Digital Thread Assessment

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Free Digital Thread Maturity Assessment

Razorleaf can help you unlock data accessibility and improve decision making capabilities across the product lifecycle from engineering design to supply chain to manufacturing process. Increase your organization’s visibility and control over quality, costs, timelines, and profitability by achieving a Connected Digital Thread.

A Digital Thread enables your organization to:

Reduce engineering re-work and increase product quality
Expedite new product development and time-to market
Increase overall employee productivity
Improve processes and production efficiencies

Receive a free 30-minute Results Analysis with a Razorleaf PLM Consultant when you complete this Assessment.

Fill out the information below to take the next steps in the Digital Thread Journey!

(The 15 questions will take approximately 15 minutes.)

Step 1 of 4

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First Name*
Last Name*
Company Name*
Email*
Phone*

Please select one answer for each question below. In most cases, your situation will not match an answer exactly, so pick the answer that you feel most closely matches with your organization.
1. How do you capture and manage requirements for your product or service today?*
- a. We don't capture them explicitly.
- b. We have them written in notebooks, on whiteboards, in meeting notes, etc.
- c. We use Excel, Word, and other digital tools to collect/document requirements.
- d. We have a system or application (like DOORS) to collect and track requirements.
- e. We manage the configuration of our requirements within our systems engineering tools.
2. How do you analyze your conceptual designs?*
- a. In notebooks, on whiteboards, etc.
- b. Using digital journals like OneNote, Evernote, or in electronic diaries.
- c. We use lots of spreadsheets to perform and document calculations.
- d. We use specialized (but disconnected) tools like Simulink, MATLAB, Mathematica, homegrown solvers, etc.
- e. We use a suite of integrated systems engineering tools.
3. Do you feed your design analysis tools with data from your requirements BEFORE doing detailed design?*
- a. Almost never.
- b. We sometimes run numbers through our “standard” calculations for a specific case.
- c. We regularly perform some design performance checks before we start working in CAD.
- d. We have a standard set of calculations we use as inputs to the detailed design process.
- e. We analyze the trade space using parameterized requirements feeding into our conceptual simulation toolchain.
4. How much time could you save during conceptual design as a percentage of the overall design cycle of your product if you did things perfectly?*
- a. <5%
- b. 5%-10%
- c. 10%-20%
- d. 20%-30%
- e. >30%
5. How are three dimensional models used in your detailed mechanical designs?*
- a. We don’t use 3D models, we are 2D-based.
- b. We use 3D models to create 2D drawings, but the 3D isn’t used for much after that.
- c. We fully annotate our 3D models and they are used downstream internally, but we still create 2D drawings for our customers and suppliers.
- d. We use fully annotated 3D models exclusively, but our partners and downstream users often convert or recreate our data as drawings.
- e. We use fully annotated 3D models, and our downstream users (internal and external) configuration manage their models in conjunction with our models.

6. What kind of projects do you have for becoming more model-based in your designs?*
- a. We don’t have any active or planned projects for becoming more model-based in engineering/design.
- b. We’ve been thinking about a project to explore model-based design (MBD) within design/engineering, but it hasn’t been formalized yet.
- c. Engineering has an objective to move to MBD within the next 3 years and is working on projects to achieve this objective.
- d. Engineering is leading a multi-department initiative (with sub-projects) to become model-based, including interactions with manufacturing and suppliers.
- e. All of our executives are aware of our plans/activities to go model-based in Engineering and are considering what it means to our customers, partners, and enterprise.
7. What percentage of the data needed by Manufacturing / Supply Chain has to be recreated? For example, they might need to remodel CAD, create CNC programs from drawings, make assembly work instructions, create separate stereolithography (STL) files for 3D printing, etc. Consider assembly operations, additive manufacturing, and subtractive manufacturing, for both suppliers and internal production.*
- a. <5%; they can use Engineering’s technical data without translation or re-creation.
- b. 5%-15%; they infrequently have to re-create content but do have to perform some translations.
- c. 15%-40%; translation and re-creation of data are prevalent, but reuse is the goal and happens in most cases.
- d. 40%-80%; it varies from process to process, but translation and re-creation of data are the norm and our toolchains and data flows are not optimized.
- e. >80%; our toolchains are mostly broken, and information gets “thrown over the wall”.
8. Where would your organization see the impact of more efficient/effective hand-offs of product data between Engineering and Manufacturing or Supply Chain?*
- a. There isn’t much to improve upon for us, but we could probably speed up our delivery and order times a bit.
- b. The time savings would be noticeable by our customers in how quickly we could deliver and would probably save us labor, too.
- c. Our suppliers would probably charge us less for parts in a way that would make Supply Chain happy.
- d. We could save enough in order/delivery time, in labor efficiency, and in hard costs for expediting that managers would pay attention.
- e. This would be a game-changer for us, and it would impact all departments in a way that would make the CEO notice.
9. Which of the following best describes your organization’s depiction of your product?*
- a. We have drawings and/or specifications for almost all the components as well as BOMs to help us put things together, but not much else.
- b. We have models of various parts of our product in addition to specifications/drawings for most components, but we do not have the full product modeled.
- c. We have most of our product modeled (including the top-level assembly), but not all aspects are modeled. For example, we don’t model tubing, fasteners, or that sort of thing. Or we have electronics, but we don’t model wiring or circuit board details.
- d. We have our full product modeled with appropriate levels of detail for various purposes. Full detail for renderings, partial detail for analysis, etc.
- e. Our product is fully modeled, and we have behavioral models as well, including software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop models.
10. How are your Manufacturing processes defined?*
- a. We use textual documents or presentations with limited graphics to describe process steps, and some necessary detail exists only as “tribal knowledge”.
- b. We have a digital system for managing work instructions, but it is mostly text based with very limited visual aids; we have good coverage of process detail though.
- c. We maintain a detailed Manufacturing BOM in our ERP/MRP/MES system which accurately depicts the process (aligns with how you actually produce your product) and we have textual and graphical (including some 3D) instructions aligned to that MBOM.
- d. Our Manufacturing BOMs include the supporting instructions and graphics needed for a non-experienced factory worker to produce our product; we have Bills of Resource and Bills of Process tied to our MBOMs.
- e. We have digital Bills of Resource and Bills of Process, which are linked back to Engineering product models via PLM and linked forward to models of our digital plant.

11. Which situation best describes how you exchange technical data with organizations outside your own?*
- a. We do not receive data from external parties, nor do we share it with customers nor suppliers.
- b. We use data from external parts catalogs and from some design partners, but it is not essential to what we do. We occasionally send our data out to other parties.
- c. We regularly exchange data with customers and suppliers, but in ad hoc ways. We don’t control the format or version of data, and it changes based on the situation/project.
- d. Data exchange is a key part of how we do business, and we have some governance around it (versions, formats, frequency, standards, etc.) but it is manual and challenging.
- e. We would not be in business if we weren’t constantly exchanging data with our customers and/or suppliers, so we have optimized and automated the process for efficiency and accuracy.
12. What does your organization use to manage technical (product) data?*
- a. We use file folders, network/cloud storage, and other non-engineering-specific tools (SharePoint, intranet, etc.) to store and organize our data.
- b. We have one or more PDM tools (Vault, PDM Pro, PDM Link, SmarTeam, Insight, etc.) for storing engineering data, but nothing that makes that data available to others in the organization.
- c. We manage engineering files using digital folders and a manual process, but released data is managed and shared in our ERP and/or MES system for controlled use by Manufacturing and Supply Chain.
- d. We have a PLM system that we use to manage most of our technical data, and it is used by most of our organization.
- e. We have tightly integrated PLM and ERP/MRP/MES systems that get the right data to the right people in the formats that they need.
13. Which description best describes your situation for processing changes to your products?*
- a. We have an informal change process enabled via email and it is very dynamic (includes different people, includes varying levels of documentation, etc.).
- b. We have a structured change process via a digital system (Access-based, SharePoint, PDM, PLM, etc.), but you often need to research the technical data being changed.
- c. We have one or more systems for managing changes, but those are not accessible by everyone (e.g. Engineering uses PDM, but they route a PDF to Manufacturing when they finish).
- d. We use PLM or a similar system to route changes to everyone involved in the process, and the system gives participants easy access to the main content that they need to review. Because not all our data is digital nor is it all connected to PLM, the process is still cumbersome and time-consuming.
- e. We have an integrated change management system that allows all participants to access the necessary digital data, and to make decisions and provide input quickly; this is a well-oiled machine for us.
14. What is your IT/IS department’s view of your technical (product) data?*
- a. It is just like any other corporate asset and should be protected, but doesn’t need any special/specific attention.
- b. Engineering should manage the data and involve IT/IS as necessary, but IT/IS doesn’t have the specialized expertise with this kind of data.
- c. ERP is the backbone of our company’s technology. If technical product data touches, or needs to be integrated with ERP - IT/IS is ready to engage; otherwise, it is just another file to manage like documents and spreadsheets.
- d. We maintain expertise in engineering, modelling, and manufacturing toolsets and want to support any departmental and corporate needs related to product data.
- e. Intellectual property, particularly technical product data, is one of this company’s most valuable assets, and represents a current and future revenue stream; thus it needs to be curated, protected, and leveraged carefully with IT/IS’s stewardship.
15. We view our biggest digitalization challenge as:*
- a. We don’t have enough time to create the digital data that we need.
- b. Translating and re-creating data is killing us.
- c. We don’t have digitalization challenges, but our customers and suppliers do.
- d. We have lots of good data, but it is difficult to find and use when we need it.
- e. Our non-digital processes work and we aren’t sure our digital processes would keep us compliant with the regulations we must meet.
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