Reducing Design Engineering Costs Through Information Handling

The previously lagging SunCorp, in 2006 propelled itself to the world’s number two cordless phone supplier. Attributing its success to maximizing the reuse of engineering designs, SunCorp was able to drastically reduce time to market and design engineering costs.

The SunCorp story exemplifies one of many real world examples, as this white paper illustrates proven approaches for reducing engineering costs, including:

• Improving collaboration between engineering and procurement (Honeywell; Boeing)
• Embedding sourcing in the design process (IBM; Lucent)
• Maximizing reuse of parts, systems and designs (SunCorp)

In each example, reducing design costs depended on utilizing new approaches for information handling and collaboration. This paper also explores collaboration tools and information technology solutions.

In order to remain competitive Honeywell International Inc., according to Design News, encouraged their design engineers to select certain parts, allowing Honeywell to increase design cost reductions. With cost reductions, Honeywell was able to reduce pricing due to greater volume order placement with preferred suppliers. This strategy also allowed this company to avoid near-obsolescence parts and components.

Boeing has been able to reduce its design cycle and avoid quality issues through improved designs that incorporate the input of procurement from the start of the process.

Regardless of corporate culture, collaboration between cross-functional teams requires effective and intuitive collaboration tools. These tools are cost effective and efficient, as preferred parts lists are enhanced with additional information, such as alternate suppliers and parts in the case of a preferred part not being available; end of life (EOL) notices and dates; and environmental compliance information.

Learn how IBM found procurement engineers and professionals can be efficiently merged in the design process without compromising either speed or innovation. Also be informed of the lesson that Lucent Technology received. As with increasing collaboration and integration between sourcing and design, leveraging reuse of parts, systems and designs requires the right solutions to manage the information sharing involved.

Effective and intuitive information maintenance and collaboration tool are required to reduce engineering costs, regardless of the approach taken. HIS 4DOnline Parts Universe Materials Analysis (PUMA) accelerates time-to-value by providing all the tools and resources a company needs for intelligent component selection and automated Bill of Materials (BOM) analysis. The PUMA solution radiates from the Parts Universe Database providing current and historical information from over 19 million electronic parts from 500 leading worldwide manufactures. PUMA offers a company’s employees round-the-clock online access to:

• Comprehensive electronic component information
• Obsolescence and predictive information
• Environmental information
• Manufacturer documentation
• BOM optimization and automated BOM cleansing, matching and grading
• Email alerts for EOL and product change notifications (PCN)
• Streamlined parts research through robust details search capabilities
• Side-by-side comparisons of part details for making cost-effective decisions

Download this white paper to gain insight into techniques and online applications proven to help businesses reduce deign engineering costs while increasing company efficiency.

Related topics:

• Philips
• Siemens
• BOM Optimizer