ANSYS BLOG
November 10, 2021
What Your Engineers Aren’t Telling You
The job of product development has never been more challenging. As product designs have become more digital and more complex, so has the work associated with designing them and verifying their performance under a wide range of operating conditions. Engineers are faced with applying multiple physics at both the component and system levels, working against tight budgets and aggressive launch schedules, and collaborating across disciplines and functional boundaries to drive innovation.
The modern product development process often relies on a complex workflow that is ripe for inefficiencies.
Engineering simulation has helped greatly in addressing these tough challenges, by allowing product development teams to model and test their designs in a risk-free, affordable design space ― without the need for extensive prototyping or physical testing. In an environment characterized by talent shortages and tight financial constraints, engineering simulation has enabled the world’s leading product development teams to amplify their resources and arrive at complete product confidence much faster than via manual analysis and testing methods.
Today, many product development teams have recognized that engineering simulation solutions, including those offered by Ansys, are purpose-built for their unique challenges, and thus add incredible value and return on investment.
The Hidden Risks of “The Way We’ve Always Done Things”
Yet, too many product development teams still rely heavily on manual processes, as well as non-purpose-built solutions, to manage the broader workflows involved in simulation-driven product development.
But that’s a risky strategy, and it’s becoming riskier. The modern product development process is numerically large, task-intensive, and complex by nature. Applying multiple physics, at the system and component levels, generates huge volumes of data. And collaborating across disciplines and functions means frequent hand-offs, as well as many levels of design iteration. If the broad workflows of product development aren’t optimized, there is a huge risk of mistakes that can lead to product recalls and warranty expenses. Suboptimal processes also lead to cost overruns and missed launch deadlines. Perhaps the greatest problem? A failure to realize the greatest potential for product innovation, because the current, siloed environment inhibits true collaboration, creativity, and design freedom.
Here’s what your engineers aren’t telling you: They’re attempting to manage the incredibly complex, enormously sophisticated and strategically important process of product development via emails and spreadsheets. They waste time every day because of blind spots, bad handoffs, missed communications, lost data, lack of version control, unnecessary rework, incorrect assumptions and other sources of inefficiency. Projects lag because no one knows what to do next, or who is responsible. Potentially groundbreaking ideas get hung up on someone’s desk, or in their email box, until a competitor beats you to market.
Why aren’t your engineers telling you? Because that’s the way they’ve always done things. They’re used to spending time developing workarounds with outdated tools and suboptimal processes. They’re accustomed to spending about a third of their time on administrative tasks that don’t add real strategic value. And they may not realize that there is a simple, cost-effective, customized solution that can easily optimize simulation process management within your organization.
Engineers spend a third of their time on non-value added work. Source: Tech-Clarity
The Power of a Purpose-Built Toolkit
Developed by Ansys and backed by 50 years of leadership in engineering simulation, Ansys Minerva is an enterprise-level simulation process and data management (SPDM) solution that is purpose-built to provide decision support and drive collaboration among your interdisciplinary team.
With Ansys Minerva, the entire team has access to the same data, in real time, making it exponentially easier to weigh trade-offs, make fact-based decisions and move closer to market launch every day.
Minerva provides a central repository for your organization’s simulation and process data, creating cross-functional transparency and real-time visibility into the product development process. By automating process handoffs, optimizing workflows and supporting proven best practices, Minerva significantly accelerates the development process, without sacrificing accuracy or analytic rigor. Because the entire team has access to the same data, in real time, it becomes exponentially easier to weigh trade-offs, make fact-based decisions and move one step closer to market launch every day.
Ansys understands the way engineers work on a daily basis, supported by an array of advanced technologies and large datasets that may not be tightly linked. To overcome this challenge, Minerva provides an open platform that is easily integrated with common databases, technology systems and specialized tools, including a host of third-party computer-aided designs (CAD), simulation, and product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions. It creates a virtual environment in which simulation, modeling, and analysis tools can be tightly coupled and orchestrated with one another, breaking down functional siloes and creating traceability and accountability across the team.
In addition, Minerva’s intuitive, user-friendly interface makes it accessible to non-experts in engineering simulation. For the first time, non-specialists on your team can initiate lightweight simulation runs. Projects can move forward continuously and dynamically, instead of relying on manual communications, data transfers and hand-offs among different engineering disciplines.
Boost Innovation and Productivity — for the Price of an Airline Ticket
As the world transitions to a post-pandemic state, many companies are beginning to resume their traditional professional development activities, including travel to industry conferences, trade shows, and other events. For the price of an airline ticket, your company can instead choose to optimize your overall product development process, every day, by purchasing an Ansys Minerva license for every team member.
The payoff can be dramatic, including greater product innovation and faster launches — which drive increased revenues ― as well as efficiency improvements that reduce costs and protect margins. Your product development team members will also enjoy a better quality of life and increased job satisfaction, as they make more strategic contributions, eliminate the majority of their administrative tasks and achieve their full potential.
Why waste more time on “the way we’ve always done things” when Ansys Minerva can drive a greater return on all your technology assets and human resources? Don’t wait for your engineers to tell you what’s going on behind the scenes. Embark on a new era of speed, accuracy, efficiency, and optimization today, with the industry’s only purpose-built solution for simulation process and data management.