Bottom-line gains drive mouldmaking software usage

Smaller companies saw no value of being networked in the office but could see the benefits of connecting the office and the shop floor, according to a survey of 66 GTMA members.

Smaller companies saw no value of being networked in the office but could see the benefits of connecting the office and the shop floor, according to a survey of 66 GTMA members.

How ready are British mouldmakers to embrace the technology currently being developed to increase competitiveness? The GTMA, together with its partners in the emould@work project, recently undertook detailed research with 66 GTMA member companies to find out.

All companies surveyed used email to communicate externally; well over half already benefited from a faster (ISDN or broadband) connection and the use of 'always on' communications is anticipated to increase rapidly.

Internally, most companies were networked, this being the prime method of communicating with colleagues.

Smaller companies saw no value of being networked in the office but could see the benefits of connecting the office and the shop floor.

Online meetings were rare and therefore tools such as electronic whiteboards and instant messaging were not popular - used by just 15% and 26% respectively of those surveyed, with only one third of respondents planning to use them within the next 3 years.

Many respondents used straightforward email as a tool to 'manage' project information, setting up project folders to provide a basic audit trail.

More integrated and automated project management systems met with some resistance due to lack of perceived benefits.

Use of the internet for design-related project activities was widespread, with more than half of the companies surveyed expecting to access their customers' CAD data via a secure internet connection and this could eventually expand into the gradual adoption of online project management tools.

The use of wizards was expected to show significant escalation (around 50%) provided quality and reliability continue to improve, but the growth prospects for electronic sculpting were more modest, with awareness low at present.

Data exchange between different CAD packages, particularly surface and solid modellers, is already considered to be reliable.

Virtually all companies used the internet to search for customers and most already provided online quotations - although via email, not through a secure internet portal.

The growth in availability of online component catalogues is expected to drive the incidence of internet purchasing, already a fairly widespread activity with regard to office products (61%, set to rise to 80%).

Tracking orders online showed the least growth potential, from a current low 22% up to a modest 51%, reflecting the perceived limited value of the process.

Julia Moore, GTMA Director, sums up the survey's findings, "The future competitiveness of Britain's manufacturing sector in a global economy depends on companies collaborating in supportive, results-orientated supply chains.

The survey clearly indicates that the majority of mouldmaking members are already exploiting communications technology with regard to the use of email and the internet.

In a still fragile manufacturing climate, however, companies need to be convinced of the business benefits of automating processes before they will invest.

While it is true that the more sophisticated online collaboration, where the potential for telescoping the product development process is perhaps the greatest, is still only tentatively being explored, there is clearly a willingness to tap into technology where it can be shown to provide those real benefits." The emould@work project will continue to develop mouldmaking management tools and will be addressing the internal and supply chain barriers to acceptance of these tools and how they can best be overcome in a forthcoming workshop to be attended by the survey respondents.

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