Impact of Complex Products and Supply Chains

The rapid evolution of technology and outsourced manufacturing has created new opportunities, but also new challenges and risks. One doesn’t have to look very far to see how poor product design and development processes can impact companies and their customers. Global companies like Samsung and Apple have had their share of product failures. The launch of Samsung’s foldable phone is just one example where the product launch was delayed by months due to design flaws.¹ Getting their product to market quickly, but before it was ready, proved to be an “embarrassing” moment for Samsung.²

Increasing product complexity, driven by technological advances like the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI), requires multidisciplinary design cooperation across electrical, mechanical, and software. Getting high quality products to market today requires consistent and clear collaboration between a wide range of systems and distributed product teams.