Editor’s Pick: Cost-Effective Designs Boost Profits

By Anthony J. Lockwood

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

Amid all the hype that you read about compressed design cycles, faster time to market, and improved ROI, there’s always a paean to a “better product.” Generally, from this we are to infer that you’ll get your money back faster with a high-quality, more robust design optimized for its function that people will love. Good stuff. But is your design optimized for cost-effectivity for your business as well as for function by your customers?  In other words, can you compress the time spent waiting to improve ROI by reducing the amount of money you spend developing a product without sacrificing high-quality designs? Those questions Akoya’s Design Workbench Product Suite helps you answer.

The Design Workbench provides companies in such industries as automotive, aerospace, defense, and heavy equipment insight into more cost-effective designs by determining what it calls the “Competitive Band.”  This is defined as the most efficient price range you can expect when acquiring a component from its producer using any combination of variables that can affect its price. The idea here is to obtain a quicker time-to-market by eliminating cross-functional bottlenecks and to lower product costs by improving design cost visibility across product platforms.

I know what you’re thinking: it’s a cost estimator. Well,  sure in part. But that’s not it. Design Workbench marries information sciences and high-level analytics to help you determine the price a supplier is likely to charge for a component at an annual demand level. Where it cuts from the pack is that it recognizes that there is a lot of information about a given part that affect its cost and ultimately yours. Design Workbench helps you determine, collect, analyze, and share this data so that you can evaluate and optimize design, supply chain, and manufacturing processes from the individual component level on up and through out the process at any point in your design cycle. Armed with this information, you can make informed design, build, and purchasing decisions that minimize overhead while expediting time to market.

I confess that by bringing together information sciences and analytics Design Workbench and its Competitive Banding concept offers a different, albeit highly logical, approach to monetizing product cost and product design management. I also have to say that I wish there were more things like white papers, product demos, and so forth on the company’s website that I can direct you to, but I know that they would be happy to share those directly with you if you are interested. Right now, Akoya selectively targets the companies with whom they work.

But what seems clear to me is that Akoya and its Design Workbench are working to help you introduce new products or updated versions of existing products that are as close to profitable at the moment of release –  when you start your vigil for ROI’s arrival—as possible. And that is really good stuff. Check out today’s Pick of the Week write-up then contact Akoya to see how the Design Workbench can fit into your situation.

Thanks, pal.—Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood
Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering Magazine

Read today’s Pick of the Week