the morbid title of this article in hopes of motivating you to a competitive sense of urgency.  Don’t allow your engineering process to die a slow death.  Status quo in today’s global market is very, very risky.  Progressive companies view engineering as a strategic weapon for the development of market leading products.  If your company is not driving for dramatic, measurable improvements to your entire product development process, you can bet that your competitors are.  And you – yes, I mean you personally – need to be a force to set these changes into motion.

A 35-year veteran of the computer-aided design, engineering and product lifecycle marketplace, Wayne McClelland is well-known as an energetic pioneer in the development and implementation of technologies for structural dynamics, finite element analysis, 3D solid modeling, and workgroup data management.  Wayne can be reached at waynemcc@wamware.com or www.wamware.com.