Engineering design processes often involve multiple stakeholders—design engineers, simulation engineers, manufacturing teams, and project managers—each contributing to different stages of development. On top of that, they can be geographically dispersed or embedded within distinct cross-functional groups, operating in silos. More often than not, one team’s input comes from the output of others, requiring a continuous flow of information, from the early stages of development cycles.

Let’s take an example. Imagine if a designer made an important change to a CAD file that was saved to the database, but the simulation engineer missed out on the communication – resulting with running a resource-intensive simulation using outdated information. When the discrepancy is eventually identified, they would have to re-run the entire process, causing them wasted time, unnecessary costs and the potential for a missed launch date. This scenario probably happens more than you think, as many teams rely on error-prone manual handoffs and email exchanges.

These costs can be a huge burden in today’s hyper-competitive, extremely fast-paced development environment. Organizations can’t afford to let this kind of process roadblock to impede your speed to market, product quality, and innovation — especially when there’s a straightforward, cost-effective, purpose-built solution.

Creating a single source of truth in a cloud-based collaborative engineering platform

To address these inefficiencies, organizations need a shared digital ecosystem where all stakeholders can access a unified source of truth. A centralized platform enables seamless data exchange, automatic updates, and complete traceability, eliminating the guesswork associated with disparate data sources.

Launched in early 2024, id8 is a cloud-native collaborative engineering platform by Noesis Solutions, that centralizes and streamlines the engineering process, from automating simulation workflows and enabling data-driven decisions. More importantly, it democratizes the simulation process—allowing both experts and non-experts to collaborate easily by sharing data files, verified workflows, and knowledge in a single cloud platform.

Being a vendor-neutral platform, id8 combines engineering solutions from diverse vendors in an integrated ecosystem, providing a single platform for end-to-end development and analysis of product designs, and supporting seamless cross-functional workflows and process handoffs. It creates a central, accessible repository for all simulation-related data, along with their context. This capability provides engineers with real-time access to the most up-to-date information, reducing errors, minimizing rework, and accelerating the innovation cycle.

By breaking down these barriers, teams can move away from redundant tasks and focus on what truly matters—pushing the boundaries of engineering design.

Democratizing Simulation for Faster Design Cycles

Another critical step toward eliminating silos is the democratization of simulations. Traditionally, running and interpreting simulations has been limited to domain experts. However, with advanced automation tools available in id8, non-experts can now access, interpret, and leverage simulation data. id8 enables routine design analysis decisions to be solvable by everyone in the product development team, providing them with reliable tools that capture institutional knowledge, standards, and best practices.

SimApps, the latest feature of id8, automate recurring analysis tasks and standardized simulation workflows, fitting seamlessly into existing or reimagined processes. They capture design rules, processes, and best practice engineering workflows, allowing users to transition directly from inputs to analysis with a single click, regardless of their experience level or functional expertise.

When engineers across different domains—regardless of their simulation expertise—can make informed design decisions based on real-time data, the entire development cycle accelerates. This approach not only enhances collaboration but also ensures that every decision is grounded in accurate, up-to-date insights, fostering an environment where innovation thrives.

Conclusion

Engineering silos is a costly obstacle in today's fast-moving, innovation-driven world. By creating a shared ecosystem, ensuring real-time data accessibility, and democratizing simulations, organizations can break down silos and empower their teams to work more efficiently. The future of engineering design is interconnected, collaborative, and data driven. The question is: Is your organization ready to embrace it?

The best way to decide if id8 is the right for your team is to request free non-obligatory consultation here. Want to see id8 in action? To watch a demonstration of the tool, click here. For more information, review the latest announcement, webinars, case studies and stay up to date on the latest products and case studies at Noesis Solutions.