Change management process within a solution engineering environment

Solution engineering represents the application of engineering excellence in response to convoluted and abstract problems, requiring the manufacture of sophisticated products. Within this environment product design, generally, is a highly specialised and complex task, involving a range of technologies, resulting in small low cost products to multi-million pound capital projects. Products habitually win orders on design excellence, however, other order-winning criteria are influential, for example cost, quality, delivery lead times and delivery reliability. Robotec Limited are a typical Solution Engineering company who operate in this highly competitive market. The company does not produce a standard product and therefore each project appears to commence from a clean sheet. However, commonalties between projects may be found, as most solutions employ drives, chassis or are solutions of a certain type that are regularly built including palletisers and assembly systems. An important facility which Robotec must provide is the ability to produce rapid tendering of customer enquiries, although it is vital that accuracy is not sacrificed in the quest for rapid turnaround following an initial query. Within Robotec, the cost estimation and subsequent design of a product was accomplished traditionally by a hybrid approach of stand alone manual and computer aided methods within discrete functional areas. This process carried the possibility of a duplication of information, extended lines of communication and significant throughput times, resulting in the dangers of inaccuracy, inconsistency and inefficiency being generated in the process. Consequently company management saw the introduction of computer software as a means of assisting in the estimating and configuration tasks. The aim being to make the knowledge and expertise of the design engineers available during the sales estimating stage, which also involved functional design. Such a process would enable faster and more accurate quotations, allowing the detailed design to be clarified early on in the contract cycle, hence leading to fewer variations and faster design times.