Subscribe to Digital Engineering
Webcasts · Downloads · Archives
Companies · Glossary · Podcasts

Design Engineering Teams Choose Process Over Products

The State of Product Development & Hardware Design 2019 survey results contain some surprises.

A total of 850 design engineers, engineering managers and executives share their opinions on the state of product development and hardware design.

Latest in Computer–aided Design CAD

Computer–aided Design CAD Resources

Latest News

A GPU Revolution in Discrete Element Method Applications

Altair Signs Agreement with European Space Agency

Nikon SLM Solutions Finds New Partner/Buyer for NXG XII 600

Auburn Engineering Secures $117.7 million in Rsearch Awards

AM Rides On-Demand Manufacturing Wave

JPR Releases Summary on GPU Market

All posts

By DE Editors

July 23, 2019

Survey takers sometimes keep their results locked up tighter than Fort Knox, unless you want to fork over some of yourtreasure in the hopes of finding gold in their data. That’s not the case with Onshape’s “The State of Product Development & Hardware Design 2019.” The results are freely available, and they’re full of valuable insights.

“Onshape?” You might ask. “What’s a company known for shaking up the CAD and data management markets withcloud-based software that runs via a browser got to do with market research?” Being a skeptic, I assumed it was akin to my wife asking if her new outfit looks nice: She’s looking for compliments, not critiques. That’s not the case here.

In a Nutshell: The State of Product Development & Hardware Design 2019

Twenty-six pages of insights gleaned from 850 design engineering survey respondents.
Eighty-nine percent of individual contributors said they were interested in earlier and better communication with an extended design team.
Almost as many (86%) cited better version control as critical for reducing errors that result from working on a wrong version of a particular design or receiving important and relevant data too late in the cycle.
Almost 90% of managers and executive-level respondents said they wanted or needed the ability to monitor the product design team’s progress any time without having meetings, sending emails or making phone calls.
Fifty-eight percent of respondents to the Onshape survey rated their company’s innovation level as good or excellent, while nearly half (49%) said the same about their productivity levels.

Learn more here.

When Onshape asked product development professionals to identify the most important areas of improvement to boost productivity, maybe the company was thinking the respondents would say “browser-based CAD software.” Instead, the 850 respondents didn’t point to particular design tools or technologies; the overwhelming majority said improving design processes was more important than improving their CAD tools, usage of additive manufacturing or generative design.

(Side note: To help avoid bias, Onshape excluded its paying customers from the survey results.)

Another surprise: While word on the street is that design engineers hate product data management (PDM), the survey shows that they understand its importance. They’re just looking for a better way to do it.

Some not-so-surprising results: Companies that self-reported as innovative also self-reported as productive and were more likely to embrace cloud tools. The survey found that 78% of companies that rated themselves as “excellent” for innovation used one or more public cloud file-sharing services. Seventy-five percent of firms using cloud-based PDM/PLM systems said their ability to drive innovation was “good” or “excellent,” while those using cloud versions of those platforms were twice as likely to be bullish on their innovation capabilities compared to companies using on-premises PDM/PLM platforms.

This is the first time Onshape has fielded this survey, but it’s unlikely to be the last. Check out the 26 pages of data presented with easy-to-follow charts, graphs and data points. Interesting stuff.

Thanks for reading DE.

—The editors