A Game-Changing Formula for Global Success

By Robin Saitz

Robin Saitz, PTC

Today’s manufacturing companies face an increasing number of challenges that can impact the success of their product-development efforts. Challenges include growing product complexity, globalization, pressures to reduce costs, and shorter development cycles. Additionally, concerns regarding the aging engineering population and the emerging workforce are driving companies to adopt new strategies to help increase their ability to successfully compete in a global economy. To resolve these challenges, companies can leverage easy-to-use social computing technologies as part of product development with the objective of increasing productivity, mitigating risks,  and facilitating collaboration and information sharing.

  Social product development is a business and technology initiative that combines social computing technologies with the practices of product development. It combines the “industrialized” version of social networking technologies (i.e., blogs, wikis, facebook) with the processes for designing and manufacturing of discrete products. The ability to share knowledge with team members and key stakeholders in a project is its fundamental premise.

  As the Internet evolved from an information delivery platform to a community of social networks where two-way discussions have permanently changed the way people communicate, social computing technologies offer a new approach for cooperation and collaboration. And when supported by the right technology stack and infrastructure, they naturally lend themselves to the product development environment.

  Microsoft has incorporated various Web 2.0 capabilities into its Windows SharePoint Services platform, enabling companies to take advantage of basic social computing for business purposes. However, to successfully use social computing technologies in product development, companies need solutions that can understand structured content and product lifecycle information. PTC’s Windchill ProductPoint solution does this by enabling Windows SharePoint to understand complex CAD and structured product data, launching a new era in product development.

  Harnessing the power of the social product development model will help companies achieve benefits in four key areas: risk mitigation,  knowledge management, increased productivity, and operational efficiency. One of the most pervasive challenges facing today’s manufacturing companies is the ongoing drain of intellectual property resulting from the departure of the aging workforce. While not a panacea for the years of experience and intellectual property that companies are losing, the implementation of a social product development strategy can provide an avenue to capture, retain, and rebuild a company’s knowledge base. In this way, companies build a knowledge community across their organization and ultimately minimize the risks associated with attrition.

  Today’s emerging workforce has “grown up” in an environment where social computing technologies are the prevailing standard. As a result,  the use of pre-Web 2.0 technologies to communicate and share information is almost inconceivable and could negatively impact recruiting, productivity, and employee satisfaction. For the novice, the ease of use and productivity benefits associated with social computing will facilitate the transition to the new technologies. It’s much easier to move forward than backward as evidenced by how unproductive most of us instantly become the minute our e-mail or laptop computers become unavailable!

  To maximize the benefits of a globalization strategy,  including lower labor costs, more expansive labor pools, and proximity to new markets, companies must ensure that geographically dispersed product development teams can work together seamlessly. Social product development techniques such as instant messaging, presence detection, wikis and forums can help transcend time and distance boundaries, solving many of the challenges and concerns of people who need to work in globally distributed teams.

  The total cost of ownership associated with deployment of a social product development initiative is low because the infrastructure is included with Microsoft Server solutions and is quickly and easily deployed.

  The greatest obstacle organizations will face in successful deployments will be resistance to change from employees either unfamiliar or uncomfortable with social computing technologies. Companies can alleviate these concerns by showcasing how easy to use, fun, and beneficial the new technologies are in helping find the right information when it’s needed. Organizations should also provide guidelines for use including sample scenarios, which will help to improve employee comfort levels.

  Intellectual property protection is another factor that might impact adoption rates. Establishing policies and access control technologies that allow sharing information in a controlled way while protecting it from unauthorized viewing and use will help solve this issue.

  Social product development is the next step in the evolution of how people will work together. Organizations that ignore this opportunity risk being left behind, unable to attract an emerging workforce or to achieve the competitive edge needed to succeed in a global economy. Organizations that embrace the power of social product development, however, will quickly outpace their competitors with greater efficiency and ultimately better products.

Robin Saitz is senior vice president of Solutions Marketing and Communications at PTC, which provides discrete manufacturers with software and services to efficiently meet product development objectives. Send e-mail about this commentary to [email protected].