Organisation is key to business success

Management is the key factor making the difference between success and failure in CAD/CAM projects, not IT. IT itself is now taken for granted, according to a new report, and the governing factor is what you do with it. The survey, ‘Tomorrow’s Integrated World’, was commissioned by CAD giant Autodesk UK among 101 of its users and prospective customers, and undertaken by Pro Log Research. It was aimed at ranking business pressures experienced by engineering designers, and to establish trends over the next three years. The results ring true with experience and anecdotal evidence. It comes as no surprise, for example, to discover that 56.7% of companies consider themselves to be in the top quartile. Significantly though, companies that felt they were doing well, scored ‘organisation’ as the most important factor, followed by ‘quality’, ‘production’ and ‘investment’. CAD users that felt they were doing badly saw ‘culture’, as the biggest drag factor, followed by lack of ‘investment’, ‘production’ and ‘organisation.’ ‘IT systems’ and ‘design’ were both seen as essentially neutral – givens. It seems IT tools are now being taken for granted: as long as they work, and people know how to use them, they’re just part of everyone’s environment – although 56% believe that their organisations invest too little in training users of design software. On the other hand, the vast majority of businesses now have a 3D design capability, with only 7% still wholly 2D-based and 11% principally 2D based. And while just one third of organisations make design software available organisation-wide, this figure is expected to double to over 60% within three years. Interestingly, 33% of organisations, designers and design engineers continue to work either in isolation or in single groups, while in a further 42% of companies, the function is only partly integrated. Looking at the results another way, more than 80% of organisations encourage multi-skilling, but less than 40% as yet deploy multi-disciplinary teams. In both cases, large organisations are further advanced than their smaller colleagues. The gulf between design, production and other functions is evidently alive and well, even though good organisation is generally recognised as the most crucial issue deciding the difference between success and failure.