Engineers see industry as Internet dinosaurs

The Internet has had “very little” impact on engineering industry, according to almost half the respondents to a survey by business systems specialist for the process and power industries, Aveva Consulting, at this year’s ISEIT (International Symposium for Engineering IT) conference. Respondents overwhelming described engineering industry’s adoption of Internet technologies as “dinosaur like”. 81% of those questioned though industry “a laggard” compared to other sectors. However, those interviewed also feel the Internet has a vast amount to offer. 90% of respondents believe that once global barriers have been overcome and remote working becomes a reality, it will revolutionise engineering industry. Other key findings are that 58% agree that the greatest benefit for industry will be in information sharing, while an additional 20%, unsurprisingly, see it reducing development cycles. As to the barriers, 55% rightly say difficulties with integrating new technology with legacy systems will be the main one, while 19% see the issue of getting ‘buy-in’ from users as a thorny one. The bottom line: 90% said that engineering companies who fail to implement Internet technology will fall behind their competitors within the next five years. Says Tony Christian, Aveva’s president: “The top issue … is how to improve margins. Internet technology is one way to do this, and can deliver significant and sustainable operational business benefit.” He is unequivocal: “Internet technology is a prerequisite to gaining competitive advantage and engineering companies need to act quickly to remain profitable.”