Collaboration by the Numbers
By John Myers, ConnectPress Staff Writer
The vast majority of CAD users involved in some kind of collaboration process are dissatisfied with their current method of collaboration.
The Harris Interactive study surveyed a number of individuals working in the manufacturing engineering field that reveals how engineers deal with collaboration, exchange information, use digital mockup tools, control information and maintain workflow efficiency. The study was conducted as part of an independently-contracted survey on behalf of Adobe, makers of a wide variety of collaboration tools.
According to the study, 71 percent of those surveyed described their collaboration experience as unsatisfactory with only 29 percent saying they were satisfied and 14 percent saying they were very satisfied.
Some of the selected reasons for dissatisfaction include limited access to proper software tools, the difficulty and time intensive nature of some forms of collaboration and a lack of internal procedures in place to facilitate such a system, specifically an internal review system.
These complaints exist despite over half of respondents saying they saw benefits from collaboration including, a reduction of design errors or flaws, an increase in quality, efficiency, productivity, an effective way to communicate updates and accelerating the review and approval process. With only five percent of those surveyed saying they did not see any benefit to collaboration. The primary response of those surveyed said the biggest challenge to collaboration was the requisite amount of time necessary to receive a response from others. The most important feature subjects want in a collaboration system is the ability to easily share documents electronically rather than physically.
Among individuals who did report satisfaction with their current collaboration method those working within the framework of a small business were generally, 29 percent, more likely to say they benefited from some kind of collaboration. Companies with a primary manufacturing capacity other then an OEM were also 35 percent more like to experience satisfaction with collaboration.
Individuals within the manufacturing industry were targeted with a 23-minute Internet survey. The final tally consisted of 407 interviewees made up of 197 individuals who identified themselves as design engineers or product designers and 210 production or project managers.
Harris Interactive is a private research firm who conducts research and polling throughout the United States and Western Europe.
Far and away the most popular formats for document sharing are Microsoft Word and Adobe’s .PDF file format. An average of 66 percent use 2D CAD files and less then half on average use 3D CAD data.
While the reasons for using CAD files were varied, including, reviewing, creating, and archiving 70 percent of individuals who identified themselves as being involved in design and production say they work with CAD files in some capacity.
The study also reveals product collaboration in incredibly pervasive in the industry with 98 percent of respondents saying they collaborate and 90 percent saying they collaborate within their company. However less then one-third say they regularly collaborate within their OEM and supply chain.
Unsurprisingly, email, face-to-face and phone conversations dominated as methods for collaboration. Travel was much lower with less then half of respondents saying they regularly traveled to a location to collaborate. And less than one-third of respondents said they use some kind of web conferencing, making it a less popular choice than even exchanging printed copies and fax.
When Web conferencing is used it is primarily for collaboration and the exchange of information, roughly half of respondents say they use Web conferencing to meet with clients, customer, supplier or partners. Lastly, internal team meetings were also a response for roughly 50 percent of those surveyed.
Individuals working in product production are significantly more likely to exclusively use digital documents then individuals working in the design field, 41 percent versus 25 percent.
Lastly, individuals interviewed for the survey expressed concerns regarding information control once the data was transmitted, this concern exists in spite of the fact that over 50 percent of individuals working in the production and design fields placed some kind of restriction on markups to documents, 43 percent of those working in the design field and 34 percent of those working in production placed some kind of restriction on the ability to view their documents and 25 percent of those working in production and 20 percent working in design place some kind of restriction on printing.
Fuente: www.catiacommunity.com
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