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 Situation
Solution and Benefits
SituationManufacturers are faced with the challenge of growing their businesses rapidly while maintaining some level of structure and compliance, which is why managing the engineering change process is important. As part of the overall PLM process, the engineering change process is a key component of communicating between customers and suppliers and is critical to delivering a quality product on-time and on-schedule. Additionally, manufacturers are facing an overall heightened awareness of regulatory compliance from customers and independent agencies. 
Figure 1 Coordinating engineering team members across customers and suppliers is challenging and chaotic, reduces time-to-market, and risks product quality Because the engineering change process is so critical to delivering high quality products and services, manufacturing companies will benefit from automating the engineering change process.
Solution and BenefitsSolutions for engineering change processes using the Microsoft Office System deliver the following benefits to manufacturing companies: Improved Productivity | | • | More quickly access engineering data through integrated systems | | • | Utilize familiar, easy-to-use desktop applications |
Accelerated Time to Market | | • | Automate the engineering change process workflow through e-mail notifications and alerts | | • | Reduce repeat engineering changes by more effectively analyzing recurring issues |
Improved Product Quality | | • | More quickly gain customer feedback through cross-organizational collaborative design sessions | | • | Improve quality through comprehensive, real-time visibility into all design changes |
Reduced Costs | | • | Use existing tools and systems such as Microsoft Excel | | • | Reduce the IT burden for custom reports and data extractions | | • | Reduce training costs associated with introducing ECP solutions |
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