How Onshape’s 'Six Zeros’ Enable Agile Product Development

The numeral zero often correlates with the negative: Zero food in the fridge, zero vacation days, zero dollars in the bank account, zero gas in the tank.

However, zero doesn’t deserve a bad rap. It deserves our respect for infinite reasons.

Zero gave us algebra and calculus. Zeros are part of the reason you are reading this blog on a computer screen. In the effort to lower carbon emissions, zero is the goal. Sustainably-minded organizations and households aim for zero waste. Dial zero to speak to a person, skipping the automated messages. In my hometown, take Exit 0 to visit the local waterpark.

So, what else can zero do for you? For product developers, zero offers plenty.

Onshape’s Six Worry-Free Zeros

As an unlikely success metric, the number zero is an ideal benchmark for product developers seeking worry-free efficiency from the tools used in design and manufacturing. 

By eliminating the CAD software woes of yore, Onshape is able to take advantage of cloud computing to free up thinking space for more important things – like your designs. Here’s how Onshape’s six worry-free zeros make your work easier and more productive: 

1. Zero Backup or Disaster Recovery Time

“CTRL+S” is a thing of the past. Because Onshape’s modern CAD system doesn’t use files or keep data locally, all design information is stored in a secure cloud workspace. So there’s zero time spent backing up a day’s worth of work and zero time recovering corrupted or deleted data.

2. Zero Scheduled Downtime

Cloud-native CAD and PDM software is available 24/7. How? All software updates are made in the background automatically. That way teams can continue work without having to schedule downtime for IT to make necessary updates to software or individual computers. Downloads, installs, upgrades, service packs, license codes, and related troubleshooting are all a thing of the past! 

3. Zero CAD Crashes

Cloud-native platforms are built to withstand system failures to the point that a “crash” lasts as long as it takes to refresh the browser. No data was lost or corrupted because all work in Onshape was saved and backed up on redundant servers in the cloud, so users can quickly pick up where they left off. 

4. Zero Time Upgrading Design Data

When Onshape issues a new release every three weeks, it won’t cause a version mismatch or incompatibility with previous or future updates. Design data will stay as is: A single source of truth for everyone on the team.

5. Zero Installs

Getting started in Onshape is as easy as clicking the “Sign Up” button and adding a new team member is just as simple. IT doesn’t have to get involved by setting up a new profile or connecting accounts – it’s all done in the browser on any device.

6. Zero Lost Work

There’s no overwriting data or permanently deleting files in a fully cloud-native CAD and PDM platform. Every version of a design is retrievable, so users can “undo and redo” limitlessly.

Six Companies Benefiting from the Six Zeros

Agile product development teams are choosing Onshape as their design tool and they’re seeing strong results. Here are six examples of significant efficiency gains: 

Avidbots builds fully autonomous floor-scrubbing robots for airports, shopping malls, hospitals, and warehouses. Avidbots credits Onshape’s built-in PDM for helping them reclaim 50 percent of their product design time, which used to be wasted syncing CAD changes across the organization. 

Dexcom is a world leader in real-time glucose monitoring for diabetes management. Their engineering team measured a 15 percent increase in productivity using Onshape across their 300+ CAD users. 

Ocado Technology, a world-leading developer of robotics and automation for the online grocery industry, leverages Onshape’s six worry-free zeros to create better agile product development workflows. “We've brought a lot of software development methodology to how our departments run, and some of those techniques are made significantly easier by Onshape,” said Matt Whelan, Ocado’s engineering director of automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS).

Open Bionics is a U.K.-based startup making advanced bionic arms that are five times more affordable than traditional prosthetics. Co-founder Samantha Payne credits Onshape for the greater collaboration between engineering teams and R&D departments, which in turn speeds up workflows.

VIKASO, an industrial automation startup specializing in collaborative robots (“cobots”), reports that Onshape’s collaboration tools have helped speed up communication by 60 percent to 70 percent between design and external teams.

Withings, which manufactures fitness hybrid smartwatches, reportedly has saved more than $50,000 a year on product development costs because Onshape provides CAD and PDM for essentially the same market cost as CAD alone. 

The results from these companies validate the power of agile product development for hardware and the importance of leveraging the right CAD and PDM tools that support their mission.

Gain More Zeros for True Agile Product Development

Just one of these six zeros can deliver huge results to teams seeking better efficiency and smoother work processes. 

With all six, the true power of agile product development can be delivered to teams across industries – they’re already changing the way over 3 million Onshape users work for the better.

No product development platform can guarantee these six worry-free zeros other than Onshape, the only cloud-native CAD and PDM platform in the industry.