In my previous blog post for Synergis, I ended it by saying, “Don’t measure the ROI of having a place to put your CAD stuff; measure the ROI of creating digital business processes for product development.” So let’s take a look at an engineering company that has taken the time to figure it out.

Calculating Return on Investment is fairly simple when one buys a product wholesale and sells it retail. When the purchase is a software product that guides crucial operations, the calculations get more intricate. For example, if you don’t know how long it takes your team to work with information, you can’t measure the benefit of automation. In a report entitled “Validating the Possible” CIMdata calculates the potential for savings in specific processes, including:

• Time to find information—75% to 90% time reduction;
• Engineering changes process—10% to 70% time reduction;
• Design review process—50% to 80% time reduction;