Manufacturing sector urged to invest in IT solutions

MANILA, Philippines - Manufacturing companies will have to invest in information technology (IT) solutions to reduce production costs and shorten the product development process.

Chris Lee, Autodesk Asia Pte Ltd. senior manager for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations manufacturing industry said in an interview that as the manufacturing sector in the Philippines posted strong growth over the past year, firms engaged in manufacturing need to consider investing in IT solutions to aid them in their operations for lower production costs.

“Companies can do IT which covers data management, quality control, final element analysis and digital prototyping,” he said.

He said that while developing new products involves a lot of costs and time as it requires coming up with a design, a physical prototype as well as performing tests on the prototype, investing in IT solutions could allow companies to do everything in the virtual world.

For instance, he said, investing in design software would not only allow companies to design a new product, but also analyze the performance of the product as well.

He noted that IT solutions for digital prototyping enables manufacturing groups to develop a single digital model which could be used in every stage of production.

“This single digital model simulates the complete product and gives engineers the ability to better design, visualize, and simulate their product with less reliance on costly physical prototypes — thereby improving time to market, and increasing competitive advantage,” he said.

At the same time, he said investing in cloud-based solutions could be beneficial for the firms as it would allow access of product designers, engineers as well as manufacturers to data and to get their jobs done at any time and place with the use of any device.

With digital prototyping and cloud-based integrated systems in place, he said manufacturers could effectively tailor products and services according to customer demands much easier than in the past.