No matter how visionary, brilliant, strategic, or charismatic a founder or executive may be, no one person can take sole credit for their company’s signature products. Engineering, industrial design, manufacturing, and marketing are all team efforts.

So, if you’re not working alone, communication and collaboration become far more important than overused buzzwords. Corroborating this point are findings from the industry survey commissioned by Onshape, "The State of Product Development and Hardware Design 2020." The survey found that 94% of design professionals regard early communication, visibility, and clarity in the design process as “critical” or “very important” for successful product development. Similarly, 91% place the same high value on the team's ability to try and compare alternative ideas early in the design process.

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Then why is collaboration such a challenge in the product development process?

The ‘Black Box’ of Product Development

Product development is like a black box: Specifications go in, drawings come out, and not much of what happens in between is fully understood by anyone outside the design team. Once that initial design is handed over, a few days/weeks/months may pass before the design is ready for manufacturing. 

Black Box of Design A typical design team as viewed by everyone else.

As there is little to no visibility into the design process, it may appear to some that not much is happening. 

This couldn’t be further from the truth. The constant unknowns force design teams into time-consuming update meetings, where team members are pulled away from actually designing in an effort to keep everyone on the same page.

Lucky for us, there is a solution.

Cloud-Native Productivity Software

Cloud-native productivity software is helping to break open this black box, offering unprecedented transparency, and improving communication and tracking capabilities. For instance, Onshape Enterprise provides detailed project activity feeds and comprehensive audit logs. These features allow team members, project managers, and executives to see in real time who is working on what, what changes have been made, and how the project is progressing overall.

This level of transparency brings several benefits:

  • It reduces the need for time-consuming progress report meetings.

  • It allows for quicker identification and resolution of potential issues.

  • It facilitates better resource allocation and project management.

  • It promotes accountability and helps teams stay aligned on project goals.

By maintaining this level of visibility throughout the design process, teams can work more efficiently and collaboratively, leading to better outcomes and faster time-to-market.

User Activity Real-time activity feed showing latest project developments.

Here’s how these features work:

Real-Time Analytics and Reports

Onshape Enterprise shows you the big picture with real-time analytics. It reports all user activity within your organization in detail for a more in-depth insight into your design process. These reports enable you to:

  • Manage projects and resources better.

  • Measure team effectiveness and individual contributions.

  • Follow Key Performance Indicators to track project status.

  • Check that access to sensitive data is controlled.

  • See which data has been shared or exported.

  • Reduce time-wasting design reviews and progress reports.

  • Record time spent on each project.

  • Discover potential bottlenecks or other issues.

  • Ensure project deadlines are met on time.


For the first time in the history of engineering software, you have complete visibility into who did what and when, how engineering effort is trending over time, and who is contributing in what ways. This enables managers and executives to understand, for the first time, what is happening in their team at any point in the design process.

User Dashboard The user dashboard shows project activity and modeling times.

Managing resources and distributing design tasks is much easier when you have accurate, up-to-date information to base your decisions on. For example, you can view activity trends, the number of pending releases, and the total time spent on a project (ideal if you bill by the hour) to understand how a project is progressing. If it appears to be behind schedule, you can quickly see where resources are being used and reallocate them accordingly.
Onshape Analytics Project Dashboard showing Feature Activity trends and sign-in locations.

More Visibility, Better Results

Because cloud tools enable data to be instantly updated and shared, there is no latency. Teams no longer need to wait for edits to be made on individual computers and for those versions to be synchronized. Instead, all comments and design activities are visible and accessible to team members simultaneously. This improved communication and access fosters significantly higher levels of collaboration, productive iteration, and product innovation.

When using cloud productivity tools like Onshape, there is no longer any confusion over which version is which in a design’s history. When teams are not busy finding or accessing the latest data, they have more time to test prototypes and develop incremental improvements.

Of course, the neverending need to improve communication and collaboration in business transcends CAD and data management. But it sure can help.

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