ASR Articles

1. Balancing Engineering Resource with Demand
2. Buying Engineering Services
3. Where to Find Engineers When You Need Them
4. How to Meet Automotive, Military and Aerospace Specifications

Balancing Engineering Resource with Demand

The automation business is highly cyclical. It can take a year to land an order and then the delivery must be made in a few months. To deal with the cyclic nature of the business, a design staff must be highly flexible. Maintaining enough full time designers to meet delivery schedule requirements is difficult due to cost. As a result, part time designers are a desired. In the past, contract engineers have typically filled this need, however recently, the need is being filled by engineering services companies.

An engineering services company provides mechanical, electrical or other support on an as needed basis. The good engineering services company maintains a highly experienced full time staff in an office stocked with the latest CAD software and computers. Typically a single phone call can have one or more engineers redirected to your project within a week. The engineer will quickly become familiar with your project and become an extension of your existing design team. The engineer will typically utilize the service company's computer and software assets. You will not have to maintain these costly assets. The solid modeling and rendering capabilities of current CAD software allow whole assemblies to be easily reviewed for approval via CAD or Microsoft office files. Communication via e-mail, phone and fax eliminates the necessity of having someone work continuously at your site.

Billing for engineering services is typically performed in a manner similar to working with any supplier. A price proposal is requested for a specified project. Upon agreement, a P.O. is issued. When the project is complete the service company sends an invoice. There is a cash flow savings when working with a service company relative to a contract engineer who must be paid weekly.

There are many advantages that an engineering service company provides, but the biggest is a means to truly match your engineering resources with their demand. An engineering service company can be turned on and off as often as necessary. And when they are turned on you will get the engineer that is already familiar with your design team and past projects. Unknown contractors with long learning curves can become a thing of the past.

Michael K. Costen
Principal Engineer ASR Corporation