Downturns and the Design Engineer

Question

A question for design engineers - During an industry downturn, are you most likely to redesign existing product(s) or design a new product?

How does your job change during a slowdown? All comments welcome.

Jeff · Answer

Leading companies maintain a portfolio of R&D projects that range from high risk high reward technology development efforts to minor product modifications and bug fixes. In addition to the wide range of design objectives, a typical R& D development portfolio will consist of significant variances in time to market (and revenue). The tough job for management is to manage the R&D development portfolio given the internal uncertainties of project execution, and the market risk associated with the business case governing the expected return of the portfolio of projects. In economic downturns the business case success metrics will undoubtedly vary and in most cases, when the markets served experience a decline in spend, the projected NPV for programs will diminish and programs will fall short of IRR hurdle rates. The resulting shift in the R&D portfolio will gravitate towards lower uncertainty which could be the result of redesigns or new projects with quick time to revenue.

curtis · Answer

Downturn of industry means challenge for the boss and design engineer, boss will consider the company's future and how to maintain the company running well.Design engineer will worry about laying off , worry about wheter there exsiting design prouducts will continue or die. these are very real problem they should confront.

But downturn of industry also means chance for everyone.A forward-looking boss will use this time to improve his inside achievement，to reconfigure the company advantage，to do a long term and wide scope plan，to correct the existing problem and flaw of company。a design engineer do the same way，even he encounter laying off，hope and confidence can not be lost.
back to your questions, redesigning existing product(s) and designing a new product are all Ok, the most important thing are wheter your boss and you have the open minds and confidaence to confront the difficulty ,to grasp these chance which seems a disaster for others.