March 2011 Issue: The Power of Software - A Transformative Technology

Engineering software is a transformative technology that has improved company design and development processes for many years. Product engineering depends on sophisticated software systems to create new competitive products.  In many cases, the software systems can automatically optimize design elements and help engineers solve potential problems early in the development process.  This greatly reduces the cost and the time to market of new products.

Product manufacture also depends on this transformative technology to assist with scheduling, shop floor information management, labor tracking and other aspects of running a dynamic production facility each day.  Without these systems, manufacturing cannot be nimble enough to meet the challenges of today’s business environment.

In order to remain competitive in the accelerating global economy, manufacturing must take another step toward modernizing the shop floor. This can be accomplished through software that helps error-proof and optimize the manufacturing process.  Removing  the source of many shop floor errors not only improves the bottom line, but also optimizes and transforms the production process leading to a reduction in cycle time.

New advances in software technology enable greater ability to optimize shop floor processes and approach the level of software sophistication that has been available for years in  engineering organizations.  Paperless manufacturing is a proven transformative technology that can improve the quality and efficiency of a production process. The design and implementation of modern software systems make paperless manufacturing affordable for not only large companies, but also midsize companies.   Software can transform a shop floor into a highly efficient, nearly error-free environment that adds value to a company’s top line and bottom line.