The Top 4 Invisible Time-Wasters for Designers and Manufacturers

Inefficient product development processes can have a domino effect across every aspect of your business. According to the 2022-2023 State of Product Development and Hardware Design report, here are the four biggest ways that engineering and manufacturing professionals are wasting valuable time during the workday, sometimes without even realizing it:
 

 
One of the biggest causes of “lost” time is rooted in how product developers share design information with each other, internal company stakeholders and external partners. For example, users of file-based CAD experience long communication delays when emailing updated design files back and forth, uploading and downloading files from storage sites (Dropbox, Box, etc.), and by accidentally working on the wrong version of a product design.

Engineers and manufacturers also reported losing a significant amount of their design time on non-design related issues, such as dealing with IT administrative tasks.

To reduce miscommunication, re-work, and friction between designers and manufacturers, it is important that both parties be on the same page from prototype to production. The good news is that cloud technology can help bridge this gap and put an end to the constant fire drills.

Using Onshape’s cloud-native CAD, both designers and manufacturers can:

• Retrieve, access, and share the latest design information instantly
• Have confidence that everyone is relying on a single source of design truth
• Collaborate in real time or asynchronously on a project
• Have better insights into each other’s processes
• Shorten their product’s time-to-market by automating repetitive design tasks

 
When developers can dedicate more time and resources towards designing new products or improving on existing ones, the results are a better quality product, higher customer satisfaction, and increased revenue.