Design to Delivery: The Connected Consumer Product Workflow

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Executive Summary

Consumer product manufacturers face evolving buyer expectations, disruptive entrants, and rising sustainability demands. Advantage goes to organizations that compress time‑to‑market, protect margins, and deliver products customers prefer. A connected digital thread—from idea through production—enables faster, lower‑risk decisions and repeatable outcomes.

Trends & Impact

• Shifting demand signals: Greater emphasis on sustainability, value, and personalization.

• Market disruption: new entrants, new business models, and accelerated product cycles.

• Business imperatives: Time‑to‑market, profitability, and product desirability.

Who It’s For

Heads of Product, Engineering, Manufacturing, and Operations; Program Managers; CTO/COO.

Why Change Now

• Collaborate earlier across Design, Engineering, Manufacturing, and Marketing.

• Decide with data using simulation, environmental analysis, and controlled change.

• Deliver factory‑ready designs with Design for Manufacture and robust production management.

Business Outcomes

• Increased innovation: Create demand, not just follow it.

• Agile development: Flexible workflows adapt quickly and shorten lead times.

• End‑to‑end collaboration: Cross‑team transparency improves margin and predictability.

KPIs to Track

Time‑to‑market · Engineering change (ECO) cycle time · First‑pass yield · On‑time launch rate · Cost variance

Connected Process (End‑to‑End)

1. Ideation

   • —Enhance idea capturing by enabling seamless collaboration and real-time updates, helping accelerate decision-making and product development.

   • —Integrate with other tools and processes, creating a connected cohesive workflow, whilst boosting efficiency and innovation in the design process.

     
     

     

     Expand Product Offerings

2. Product Conceptual Modelling

   • —Enhance the design studio's ability to rapidly iterate and develop design concepts and models to address the product requirement.

   • —Communicate designs using marketing ready imagery, ensuring all stakeholders irrespective of background, understand the design intent.

     
     

     

     Improve Product Desirability

3. Environmental Analysis — Reduce Embodied Carbon

   • —Perform early analysis of designs and make conscious design choices of materials based on converged industry data.

   • —Explore outcomes earlier in the design process, optimized for material & different manufacturing techniques.

     
     

4. Electrical Design

   • —Eliminate multiple disconnected tools and data translation issues.

   • —Enhance collaboration across disciplines with real-time teamwork, reducing errors, and ensuring a seamless integration of electronic and mechanical components.

     
     

     

     Improve Collaboration

5. Mechanical Design

   • —Improve the design creation process by utilizing integrated CAD, CAM, and CAE tools, enhancing collaboration and efficiency.

   • Enable designers to rapidly prototype, test, and iterate designs, ensuring high-quality, innovative products while reducing time-to-market and development costs.

     
     

     

     Increase Product Development Agility

6. Product Simulation

   • Enables designers to test and optimize designs virtually, reducing costs and time associated with physical prototyping.

   • Provides insights into how the product will behave when in use or during the manufacturing process, helping improve product performance, quality and reliability.

     
     

     

     Improve Quality and Reliability

7. Design for Manufacture

   • Utilize design data to drive the manufacturing process, from the definition of the toolpaths, to output of associated NC code and setup sheets.

   • Simulate & verify machining, reducing downtime and resulting in safe, optimized toolpaths, providing confidence for unattended production.

     
     

     

     Improve Time to Market

8. Change Management

   • Reduce the risk of errors & re-work by consuming engineering data downstream within other business processes such as procurement.

   • Share information and ideas in real-time, increasing efficiency throughout the project, improving how decisions influence the outcomes of all relevant stakeholders.

     
     

     

     Increase Product Development Agility

9. Production Management

   • Deliver data digitally to the shop floor, connecting design to downstream production & assembly.

   • Monitor & manage manufacturing processes in real time, enabling faster data-driven decisions whilst helping improve productivity, accuracy, repeatability, safety & quality.

     
     

     

     Increase Manufacturing Throughput

10. New Product Introduction

    • Connect progress tracking, task allocation, and associated deliverables in one environment, helping reduce delays.

    • Utilize secure workflows to ensure consistent data entry, helping minimize errors whilst providing a mechanism to analyze and compare captured data.

      
      

      

      Increase Market Share