- Deeper understanding of product performance
- Faster ramp-up, shorter development cycles and quicker time to market
- Reduced design-cycle times
- Fewer prototypes and first-time quality at reasonable cost
- Reduced warranty liability and exposure
Digital transformation has become a buzzword in recent years, and for good reason. Companies that embrace digital technologies are more likely to stay ahead of the curve, differentiate themselves in the marketplace, and meet the evolving needs of their customers.
The benefits of digital transformation can be far-reaching, from improved customer experience to cost savings and increased efficiency.
In this blog, we will explore the various benefits of digital transformation, and why it is essential for companies to embrace this trend in order to remain competitive in the digital age.
What is Digital Transformation?
Digital transformation is a term used to describe the process of transforming an organization’s business model and operations through the use of digital technologies. It’s important because it can help you stay ahead of your competition, improve customer experience and attract new customers.
The benefits of digital transformation include:
- Improved customer experience: Digital transformation can help you better understand and meet the needs of your customers. With the use of data analytics and other digital tools, you can gather insights into customer behavior and preferences, and tailor your products and services accordingly.
- Increased efficiency and productivity: Digital transformation can automate many processes, reducing manual labor and freeing up staff to focus on higher-value tasks. This can lead to increased efficiency and productivity across your organization.
- Competitive advantage: By embracing digital technologies, you can stay ahead of your competitors and differentiate yourself in the marketplace. This can help you attract new customers and retain existing ones.
- Cost savings: Digital transformation can help you reduce costs by streamlining processes and eliminating unnecessary steps. This can lead to significant savings over time.
- Innovation: Digital transformation can open up new opportunities for innovation and growth. By embracing new technologies and ways of working, you can develop new products and services that better meet the needs of your customers.
See how JR Automation saved seven figures with embarking on their digital transformation journey:
Creating a Digital Transformation Roadmap
The first step to creating a digital transformation roadmap is to identify the scope of your transformation. What are you trying to achieve? What are the goals and objectives of your business? How will you measure success?
Once this has been determined, it’s time to set up a timeline for achieving those goals.
Once these steps have been completed, it’s time for action! You should now have a clear idea of what needs changing within your organization and how long it will take before those changes become visible.
Building a Digital Transformation Team
When you’re building your digital transformation team, it’s important to define roles and responsibilities. You’ll want to make sure that everyone understands their role in the process and what they are expected to do. For example, if someone is responsible for monitoring the performance of shop floor machines, they should know what the ideal OEE is of each machine, how they are going to collect that data, and how they are going to distribute it to enterprise decision makers.
It’s also important that you select team members who have complementary skillsets and experience levels. If one person has extensive knowledge of augmented reality while another knows nothing about it at all, this could lead to problems down the line when it comes time for them both to collaborate on projects together – and no one wants that!
Finally, creating a culture where collaboration happens naturally between team members will help ensure successful outcomes throughout your digital transformation project(s).
Adopting the Right Technology
The first step in digital transformation is choosing the right technology. You’ll want to consider:
Software: What are your current needs and how will they change over time? Will you need additional features or functionality?
Hardware: Do you have enough computing power and storage space for all of your data, or does it need to be scaled up or down depending on usage patterns at different times of day/year/etc.? Do you have sensors to track data that you need for production insight?
Tools: What tools do developers use to build applications on top of this platform (e.g., Creo vs. Solidworks)? How easy is it for them to integrate their code with existing systems like databases and messaging queues? Are there any security issues with using these tools – and if so, how can they be mitigated by using another tool instead (e.g., switching from MySQL database server software to Microsoft Azure).
Developing a Digital Transformation Strategy
The first step to developing a digital transformation strategy is to define the scope of the project. What are you trying to accomplish? What are your objectives, and how will you measure success?
These questions can help guide your organization through its transformation journey by setting realistic goals for both short-term wins and long-term gains.
Once you’ve defined what needs changing, it’s time for step two: defining how those changes will happen. This involves creating an action plan that includes timelines for each phase of implementation as well as resources required for each stage (e.g., time from IT staff).
Some companies may choose to tackle multiple projects simultaneously; others might choose only one area at a time depending on their resources available in terms of money/manpower/etcetera).
EAC Assessments help companies answer all those questions and how to get where they want to be.
Implementing the Digital Transformation Plan
Develop a timeline. The first step in implementing your digital transformation plan is to develop a timeline with milestones that will help you track progress.
Set goals and objectives for each milestone. Once you’ve established your milestones, it’s time to set goals and objectives for each one of them so that everyone involved knows exactly what needs to be done at any given time during the project.
Track progress regularly by reviewing dashboards or reports generated from data collected during testing phases of development projects (if applicable). It’s important not only for managers but also employees on lower levels within organizations who may not have access
Monitoring and Evaluating Performance
Monitoring and measuring performance is an important part of the digital transformation process. It allows you to identify areas where you are successful, and areas that need improvement.
Monitoring can be done using a variety of tools, including:
Data Analytics Dashboards (e.g., Thingworx Analytics)
Real-time Data Share (e.g., Windchill, EAC Productivity Apps)
Digital Twin Performance (e.g., Augmented Reality)
Adapting and Adjusting the Plan
As you progress through your digital transformation, there will be changes in the market that you need to respond to.
If a competitor introduces a new product or service, or if something happens in the industry at large, it may change how you approach your own strategy.
You might also find that your goals and objectives have changed since they were first set out; perhaps there’s been an increase in customer demand for something specific that wasn’t previously considered important enough for inclusion on the list.
The best way to handle these situations is by reviewing them regularly with other members of your team – and making sure everyone has input into decisions about how best to adjust course as needed.
Communicating the Benefits of Digital Transformation
In order to communicate the benefits of digital transformation, it’s important to understand who your stakeholders are and what they want.
If you’re working in an organization with a large number of stakeholders (such as a government agency), then there may be multiple groups that need convincing. For example:
The board wants to see results from their investment in IT infrastructure. They’ll likely be interested in metrics such as ROI and cost savings.
Executives want quick wins that will help them achieve their goals, but they also need proof that this new approach will work before they can commit time and resources to implementing it throughout the organization.
Employees want something tangible they can hold onto when explaining why this change is important for them personally (and why it matters).
Conclusion
Digital transformation is a powerful tool that can help you achieve your business goals. It’s important to remember that digital transformation is not just about implementing new technologies, but also about changing how you work and think as an organization.
Digital transformation requires commitment from everyone involved in the process – from the C-suite down through every level of your organization.
To be successful, it must be an ongoing effort rather than a one-time project or initiative. You will need to continuously innovate and improve what you’re doing if you want to stay ahead of competitors who are also pursuing digital transformation strategies.
In conclusion, digital transformation is becoming increasingly essential for companies to stay competitive and meet the needs of their customers in the digital age. However, the process of digital transformation can be complex and challenging, which is why EAC assessments can be extremely helpful.
By conducting an assessment of your organization’s current digital capabilities and identifying areas for improvement, you can develop a roadmap for digital transformation that is tailored to your specific needs and goals.
EAC assessments can help you identify gaps in your digital capabilities, streamline your processes, and develop new products and services that better meet the needs of your customers. By embracing digital transformation and leveraging the expertise of EAC assessors, you can position your company for success in the digital age.
Communicating product data across an organization is complex. Let’s talk about how to make it easier.
Different departments gather product data from a variety of systems including Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Systems, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems, Manufacturing Execution systems (MES), and Quality Management Systems (QMS) and more, how do we know our organizations are making the most out of all this information?
Just think about it for a second. Our systems speak different languages, AND our departments often aim for different goals.
With an estimated 90% of the world’s data created in the last two years alone (Conner, n.d.), it’s no wonder that companies are having a hard time using it all. The IDC estimates that just 0.5% of the data companies produce is ever used. It’s time to change that.
Here are 9 Ways Your Business Will Benefit From Connecting Your Data systems.
1. Increased Usability
Data experts believe that if Fortune 1,000 companies increased the amount of data they used by just 10%, they could realize over $65 million in additional net income (Marr, 2015). Not only are these numbers huge, they also help make my case about the critical importance of data usability.
The truth is – any one specialized system is often too complex for many non-specialized roles to navigate, find, and transfer the right information. This often leaves separate departments accountable for storing and sharing uncontrolled, out of date versions of product data. It’s not because they don’t WANT to use the right information. It’s because system complexity and interdepartmental gates make it hard to consistently get the right information.
So how do we make product data more usable?
A) Consolidating product data from disparate sources into one single system.
B) Give users a way to access the system using simplified role-specific dashboards.
2. Better Data Access
The most important reason your product data shouldn’t (internally anyway) be kept secret is because product data is your company’s most valuable asset.
Not everyone who needs access to specific product information hosted in your PLM system is from your engineering department, so don’t force them to go through the same vigorous Product Lifecycle system training. Don’t make them navigate an engineer’s world one click at a time.
In order to effectively use data, our departments must have ready access to it. We must make rich product information easy to accessible for a broad set of roles.
By creating an organized system that connects all of our product data, your organization will make information easily accessible to users beyond those who have created it.
Just think of the possibilities that come from connecting multiple systems and delivering information to all departments through a single window.
3. Complete Data
Imagine an entire enterprise with access to real data, at the right time, when it’s needed.
By connecting your product lifecycle management systems with your other enterprise systems, every stakeholder within your organization can impact the value flow of product data through your organization. It also equips team members to consistently drive critical decisions with the latest, most accurate information.
4. Better Insights
Better access to data = Better insights.
Your business teams can and should demand a lot of your PLM processes and solution.
This is one of the reasons why your organization should consider integration technologies and custom front-end solutions – Such as PLM applications.
A data-driven enterprise with insights into how current products and processes can be optimized can drastically improve productivity. Doing this requires teams to have access to up-to-date, accurate product data.
5. Better Decisions
Ready access to information is especially important to any company developing products.
Users without access to the system of record resort to error-prone workarounds that can result in inaccuracies, quality problems, and waste.
Decisions made from out- of- date inaccurate data threaten product quality and delay time to market.
Providing everyone in your organization with broad visibility into the system of record will drive better, more accurate decisions. This will ultimately improve quality, reduce waste, scrap, rework, and help you meet your time to market goals.
The analytical possibilities that come with connecting your data will help users across your organization make accurate product decisions throughout the entire development process.
6. Better Products
Who doesn’t want to create better products faster?
Providing your organization with universal data access will allow your company to drastically accelerate product development.
How so?
By connecting disparate systems, you will have access to real-time data allowing you to make better product decisions.
Because your decisions and actions are now driven by up-to-date information, you will achieve a higher product quality.
7. Increased Productivity
Why waste time manually reading, entering and analyzing data? It could be automatically collected, filtered, and combined.
By collecting your product data in one system and providing a simplified role-based interface, any user within your organization can access contextual, up-to-date, real-time product information anytime they need.
I guarantee your productivity will grow when your organization is able to plan earlier with manufacturing, order materials sooner with purchasing all while your engineering team is spending less time pulling reports.
8. Increased collaboration
Using a system that provides role-based data access to stakeholders throughout your organization provides every role with an ability to quickly understand the status of a part number and how the parts fit together in a design.
This will not only help mobilize and inform the work of teams throughout the organization, but it will also help maximize the success of your product development.
Giving your team the ability to extend and connect your PLM data into the rest of your enterprise will rapidly increase the overall effectiveness of your organization.
9. Real Results
The ultimate benefit your organization will achieve by connecting your data systems stems from your ability to acquire real results.
What does that mean?
Positive results have a tendency to snowball into more and more success. Results give your organization the confidence it needs to quickly deliver value. Providing access to the right information empowers a team, department, company to reach their true potential.
We want to help your company thrive. Our EAC Productivity Apps give your organization a way to connect disparate enterprise systems and easily deliver role-based dashboards to increase user confidence and productivity.
This article talks about the barriers to simulation driven design faced everyday by engineers throughout the product development process – and how your organization can overcome them. We speak to product development companies and teams every day. Most strive to achieve:
Odds are you’re already familiar with the traditional product development process. Taking ideas from concept, to design, simulation, prototyping all the way to manufacturing your products. For many years, industry has tried to consistently use simulation as a part of that process; for good reason. It typically improves quality, on-time delivery, and customer satisfaction.
Unfortunately, when simulation is used as a part of the product development process, it’s almost always used as the final validation step after a design is practically complete. But the fact is… that’s not exactly the vision of “simulation driven design” that the industry has been striving to achieve for years.
So why is that? Let’s talk about the common barriers holding many companies back from achieving simulation driven design.
Common barriers of Simulation driven design
1. Engineers feel they need to consult a simulation expert
Often, engineers feel like they don’t have the expertise to run simulations while they design – they feel like they need to consult an expert that may not be directly accessible. This creates design challenges early in your product development process.
2. Engineers feel they need a simplified copy of the actual design model
Often, a simulation expert’s initial task is to figure out how to simplify a copy of the design model so that the simulation will run in a reasonable time and still provide an accurate actionable result. Many engineers don’t feel comfortable making the call regarding what part of their design is critical for a successful simulation.
3. The iterative design process can be complicated
We can all agree that the design process is an iterative one. We can also agree that designing products is complicated. If it wasn’t, everyone would do it.
Certainly, a design engineer would want to use simulation as he/she iterates a design, but this would require running a simulation that could take hours – on multiple uniquely simplified copies over and over again. It’s just not efficient. It’s too disruptive to the design process. Because of this, design engineers generally don’t do it.
The solution: Simulate Earlier in the Design Process
What product development teams really need is a simulation tool that is fast, responsive, and so simple to use that it can literally keep up with design engineers during every step of the way.
No copies. No waiting. Just immediate simulation results throughout the design process.
By using simulation capabilities that are ‘pervasive’ across a concept and detailed throughout design stages – your organization will break down the barriers between design and simulation. Requirements and Quality.
That is the key.
The best part? There are solutions that give every design engineer what they need to truly achieve simulation driven design.
They provide design engineers with the ability to instantly understand how product design changes can impact a products performance. These solutions are called Ansys Discovery Live and Creo Simulation Live.
The solution that makes simulation driven design easy
PTC and Ansys partnered together to achieve an overarching goal to remove simulation barriers for product development teams. They accomplished this by deeply integrating Ansys’ breakthrough of Discovery technology directly into Creo.
This partnership provides the best and broadest portfolio of engineering simulation software – putting the best in class design and simulation capabilities into a single product available to the fingertips of every design engineer – it’s called Creo Simulation Live.
How Creo Simulation Live Works
Creo Simulation Live uses a unique technology approach to deliver simulation results interactively as a product is being designed.
This solution compliments existing simulation offerings that tend to focus more on the analyses that require higher levels of fidelity or are used as a final validation step.
Creo Simulation Live works differently because it does not require the user or designer to be an expert in the field of analysis. They simply need to know basic constraint techniques and away they go.
Using this simulation technology analysis setup and simulation is fast and easy.
In fact, engineers are able to quickly learn the tool navigating a familiar command ribbon UI, context sensitive menus, RMB command access, simplified workflows and engineering terminology. Because, again, Creo Simulation Live puts real-time simulation right in your Creo design environment.
Creo Simulation Live even uses intuitive menus to define and place loads, and constraints. It allows simulations to be created and visualized in minutes and updated on-the-fly. It gives design engineers instantaneous feedback on design decisions.
How much can Simulation Driven Design Save You?
Solving design challenges with instantaneous simulation sounds great, but let’s talk about the return on investment (ROI) it could provide your organization.
Engineers across a diverse range of applications can take advantage of the many features that Creo Simulation Live offers to reduce both time and expense in the design process. These include:
- Optimizing the product design and identifying issues early in the design process
- Reducing the need for multiple heavy analysis iterations or prototypes
- Mitigating the risk of product failure, warranty and liability claims
Investing in Creo Simulation Live gives your engineers a tool that enables them to realize their full design potential.
Just like any business investment, engineers must be able to prove that the results obtained by using Creo Simulation Live are greater than the resources invested, and it’s worth the investment. On a basic level the return on investment (ROI) is the calculation of an investment’s cost versus its benefit.
To calculate an approximate ROI on Creo Simulation you don’t need to be an accountant, I will keep it simple! Try using the following formula: ROI = ((Gain of Investment)- (Cost of Investment)) / (Cost of Investment)
The Gain of Investment is the amount of money your organization will gain from using Creo Simulation Live.
Remember, money your organization does not have to spend, such as prototype costs, should also be included in your Gain of Investment number. E.g. the value of reducing the number of physical prototypes, the expense saved by reducing the number of hours spent on non-final design simulations, etc.
Your organization might also include the improved quality resulting in reduced cost of product warranty and repairs. In addition, you may also consider the value of the time saved in the product development process when using Creo Simulation Live.
Creo Simulation Live can significantly reduce the number of design and prototype cycles, allowing more robust products to be marketed earlier. The Cost of Investment is the amount of money your organization will spend on Creo Simulation Live. The most obvious cost is the price of the Creo Simulation Live software. To obtain specific costs for your organization feel free to reach out to us.
Your organization may also want to include the cost of training or implementation for the software. We can help you figure out the bottom-line investment in things like software and training. When calculating ROI make sure to document two things that will have an impact on your calculations, the timeframe, and the precision of your numbers.
Pick a timeframe for your calculation that is relevant to your organization (in the case that you are unsure as to what this might mean for your organization, we would be happy to assist). One year is a good timeframe to start, allowing the results to be annualized.
Your ROI calculation should be an estimate, and not down to the last dollar. Many of your numbers will be approximations. Document your assumptions as you compile the numbers. That way you can voice your justification if asked later on.
Let’s look at an example taken from the Aberdeen Group – Industry Averages for Simulation Driven Design (2008, 2016).
Current Customer Numbers:
- Annual Product Revenue: $100M
- Percentage of Product Revenue from New Products: 25% ($25M)
- Cost of Poor Quality (% of revenue): 8% ($8M)
- Annual Cost of Prototypes (% of new product revenue): 2% ($500,000)
- Number of Design Engineers: 100
Sample Creo Simulation Live Benefits:
- Cost of Poor Quality: 10% savings – ($800,000)
- Annual Cost of Prototypes: Decreased by 39% – ($195,000)
Creo Simulation Live Cost:
- 100 Engineers x (~$2,400/engineer) = $240,000
ROI Calculation:
- ROI = (($800,000+$195,000) – $240,000) / $240,000
- ROI= 3.1
This demonstrates approximately a 300% return on investment!
Given this kind of return on investment, you now have a solid argument as to why purchasing Creo Simulation Live is the best option to overcome your design challenges!
