DesignSource™: Product Data Analytics Solution

Why you need better data

For many organizations, reducing product complexity comes down to better data and analytics. But many companies lack the time, skills, and resources to get the most out of their direct materials data.

There are other reasons as well:

• Global product development data often isn’t centralized and is instead stored in separate product lifecycle management (PLM) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.
• Rationalizing discrepancies across these systems is difficult due to poor and incomplete data and frequently requires manual modification.
  
• Different product data management systems can limit component consolidation, making bills of materials (BOM) comparisons more complex and cross-product family analyses more onerous.
  
• Part reuse may not be institutionalized.
  

What’s more, global product and supply chain data often aren’t shared across organizational silos. In fact, different sourcing teams across the enterprise may be negotiating independently with suppliers for direct materials procurement.

The result: The same supplier may be providing similar components with similar specs to multiple buyers in the same organization—often at different prices—without the knowledge of product and sourcing leadership.

DesignSource™ can help.

Digital product development: From complex to streamlined

Deloitte’s DesignSource is a rigorous analytical tool that delivers product insights to address organizations’ product and sourcing challenges by:

• Collecting product, design, and operations data from a variety of sources
• Performing a thorough cleansing and data enrichment analysis
  
• Merging BOM data with other enterprise, supplier, digital supply chain, and third-party benchmark data to create a clear picture of cost and complexity reduction opportunities
  

The DesignSource product data analytics system:

• Enriches part attribute data from manufacturing part numbers and unstructured sources such as drawings and data sheets
  
• Classifies BOMs for reuse and consolidation in a highly secure environment
  
• Identifies groups of similarly functioning parts for consolidation and low-cost sourcing
  
• Deploys pre-built should-cost modules across thousands of parts, associated categories, and benchmarks
  
• Determines cost and benefit of part resourcing or requalification
  
• Provides recommendation on design standards and identified preferred parts for reuse

Improve efficiency while lowering costs

When enabled by robotic process automation (RPA), DesignSource also provides ongoing engineering and design support. This system can select and recommend components that already exist within your company’s portfolio, improving the efficiency of the product development organization, increasing part reuse, and lowering product costs.

Bottom-line benefits from a product lifecycle management solution

DesignSource in action

Clients have realized cost reductions of between 4 percent and 12 percent from consolidation of spend.