Successful Digital Transformation: The Engineering Digital Thread

This digital thread is crucial for successfully increasing organizational efficiency and improving communication across teams, groups, and the entire firm, regardless of your workforce paradigm.

A look at historical challenges

The digital thread is a moving target, so bear that in mind as well. Recognize that in a constantly changing environment, a digital thread’s evolution is never over. But don’t let that keep you from starting, as even a minimally viable digital thread has valuable business implications.

Make way for innovation


A digital thread makes it possible to connect the data flow of a product over the course of its life. But mechanisms are needed to close the many gaps between existing systems and join them. To succeed, focus on process over software, and prioritize openness and interoperability.

Recommendations for thread creation

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Discrete manufacturing businesses have always used isolated processes. Without a method to bring them all together, the numerous disciplines involved in engineering, manufacturing, and service have existed separately. This has stifled digital transformation initiatives and prevented innovation for many manufacturers. But the efficiency of multidisciplinary processes can be greatly increased, expenses can be decreased, and efforts to implement digital transformation can eventually succeed beyond expectations.

Keep in mind that a digital thread can’t be created in a single step; you’ll need to use an iterative strategy. Start off small and gradually add value. Don’t wait until the upcoming budget cycle to begin. Make a succession of smaller, focused investments instead, each of which will benefit the organization in a different way.

Innovation

Successful Digital Transformation: The Engineering Digital Thread

Three key tactics can help manufacturers foster development and innovation

Most product life cycle management processes developed naturally over long periods of time with a constantly changing ecosystem of technologies. These processes—which span mechanical, electronic, electrical, software, simulation, systems, and other engineering disciplines—weren’t primarily built to bridge all those disciplines. The life cycle, from conceptual design to engineering, manufacture, operation, and service, lacks cohesiveness. 

A company’s individual departments frequently work in isolation. Instead of collaborating with others to maximize effort across disciplines, their attention rests on their individual design tasks. Think about how regenerative braking is used by makers of contemporary electric vehicles to maximize driving range. The braking system was once thought to be essentially independent of other vehicle subsystems and could even be developed in isolation. But no longer; each component of a car today is heavily dependent on every other system.

As you develop your digital thread solution, make interoperability and openness priorities. You won’t be able to foresee which tools will eventually be required in your digital thread. The consequences of mergers, acquisitions, and changing supplier networks on your IT ecosystem are unpredictable. Your ability to adapt and evolve with the times may be significantly hindered if you lock yourself into the ecosystem of one software vendor.

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This lack of cohesiveness is a barrier to fostering digital transformation and can result in subpar products. Even seemingly insignificant things can have a significant effect on cost and efficiency. It’s possible that your electronics’ cooling is being affected by mechanical design. It can be an issue of hardware/software compatibility. The issue could be as straightforward as incorrect connectors in wire harnesses. Even in large corporations with a wealth of resources at their disposal, these kinds of problems still arise.

By establishing a more integrated approach across disciplines, you can considerably increase productivity, save money, and eventually create a path for digital transformation projects to outperform expectations.

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2. Iterate for incremental success

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For most discrete manufacturing companies, digital transformation initiatives are underway in some capacity. They’re largely seen as table stakes in today’s economy. Unfortunately, outdated systems and procedures often bring problems that hinder these initiatives.

By establishing a digital thread, it’s possible to connect the data flow of a product over the course of its life. Mechanisms are needed to close the many gaps between existing systems and join them. This can be difficult, particularly if your systems are outdated and challenging to update. However, a digital thread can’t exist without a means of connecting data across the whole life cycle.

A lack of consistency among engineering fields is one of the problems. Effective collaboration is still a far-off ideal. Enterprise cohesion can result in benefits like better quality, quicker innovation, on-time product launches, and lower operational expenses. The digital thread method of product life cycle tracking makes all of this possible.