The 2nd Thing That Causes Engineering Projects To Miss

When we are brought in to help with troubled engineering projects, we find this is the 2nd thing that causes engineering projects to miss their deadlines and budgets.

If you missed our post on the first problem that causes engineering projects to go off the rails, check out: Do This One Thing to Ensure Successful Engineering Projects.

That first phase is called the Project Assessment, and skipping that phase will often cause problems down the road.

The 2nd problem, that we are going to talk about here, is skipping the Project Roadmap phase. It’s another thing that can cause your engineering projects to miss.

Many companies start directly with the Detailed Design phase of work (which is actually our 3rd step in our method). By skipping the earlier steps, you greatly increase the risk that the scope of the project has not been thought through, which leads to change orders, deadlines missed and blown budgets.

The Project Roadmap phase is important because it’s where we complete feasibility studies through expert engineering practices to allow for a preliminary design. Completing the feasibility study allows for a more realistic cost analysis for completion of the build, and thus lowers the chance for scope creep, change orders and budget overruns.

This phase ensures that the scope has not changed from what was outlined in the Project Assessment phase, then looks at what is needed to take the project to the Detailed Design Phase. And it allows for a much better Detailed Design.

This includes outlining staffing requirements, aligning with internal teams and external vendors, addressing budget concerns and ensuring that all deadlines are addressed and understood.

For one of our clients in the automotive industry, we were asked to help with a complex system that they developed to improve their manufacturing process, but were struggling to integrate it properly, and have their teams use it well.

By conducting a Project Roadmap with the client, we realized a more efficient method of product delivery.

We developed an innovative solution to provide massively valuable time savings in their manufacturing process

The Roadmap also detailed a more efficient and effective diagnostic system that would minimize downtime and would drastically reduce repair times.

The Project Roadmap phase reduced the project engineering time by months, with a potential savings of about $5 million a year.

Had we skipped this step the project would have cost much more than it should have and would have been extended by months.

Often companies mistakenly think that adding this step will cost them money, when in reality it saves them time and money in the long run.

The Project Roadmap phase is the 2nd phase of our ROI Systems Method, which is designed to ensure you don’t go over budget and miss deadlines for your engineering projects.

If you’d like to learn more about our proprietary method for efficient and cost-effective system design and integration, reach out to us to set up a call.