How Product Line Engineering (PLE) Creates a Competitive Advantage: Removing Time, Cost, and Complexity from the Systems Lifecycle

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1 1 How Product Line Engineering (PLE) Creates a Competitive Advantage: Removing Time, Cost, and Complexity from the Systems Lifecycle What s Happening with Systems Development? Research from Tech-Clarity s Developing Software-Intensive Products finds that 53% of companies report significant increases to the amount of software in their products. Further, 75% say that over the next 5 years, they will be adding even more software to their products. This growth makes sense as software offers lots of opportunity. However, it also introduces challenges. Ignoring these challenges will hurt company profitability, while companies who address them will be far more successful, win new customers, and beat their competition. Understand the Opportunity So what is driving this increase in software? Figure 1 shows the top reasons. They are looking to enable key criteria that will make their products become more competitive and meet customer needs. For many companies, it is fundamental to the business. Improve Product Capabilities 75% Develop "Smarter" Products 68% Increase Product Innovation 62% Enhance Ability to Tailor Products Enable Platform Design 43% Figure 1 Product Strategies Driving the Use of Software in Products Yet, to fully take advantage of these opportunities, several challenges must be addressed. (Figure 2). 1 Tech-Clarity, Inc. 2016

2 2 Managing Change 56% Complex, Global Development Networks Designing Product / Platform Variants Integrating Designs across Disciplines Figure 2 Challenges of Developing Products with Embedded Software Ignoring these challenges and not addressing them can be quite costly. Figure 3 shows the top negative business impacts of developing products with embedded software. Product Quality Issues 58% Delayed Time to Market 52% Rework or Redesign (Waste) Higher Product Development Cost Poor Software Development Efficiency 48% 48% 44% Figure 3 Negative Business Impacts Developing Products with Embedded Software These negative business impacts hurt competitiveness in several ways. First, a company that is struggling with higher costs is going to find it very difficult to compete in a global environment. Companies must be able to compete with lower cost regions in the world, such as in Asia, where labor costs can be much less. To be competitive, companies must find cost effective ways to develop and deliver products. Those who are more efficient 2 Tech-Clarity, Inc. 2016

3 3 and enjoy lower cost structures will be in a better position to win contracts and outbid competitors. Finally, systems involving software, electronics, and mechanical components are so complex, it is easy to make mistakes, which result in quality issues. Quality issues released into the field, hurt brand reputation which can be very difficult to recover from. The good news is that companies also report that using the right software tools provides strategic benefits and effectively addresses the biggest negative impacts companies face. Companies report the following improvements as a result of using the right software tools: Better product quality () Faster time to market (26%) More innovative products (22%) Lower product development cost (22%) Percentages are the percent of companies reporting improvement in that area. However, software alone will not be enough. Companies also need the right approaches and use software to enable them. Think about approaches that will help you achieve new levels of efficiency, interoperability, and methods to manage all aspects of the product line lifecycle. Consider Product Line Engineering To define the right approach, you should consider methods that will break down the inherent silos between the engineering disciplines. Those silos exist for a few reasons. One is that there are knowledge gaps across engineering disciplines. Engineers are experts in their own domain, but it is harder when they need to consider the impact on other engineering disciplines they re less familiar with. Another reason is that the tools create silos as well. Each discipline works with a toolset that has been tailored to the needs and workflows of its specific domain. PLE (Product Line Engineering) can be a way to break down silos by bridging PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), which has historically been a mechanical domain, and ALM (Application Lifecycle Management), which supports the software domain. PLE brings the same approach that hardware manufacturers have used for decades for product configuration and platform design, and applies it to the entire system. PLE can also help companies become more competitive. Customers are demanding more, but if you can offer them exactly what they want, you can stand out from the competition. However, with growing product complexity, it can be very difficult to meet different needs on any kind of scale. PLE can help by providing a streamlined approach to offer customers different configurations for unique needs. 3 Tech-Clarity, Inc. 2016

4 4 With a good strategy for PLE in place, you can automate the process of sharing reusable components, subsystems, and assets across the entire product line. It doesn t matter which domain they come from. In this way, you can assemble what you need for each design variant so that you can tailor your products for different market needs. This makes it much easier to manage and allows you to streamline development efforts. Not only does this process take less time, but it automates processes for managing complexity. This reduces the chance of errors, which lowers cost, increases quality and overall boosts profitability. PLE allows you to think strategically about the different product options you want to offer to the market. You can focus on how you can best add value and meet the needs of your different market segments rather then worrying about the limitations across the different silos in your engineering organization. What to Look for in a Solution When looking for a solution to support Product Line Engineering, there are several capabilities you should consider: Collaboration: One of the biggest challenges for systems development is collaboration, especially when going across multiple domains like mechanical, electrical, and software. Some companies find that using a common language can help bridge some of the inherent knowledge silos between engineering disciplines. One way to do this is to drive the different product options based on the features those options will have. This can be helpful because features provide that common language and everybody understands what they are. To support the software and new approach, executive leadership should also define a strategy to help the organization transition to this approach. Manage complexity: Tech-Clarity s Reducing Non-Value Added Work in Engineering finds that 32% of engineering time is spent on non-value added work. Part of this non-value added work includes searching for information, incorporating changes made by others, and recreating work that couldn't be found. To avoid this, tools need to simplify access to the right information. By using software that understands the relationships between components, different variants can be created more easily and changes can be implemented in less time. This will help focus valuable engineering time on innovation rather than wasting it. Sharing/Reuse: To further help engineering efficiency, look for solutions that will also manage the different variants across the engineering domains, enable sharing and reuse, and avoid duplication of effort. This way, engineers can take advantage of work that was done previously. Not only does this save design time, but it also reduces time for downstream activities such as testing. 4 Tech-Clarity, Inc. 2016

5 5 Automation: Another way to minimize a lot of that non-value added work is through automation. In the Best Practices for Developing Industrial Equipment study, Tech-Clarity found that Top Performing companies are 45% more likely than their less successful competitors to use configuration / design automation technology. This technology automates the process of putting together the components, subsystems, and assets that will go into an individual product variant or product line. The automation can be based on things such as defined rules, intelligence, and required features based on selected options. Key Takeaways With the increasing amount of embedded software and the need to stand out from the competition, Product Line Engineering across systems and software can be a helpful way to enable platform design. With the right software solution, companies can avoid some of the challenges of systems engineering. Qualities to consider in a PLE solution include facilitating collaboration across engineering discipline, managing complexity, and supporting design automation. About Tech-Clarity Tech-Clarity is an independent research firm that specializes in analyzing the true business value of software technology and services. 5 Tech-Clarity, Inc. 2016