Demystifying Global Engineering - The right concoction is key to cutting the flab...
Engineering of complex systems involve three major elements - expertise, engineering scale and program management. “Engineering expertise” seeds innovation (through experience and product knowledge), “engineering scale” accomplishes the complex engineering work in a systematic/standardized manner and “program management” ensures that all pieces of the puzzle come together as planned. In the current challenges of ever increasing customer expectations for faster, better and cheaper products (and systems) combined with graying engineering workforces and demographic challenges, Global Engineering holds the key. Smarter organizations are benefiting from the “compelling value” global engineering can offer rather than worrying about replicating their own engineering organizations elsewhere on the globe. “Demystifying” global engineering is key for appreciating and benefiting from leaner engineering organization models thriving innovation and agility.
Global Engineering involves breaking up of complex engineering programs into granular levels, enabling globally distributed teams to innovate at varying degrees. For optimum (lean) results it is essential to have a balanced mix of experts, engineers and program managers as each of these resources has its own cost and availability constraints. Having more proportion of experts in a team –as in most of customer’s established engineering organizations- is certainly not a “must to have”. Experts offering higher levels of innovation and program directions are definitely required but, such higher level competencies are not mandatory for the entire team. If the majority of the engineers are capable of contributing at granular levels of innovation and have the ability and motivation to execute in a systematic and standardized manner (leveraging their experience and competencies), the resulting engineering organization can be much more leaner, innovative and agile.
Expertise is not about doing the same things again and again. Experts should be leveraged for higher level innovations and for establishing program level directions. Innovative frameworks should be leveraged for forming a winning combination of (i) scarcely available systems engineering experts, (ii) abundant supply of engineers and (iii) capable program managers for lean global engineering operations. A right concoction is key for cutting the flab…
Global Engineering involves breaking up of complex engineering programs into granular levels, enabling globally distributed teams to innovate at varying degrees. For optimum (lean) results it is essential to have a balanced mix of experts, engineers and program managers as each of these resources has its own cost and availability constraints. Having more proportion of experts in a team –as in most of customer’s established engineering organizations- is certainly not a “must to have”. Experts offering higher levels of innovation and program directions are definitely required but, such higher level competencies are not mandatory for the entire team. If the majority of the engineers are capable of contributing at granular levels of innovation and have the ability and motivation to execute in a systematic and standardized manner (leveraging their experience and competencies), the resulting engineering organization can be much more leaner, innovative and agile.
Expertise is not about doing the same things again and again. Experts should be leveraged for higher level innovations and for establishing program level directions. Innovative frameworks should be leveraged for forming a winning combination of (i) scarcely available systems engineering experts, (ii) abundant supply of engineers and (iii) capable program managers for lean global engineering operations. A right concoction is key for cutting the flab…
Comments
An important factor to consider for global engineering is the risk involved. Risk in IT projects and industry is very different as compared to risks in global engineering because the impact of mistakes or misses if any is manifested more physically rather than virtually as in IT.
Posted by: V.S.Srividhya | May 23, 2009 10:25 AM
New product development initiatives are inevitable for growth and survival of the organizations, but at the same time these initiatives involve many kinds of associated risks due to fast changing customer preferences, rapidly changing technologies, varying RoI, complex project management etc. Global Engineering in particular can alleviate some of these risks as it leverages global innovation capability, without additional fixed costs. However, cost focus alone won’t take organizations too far!
Global Engineering is most often misunderstood to ‘engineering offshoring’ leading to wrong focus and flawed strategies. Global Engineering is mainly focused on scaling up the innovation potential of organizations by engaging global teams for engineering better products, faster and smarter. Successful global engineering initiatives leverage the synergy between global teams of varying levels (and types) of expertise for continuous value ascendency and agility.
Many global engineering initiatives fail due to the excess focus on labor arbitrage benefits. Innovation cannot be commoditized and realizing higher value through Global Engineering largely depends on the Innovation potential of the engaged global teams along with the engineering eco-system in which they operate. As the saying goes ‘If you throw peanuts, you get monkeys’ and quite obviously, that is not the option for realizing higher value. It is also important to note that many global engineering initiatives are delivering sub-optimal results due to various reasons.
Organizations looking for continuous value ascendency and innovation should enable global teams to ‘think out of the box’. Legacy processes and methodologies should be amenable for questioning and simplification. Cross-pollination of ideas from multi-industry backgrounds should be encouraged. An engineering partner with manufacturing pedigree or familiarity to their customer’s processes may not necessarily be the best suited for global innovation. During the initial phases of an engagement, this familiarity may provide a comfort feeling but in the long run, it could lead to sub-optimal relationship if the other influencing factors are ignored.
Hence, fostering a long-term, strategic relationship with an able and scalable engineering partner is the recipe for success in Global Engineering!
Posted by: Muthuvelan ST | June 22, 2009 06:01 AM
There are diverse set of engineering activities that happen in any organisation. Right from new product conceptualisation and cutting edge innovation to low value adding tasks like creating manufacturing drawings from 3D CAD models, managing engineering change process to keep BOM's up to date, repetitive FE analysis for design optimisation etc. Testing of embedded software for example, is a huge effort intensive task, which is essential, but does not add additional value to the product.
Many companies are focusing on retaining core value adding tasks with their engineers but outsourcing some of the noncore tasks to engineering service providers. This could be one of the approaches that companies can look to adopt, for embarking on engineering outsourcing journey.
Posted by: Neeraj Mathur | September 7, 2009 06:18 AM