‘Cee-Eng’ to take each manufacturing development year to 100 days

Cee-Eng, the new shorthand for web-based collaborative engineering, is more than ready to take a year’s worth of engineering/manufacturing effort down to just 100 days, according to 3D CAD collaborative engineering software firm Syntech. But in an open letter commenting on the technically now official UK manufacturing recession, Syntech says the benefits won’t be felt in the UK “unless practices becoming commonplace elsewhere are adopted.” The new Mini, it points out, was designed in Germany, its engine manufactured in Brazil, but designed in Chicago; it is constructed in Britain, “yet rarely was paper exchanged because everything was done on a common 3D design system.” How do we do it in the UK? “We design in 3D (if we’re lucky), we run off 2D drawings, post them or fax them down the road and then redraw in 3D!” Says the firm, “We surveyed 143 companies and fournd that only 3 of them were using their design IT to the full extent of its capability. In fact, 80% of UK businesses use less than 200% of the capacity of their installed IT for manufacturing-related design.” Syntech goes on to point out that the biggest manufacturing problem today remains cost – and that means primarily people time, design time and component and assembly cost. The firm notes that in the aerospace and automotive sectors, IT and the web are being harnessed successfully to “eliminate wastage from design gone wrong (scrapping prototypes that don’t meet the criteria and cutting out the re-design time)”. And it adds: “and bring the cost of producing manufactured goods down by huge amounts – plus get them to market faster.” It’s a slightly rosy view of sectors that have spent serious money, made mistakes on the way, and still had to do some wasting and scrapping, but the point is absolutely right. Says Syntech: “If day to day manufactured goods had progressed in the same way as aircraft or cars, then the humble washing machine, for instance, would be half the cost and five times as efficient.” Collaborative engineering is the key to this, and Syntech believes that while this should have happened in the UK with Internet 1, it will happen with Internet 2. This will be “truly life-changing e-commerce”. Syntech concludes: “What Cee-Eng means is, for instance, five expert organisations designing and producing separate components for the same finished product – as far apart as on the five continents – and the first time those parts come together they’ll fit perfectly, function as specified, delivered on time and meet the required cost.”