New Industry Report: What is the State of Product Development in 2022-2023?

Economically, this decade has gotten off to one of the roughest starts in recent history. On top of its tragic toll on human lives and health, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a massive upheaval in the business world, forever changing the way companies think about the supply chain and affecting nearly every aspect of the workforce. 

The war in Ukraine, soaring inflation and wildly fluctuating fuel and utility costs have complicated matters even further, magnifying fears of an imminent recession.

Across the economy, there’s been huge turbulence in the workforce. Spurred by the pandemic, record numbers of workers in the U.S., Canada, Europe, India and China have voluntarily quit their jobs, many seeking a better work-life balance. This so-called “Great Resignation” – also dubbed the “Great Reshuffle” or the “Big Quit” by the media – has led companies to add more signing bonuses, increase salaries and raises, and offer more work flexibility to recruit and retain top talent.

This talent shortage hasn’t skipped over the design and manufacturing world. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) notes that U.S. employment in the manufacturing sector, which plummeted from 12.8 million workers to 11.4 million at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, still hasn’t fully returned to its pre-pandemic strength two years later. The reason, ASME says, “isn’t due to lack of job openings, but rather the lack of skilled workers willing to take the open jobs at factories.”

This “skills gap” predates COVID-19, but regardless of how it’s labeled, companies cannot meet their goals without the right talent to implement them.

In this ongoing climate of uncertainty, what is the overall mindset of the product design and manufacturing world? Are companies still 100 percent focused on survival and crisis management? What is the level of optimism about a return to growth in the near future?

To better understand these ongoing challenges, Onshape commissioned the independent research firm Isurus to conduct a broad-based product development industry survey of more than 800 engineering and manufacturing professionals worldwide.

New Product Development Insights

In The State of Product Development and Hardware Design 2022-2023 report, you’ll gain insights on the following questions:

• Do manufacturers expect their business to shrink, grow, or remain flat over the next year?

• How do design professionals rate the productivity of their own companies’ product development processes?

• What are perceived as the most urgent barriers to company growth?

• What are the biggest challenges for recruiting and retaining top talent?

• Do professionals believe they have influence on the product design process – and do these feelings impact employee morale?

• Does a product team’s choice of design software affect their time-to-market?

• How do product developers waste the most time, and how can that “lost” time be reclaimed?

• When do engineering teams and manufacturing teams experience the most friction during design collaboration?

This survey includes perspectives from users of a broad range of product development software, including more than 14 mainstream CAD brands. Although this report was commissioned by Onshape, only 7 percent of solicited opinions are from Onshape customers. 

Get your free copy of the report today and explore some of the top product development challenges facing companies now and moving forward.