I recently spoke with the Engineering Manager of a company who had purchased DriveWorks.
He was keen to tell me about some of his observations during the implementing of their products, and since they had been using it in production.
I was expecting the usual furore of slashing design time by 90% or the increase in orders that can now be taken. But this was glossed over while he told me something more interesting.
In the past if they had given 2 engineers the same job they would have got 2 different sets of data to issue into manufacture.
In the past had they got an order for a particular style they needed to wait for a certain engineer to become available to process the job through design.
In the past only one engineer knew how to enter the bill of materials onto their ERP system.
In the past only a few of the company's products were designed using SolidWorks by the SolidWorks trained engineers, while the others were designed using AutoCAD.
In the past each engineer produced design calculations in various ways – MathCAD, Excel, Word.
In other words the knowledge they held was tribal and they were erring dangerously close to meltdown, if any of the engineers were absent they would not have been able to get work into production. The Engineering Manager was a nervous wreck knowing that this could happen at any moment.
During the collation of information to implement into DriveWorks they had collectively agreed on the best method to design each of their products. Each had learned how each product was designed. All had agreed on how to present the drawings for manufacturing. All experienced the joys of the ERP system. All engineering data was now produced on the same CAD system. All design calculations now shared a common format.
All this had obvious implications for eliminating mistakes, saving time on manufacturing queries from inconsistent information, the reliance of individuals to fulfil their part of the process, the need for engineers to be proficient in multiple applications.
And on top of this the Engineering Manager could now relax knowing that jobs will always get done, on time. He also had more confidence in his own knowledge of the products they manufactured.
His engineers are now united, early fears that jobs were on the line have now been replaced by a more fulfilled role. Some are collaborating on product development, never having the time to do this before. Some are working on other tasks within the business that can be automated. All will be SolidWorks and DriveWorks trained.
The days of tribal knowledge within engineer to order companies have gone.
