Research Rap: Engineering Reference Information - Part of the PLM Toolkit?

A quick peek into some research from Tech-Clarity on
...
the
use of electronic engineering reference information to improve
productivity in Engineering points out the importance of
efficiently providing engineers with validated
reference information they need to make design decisions. The
research also discusses how reference information - and the tools
that provide it - relate to PLM.

The Research
For a change, I am talking about my own research here. I wrote this
report based on interviews with a pair of very large, very
successful companies with large engineering organizations. I was
impressed with the amount of thought and attention that
each had put into enabling their engineers. The
conclusions that I will draw out first and foremost from my
research are:

• Paper-based books and libraries are just not efficient
  or cost-effective for today’s engineers
• Simply putting the same paper content online is only a
  partial solution. It is better than doing nothing because
  you are using trusted information (as opposed to unvalidated data
  from the web, which can be fast but also risky). But as one of
  the companies told me without search it is relatively
  “useless”
• Search and other capabilities need to be optimized to
  engineering information. For example, “little” things like
  units of measure make a generic search engine (optimized for
  general media) insufficient for the task of retrieving engineering
  data.
• Electronic tools can provide more than any library - electronic
  or paper - can offer, because they create the ability to
  integrate the information into the engineer’s
  workflow

There are significant efficiencies to be gained. Engineering
reference information may not be sexy, but it helps to
drive productivity, shorten product development time, reduce
corporate risk, and improve quality - all advantages
that manufacturers could certainly use in the economy. The paper
also quotes a study conducted of ASME (American
Society of Mechanical Engineers) members indicates engineering
reference information (specifically the ASME eLibrary) improved the
productivity of engineers in significant measures.
Specifically: 

• Over three quarters (79%) of the participants say electronic
  access to reference information improved their efficiency
  by 10% or more. 
• A full one third (34%) of respondents indicate that electronic
  reference information improved their productivity by 20% or
  more.

Engineering Reference Information and PLM - a
Fit?
Some purists might say that engineering reference information is
not a part of the product lifecycle, and so not a part of PLM. To
those people, I can only agree in order to prevent an argument. But
my definition of PLM is broader than product definitions and design
files. To me, PLM (for lack of a better term) includes
anything that improves performance in product innovation,
product development, and engineering. To put it simply, if
I were running an Engineering organization I would want this in my
bag of tricks to provide to my team. So to me, that makes it
part of PLM. Further, as the research points out, electronic
reference tools provide the ability to integrate
reference information into other engineering tools. This
is what engineering reference tool provider Knovel is currently doing with PTC’s MathCad at one of the interviewed
companies. This integration helps to further streamline and
error-proof the product development process.

In the words of Spyro
Kotsonis, who is responsible for enabling engineers at a major
company in the oil and gas industry:

“Electronic access to engineering
reference information enables faster and better product
development, although credit won‟t be given where it is due.
Upper management probably doesn’t care about reference information
directly, however they want to make sure they are doing everything
possible to enable and empower the engineering organization. They
expect you to put what is required in
place.” 

What more could you possibly say than that? Having the right
information helps drive engineering productivity, and I expect we
will see more PLM providers start to offer this kind of offering to
their customers.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on
engineering reference information. I hope you found it interesting.
Does the research reflect reality? Do you see it differently? Let
us know what it looks like from your perspective.