Imagine Greater Value and Performance Out of Your Global Engineering Center

Today, more and more businesses are improving their productivity and building new revenue streams by integrating operational technology with information technology—a convergence of engineering, IT and manufacturing that industries like manufacturing are leveraging across their portfolio of manufacturing plants.

To showcase this convergence, ISG recently hosted an Imagine Your Future™ Workshop in Dearborn, Michigan, for manufacturing enterprises. We were pleased to bring together experts from both leading manufacturers and service providers to discuss how their collaborative efforts are reshaping the engineering services and manufacturing marketplace. Here is a snapshot of what was discussed at the meeting:

• General Electric’s “Brilliant Factory” concept is enabling product development by using the “Digital Thread” of connectivity with sensor enablement, automation, and information flows that feed the manufacturing system with enhanced analytics and applications. GE is at the forefront of the convergence of the physical and digital worlds, creating a new collaborative set of ecosystems that will produce significant efficiencies and value well into the future.
• Johnson Controls and HCL are working together to improve operational efficiency across the value chain with data—which they consider a valuable asset on par with people, technology and capital. Their work is helping create a new economic paradigm powered by the Industrial Internet, which they project will have a 140 percent return on investment between 2012 and 2020.
• In their work on the Connected Car, SenseDriver Technologies and Tech Mahindra are focusing on improving safety and security with in-vehicle infotainment solutions, smart data analytics, predictive maintenance tools and application development support.
• DriveFactor and Infosys are using the Internet of Things (IoT) and analytics in the Connected Car to capture data on driver habits, including tendencies to break hard, accelerate rapidly and exceed the speed limit as a way to improve Usage Based Insurance (UBI) solutions and offerings.
• Johnson Controls and Wipro are revamping the product value chain by enabling innovation and collaboration with customers and other service providers across a shared product lifecycle management platform. The net result is significantly improved product quality and faster cycle time for product development.
• A123 Systems and L&T Technology Services are working together to address the challenges of tomorrow’s electric car by developing low-voltage batteries to minimize charging time and increase efficiency and safety.

These ‘Imagine Your Future’ Workshop case studies reveal how rapidly the market is changing with the convergence of engineering, IT and manufacturing—and the increasing role of the Industrial Internet. To keep pace, many enterprises have begun to increasingly rely on Global Engineering Centers as their service delivery engines to conceive, design, build and deliver products and engineering services.

According to the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), the number of Global Engineering Centers in India, for example, has grown from 300 to 800 in the just the past five years. Unfortunately, the rapid growth rate has brought with it deficiencies in both strategic and operational performance. Enterprises that want to capitalize on these new—and rapidly expanding—engineering services delivery capacities and capabilities will need to take a hard look at the value and performance they are receiving from their Global Engineering Centers.

ISG assesses Global Engineering Centers for market performance by evaluating their ability to execute operationally and deliver innovative products and services. Our GEC Value Assessment tool, depicted below, uses both qualitative and quantitative techniques to measure effectiveness, value, cost efficiency and productivity. From this baseline assessment, we can help enterprises develop a transformational roadmap to drive greater value delivery and operational excellence from their Global Engineering Centers to compete in the new, engineering services-driven and connected marketplace.

To learn more about how to assess and evaluate GEC performance, read this ISG white paper, How to Assess the Value and Performance of a Global Engineering Center. For immediate help, please contact me.

About the author

Jim is an expert in application development and maintenance (ADM) outsourcing, IT infrastructure outsourcing (ITO), restructuring/renegotiations, and business process outsourcing (BPO). He works with enterprises to assess sourcing contracts, evaluate sourcing and service delivery solutions, manage and negotiate contracts, manage transitions and ongoing relationships for applications and IT infrastructure and finance and administration BPO solutions. Jim has extensive engineering services experience and has led multiple engagements along with researching and crafting new approaches and services to that industry. Jim has a degree in Chemical Engineering and Business Administration. He is ITIL Foundation v3 certified.