Engineers spend, on average, 15% of their time managing product data – and some routinely waste the equivalent of 1 day a week. For those involved in the manufacturing arena, this is a significant portion of time and resources that businesses simply cannot afford to waste.
In a nutshell, managing data can undermine engineers’ productivity and can lead to costly ramifications down the line. Some common issues include;
- Finding past revisions for printing or reviewing can be tedious and extremely time consuming.
- Personnel can prematurely or accidentally access drawings that aren’t released, leading to costly manufacturing wastage and errors.
- Collecting the “correct” revisions of drawings as a set for batch printing of a job can be very tedious, time consuming and error prone.
Therefore, in a competitive industry that is under extreme financial pressure, there is a growing need to centrally manage and securely track design data throughout the Digital Prototyping pipeline so that efficiencies and productivity can be optimised.
Streamlining this process will help design, engineering and manufacturing workgroups manage Digital Prototyping information and avoid costly mistakes and to release and revise designs more efficiently.
With plant, engineering and operational managers looking to streamline operating costs wherever possible, it is important to identify solutions that won’t lead to a loss of production due to downtime or increased costs of operation and maintenance.
The data management advantage
Autodesk data management tools are designed to alleviate the common burdens felt by design teams and engineering management. In particular the Autodesk® Vault family of data management software helps to keep track of all your digital design data.
It securely stores and manages data in a central location, helping teams to quickly create, share and reuse Digital Prototyping information. With Autodesk® Vault products, you’ll spend less time chasing down files and more time creating innovative designs.
Connect your teams – Multiuser functionality lets you control access to design data so your entire workgroup – from managers to engineers and designers – can participate in the design process. This enables you to track and manage all data related to each task in one secure, central location from concept through manufacturing.
Improve productivity – The Autodesk Vault product family includes tools that help you reuse data and minimise rework, enabling users to develop products faster and thus boosting productivity levels.
Control revisions – By capturing the history of design concepts, you can push the boundaries of your work, or easily revert to older revisions if needed. Whatever the case, team members have access to only the correct revisions of the files.
Data management capabilities – The Autodesk Vault product family accelerates development cycles and optimises your investment in design data with features that help you to organise, manage and track key design and release management processes.
For more information on Autodesk’s range of data management tools click here, or download the Top 10 Reasons for Vault.