If you're running a machine shop you have probably spent countless hours figuring how you can stay competitive. Making a profit in part manufacturing is not easy, and it is becoming even harder. Traditional ways of producing parts have lots of in-built inefficiencies, which manufacturing companies irrespective of their size often fail to recognize. Even if you have made it so far, failing to understand the cost impact of these inefficiencies can prove fatal in the future when new more agile competition enters the arena.

During the past decades, customer demand has grown to become more specific than ever before. It’s all about catering to different needs and tastes. Just think about the shelves at your local supermarket – I bet there are plenty more products to choose from than, say, 20 years ago. 

 

The challenge in responding to customer demands

The digitalization of the manufacturing industry is driving the design and production processes into a significant change. The China phenomenon’s polished offshoring processes have been dominated by a cost perspective rather than time-to-market conditions. The rise in the automation degree in manufacturing/production forces a change in design processes as well. The changes cause challenges that need to be addressed as a priority.

At the beginning of the summer, my colleague Teppo Salmia wrote a blog on Model-Based Engineering and Model-Based Systems Engineering. Inspired by Teppo, I decided to write this blog focusing on Model-Based Definition (MBD). I hope you will also get inspired! To get started, the most important terms are explained in Figure 1 below.

 

Figure 1.

If you work in product development, you may have come across model-based engineering or model-based systems engineering. But do you grasp the true idea behind these concepts? They are not actually brand-new concepts but have gained new momentum over the past few years. The driving force has been the need to design ever more complex systems of mechatronic products, and simultaneously making the products lighter, safer, more optimized, and more environmentally friendly. Technological advancements in engineering applications have acted as a catalyst.

(This article is part of a series about Product Portfolio Management, Product Information Management, Product Master Data Management, and Ideal Commercial Product Management solution.)

Product Portfolio management is an analysis and decision-making process that aims to ensure the long-term growth and profitability of the company (Tolonen, 2016). Before going in-depth into product portfolio management, it is important to first understand the concept of a product portfolio and what it consists of. Therefore, our first article will concentrate on the typical products and services hierarchy as defined by Haines (2014).