CADENAS‘ Enterprise 3Dfindit alleviates the shortage of skilled workers in plant and mechanical engineering

The German plant and mechanical engineering sector is lacking trained specialists by the dozen and the problem is getting worse. With Enterprise 3Dfindit CADENAS offers a solution to better utilize human resources.

In its report dated November 23rd, 2022, the Institute of German Business concluded that last fall there was a shortage of around 502.200 skilled workers in the fields of mathematics, information technology, natural sciences and technoloy across Germany. The mechanical and plant engineering sector suffers particularly from this: “In addition to openings for engineers, nearly 90 percent of companies currently have openings for skilled workers and nearly 60 percent for technicians and/or master craftsmen“, revealed a survey among the members of the industry association VDMA in October and November 2022.

Unfilled positions are a well-known problem in Germany with far-reaching consequences. The cost of recruiting new employees and labour costs increase. Furthermore long-term staff shortages slow down innovations and company growth. Moreover the shortage of skilled workers causes additional work, which increases employee dissatisfaction, which in turn can lead to further churn. A thin personnel cover is a vicious circle, that reduces competitiveness and can sometimes threaten a company`s existence.

Currently it is especially difficult to find new skilled workers. That is why companies must deploy their employees effectively and retain them in the long term.

The results show how much potential lief fallow:

• 83 percent have already constructed CAD models of purchased parts themselves, although the data would have been available online.
• 48 percent search for at least one hour per day for standard or supplier parts.
• 40 percent manually design standard and supplier parts for at least one hour every day.

Additionally the survey’s participants named data quality as a problem area. 72 percent complained about duplicates and outdated data records in their parts libraries. In addition, almost half of all companies use more than one CAD system and therefore require different file formats. To work successfully and productively, skilled workers like designers and engineers need a part library, where they can find current and valuable CAD data of components quickly and easily. The solution: Enterprise 3Dfindit.

Enterprise 3Dfindit is the universal solution from CADENAS for companies with a CAD, PLM or ERP environment. The cloud-based application is hosted at the customer’s site. As a central platform for standard, supplier and proprietary parts, it connects the various systems with each other. So the software improves working on constructions in many ways:

• Enterprise 3Dfindit offers additional numerous search functions, such as the partial search or geometric feature search.
• Enterprise 3Dfindit supports companies in organizing standard, supplier and proprietary parts within their own systems. Because of this solution, employees can set up, maintain and share product data efficiently and in a time-saving manner and share it with their colleagues so that they can reuse parts instead of having to create a piece twice.
• If similiar components already exist in the system, the program immediately displays them. By matching, Enterprise 3Dfindit.com prevents duplicates and updates the data of the already existing article. Meanwhile, the user can tend to creative work and the data quality oft he parts library automatically remains at a high level.
• Enterprise 3Dfindit marks preferred standard and supplier parts, which components are end-of-life parts and which parts are still new in the system and entail a master data re-creation.
• On Enterprise 3Dfindit all CAD, CAE and BIM data are verified by manufacturers and available in more than 100 neutral and native file formats, so they can be easily reused in all common management and design programs.

Thus, Enterprise 3Dfindit leads to significant time savings in the search for supplier, standard and proprietary parts. Because of that engineers and planners use their working hours more efficiently and can focus on their constructions innovative power. Thanks to Enterprise 3Dfindit, the unnerving and time-consuming search for parts, costly and superfluos in-house designs, as well as the cumbersome management and maintenance of data are a thing of the past.

Enterprise 3Dfindit frees up existing capacities and alleviates skill shortage in industrial companies, for example in plant engineering and construction. Thanks to the intelligent software solution, skilled employees can devote themselves to the work steps for which they are trained instead of wasting valuable time. Companies, using Enterprise 3Dfindit can retain their employees permanently, because the program promotes productive working days and satisfied professionals.

More information on Enterprise 3Dfindit