Engineering for strategic advantages.

Negoescu, Florin ; Axinte, Eugen

Abstract: Creativity, trawling more widely for new opportunities, closer collaboration with the customers may help us respond to the accelerating race of change in the engineering industry It observes the emergence of global product marketing and argues that product development is itself more effectively carried out in an global rather than a national context.

This paper presents some concepts and principles of modern engineering based on obtaining advantages by a large partnership with customers Analyzing the forces that determine a firm's competitive and strategic position, we observe that there are many driving forces, many routes to success or failure in business. In manufacturing industry we see that technology and design and particularly product technology and design play a central and increasingly dominant role in the creation of opportunities for growth.

Key words: concepts, engineering, strategic, competitive.

1. INTRODUCTION IN COMPETITIVE

MECHANISMS

Any organization with a multi-product portfolio does well to ensure that other factors influencing its competitive position are favourable. But a manufacturer who does not have challenging products on offer and under development has little chance of prospering or even surviving in today's markets.

What can companies do to improve the speed of their response to the demands and opportunities of the market? A small part of the answers of this question is given by the next principles and strategies.

1.1. Surviving strategies

Companies engaged in the basic material and process industries were forced by the recession to seek radical solutions to their difficulties. In monolithic industries like steel the options were limited. Although there have been some interesting attempts to enter entirely new markets.

These companies have little real choice but to stick to the knitting (Watson and Pullen, 1988) by rationalizing and restructuring their operations and refurbishing their process technology to the competitive world standards.

They can also seek added value in additional downstream operations such as special coatings. A manufacturer might offer design optimization to his customers with a similar aim (fig.1)

In figure 1 the explanations are: in part a--the sharp corners permits to design and manufacture thinner walls; in part b.--greater number of smaller ribs are more desirable than a few large ribs. These simple principles permits a good material rationalizing. The products must be constantly renewed by the using imaginative ideas and vigorous applications.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

1.2. The high added value strategy

In the most economically advanced nations from European Union, United States and Japan, the new car market is close to saturation and is facing serious over-capacity over the next few years as new plant comes into production.

The number of vehicles that are circulating in Europe is estimated to be around 150 millions. At least 5 to 6% of these vehicles are eliminated each year. The customer is no longer asking for more but is asking for better, and can afford to pay for it. In these circumstances the basis of competition between manufacturers inevitably shifts from cost to differentiation. Although volume is static, turnover and added value continue to rise and the industry as a whole remains attractive.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

1.3 Targeting the product gaps

There is a gap between what exists and what we need that is always tending to grow. Filling this product gap is the prime and continuous target of technology management (Watson and Pullen, 1988) The traditional research (R) and development (D) establishment in much companies was not well adapted for product development. Its skills were directed at supporting the materials and process needs of line companies and were organized by discipline.

Last years (since 1990's) is began to bring in skills more directly relevant to products: stress analysis, noise and vibration studies, fatigue life prediction, computer-controlled test, computer aided design, computer aided manufacturing.

1.4. Creating innovative structures (teams)

The product innovation process is described (Bergwerk, 1988) as a steady progression of events which led systematically from research to production. An innovative team have a block typical structure as shown in figure 3.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

2. MATERIALS SELECTION CHALLENGE

A well done material selection can offers strategic and competitive advantages. Materials influence the function of a product, its appearance and its cost. The designer may follows the next principles:

a. The material has the desired physical properties (hardness, conductivity, strength, etc)?

b. The material has the desired chemical properties (solubility, reactivity, etc)?

c. The material has an acceptable cost? Actually, a designer have in attention some supplementary criteria (adapted from Graedel & Allenby, 2004, pp..118):

Is the material an environmental hazard (toxicity)? Is the material an safety hazard (flammability)? The embodied energy in the material is high? Is the material under potential supply constraints? Is the material recyclable? Is the material substitutable? (In case of unexpected factors, there are alternative materials?)

In industrial practice, the material substitution should give a strategic and competitive advantage. Substitute materials must satisfy all economic, physical and chemical requirements of the product.

An example for the material substitution is given by the next project : an snail mill was manufactured in a modular system--the main body is from ordinary carbon steel (low cost, approximate 80 %) and the cutting teeth are made from tools steel (much expensive, approximate 20 %), The scheme of this especially designed snail mill is shown in figure 4.

[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]

This modular mill was computer aided designed, produced and tested by doctoral student eng. C. Ciofu at Technical University of Jassy (Machine Manufacturing Dept.) and gives fully satisfaction in milling operations of short grows (is on procedure for patent obtaining at Romanian State Office of Marks and Innovations OSIM).

3. CONCLUSIONS

A successful organization must obtain some strategic and competitive advantages as the only way to survive and to growth.

Filling the product gaps is a continuous target a of a good technology management

The only ways that organizations have are the excellence and the high added value our products. The added value has change the weight centre by production phase (in nearly past) to design and utilization phase (today and in future)

A well done material selection and substitution may offer strategic and competitive advantages for an innovative organization.

Materials substitution may provide a reduction of costs and important opportunities to optimize the design.

The future of industrial design is the design focused to the end of life (EOL) of products and for customer satisfaction (to make from the customer your partner in development and innovation.)

4. REFERENCES

Bergwerk, W, (1988), The role of prototype in managing product innovation risks, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, vol. 203, ISSN 0954-4054, London,

Graedel, T.E, & Allenby, B.R (2004)--Industrial Ecology, 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall & AT&T, ISBN 0-13-046713-8, New Jersey, US

Kiritsis, D., Bufardi, A. & Xirouchakis, P., (2003) Research issues on product lifecycle management and information tracking using smart embedded systems, Advanced Engineering Informatics, Elsevier, pp. 189, vol 17, issue 3.

Ulrich, K & Eppinger, S (2003) Product Design and Development, McGraw Hill, ISBN 0073101427, NY, US

Watson and Pullen (1988) GKN Technology Ltd Wolverhampton, UK--Report at Ordinary Meeting about Engineering for Competitive advantages, London, UK

*** EPFL (2005) Definition of economic, environmental, technical and social criteria to evaluate the end-of-life treatment of products--Project No NMP2-CT-2004-507487 VRL-KCiP--Work package