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"Technology
off-shoring (outsourcing) should gain more popularity in the
near future." says Vice President Bejoy George of QuEST
(Quality Engineering and Software Technologies), in charge
of Marketing and Business Development. Our company is a
supplier to customers around the world. It organizes
specialized teams for customers' product development
projects, and provides high-quality technical services in
design and cost-controlled analysis using CAD and analytical
software, PDM, PLM, as well as other tools. It is our
company's forte to provide technical outsourcing services
tailored to individual customers.
For instance, a company can stay in Japan, and have its
projects designed or analyzed in India where engineering
manpower still costs less for developing products. He says,
"Because of our Global Product Development (GPD), customers
can make use of a low-cost region and the time difference,
along with technically qualified engineers. You can,
therefore, develop a cost-effective product much faster."
Our company aims at shortening the development cycle without
compromising on the quality, and at the same time,
controlling the cost.
The company appoints on-site engineers across the globe
where the customers are present, and these engineers serve
as contact points to the customers. Thus, the customers can
receive the services and rarely any communication problems
occur among them. The customers’ Intellectual Properties are
protected by identifying teams of different customers, and
managing their data with confidentiality.
Mr. George says, "We undertake jobs of lower degrees of
complexity, such as process automation and design /
improvement of existing products. This allows customers to
focus more on jobs of higher complexity, such as development
of new products.” As a result, the company brings in a
substantial cost-reduction effect by improving the existing
products’ design and streamlining them. Additionally, we
support customers by not only improving the existing
products but also by developing new products.
The work that is contracted by customers is classified, and
allotted to our various centers across the globe according
to their specialization, and processed in parallel. Since
our company runs its business in a low-cost region, the
customers can easily concentrate on their core business.
QuEST's support allows the customers to reduce their
indirect expenses, software charges, operational overheads,
and so on.
The cost to the company is 25 to 70 dollars per hour for
various services such as project management, designing,
modelling, Finite Element Analysis (FEA), fluid analysis,
mesh generation and the like. The charges vary depending on
the complexity of design or services.
With regard to quality assurance, they have introduced Six
Sigma (*1) and ISO9001, and will be certified for AS9100
(*2) and ISO27001 (*3) in June 2006 and June-July 2006,
respectively. QuEST's engineers, globally located, inspect
and secure the quality of each project according to
customers' specifications.
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"Overseas technology outsourcing at a lower cost will
be the ultimate trend for the next-generation of IT
global services,” says Vice-President Bejoy George, in
charge of Marketing & Business Development, QuEST and
USA. Customers can use a low-cost region and enjoy the
merit of time zone difference. |
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In the past,
IT outsourcing was touted mainly for trusted software
development, business process outsourcing, and the like.
There is a plethora of data for design and analysis
available. For instance, robust communications
infrastructure is needed to exchange data between the U. S.
and Japan. And, communication costs were considerably high
four to five years ago. Development of compression
technologies have recently smoothened data exchanges and
moreover decreased communication costs. Lower prices of CAD,
analysis software, PDM, PLM and other tools have made
technology services outsourcing possible on a global scale.
Our company deals with various kinds of tools such as CAD,
analysis software, PDM, PLM and the like, which are used by
our customers.
Notes:
*1: A quality measurement and improvement program that
focuses on the control of a process in terms of ± six sigma
(6σ, standard deviations) with reference to a centerline, or
3.4 defects per million items.
*2: AS9100 "Quality Management Systems - Aerospace -
Requirements"
*3: Information Security Standards ISO27001
Not dispatching engineers, but contracting projects
QuEST is strengthened with a backbone of over 850 engineers
in Japan, USA, UK, Germany, Italy, China, India and other
countries. Specially, at present, around 650 engineers
reside in Bangalore, India and another 100 in the U. S.
These numbers are increasing every year. (Refer to the bar
graph.) A new office has been just opened in Yokohama,
Japan.
The company provides various kinds of services in response
to the customers’ demand, after fully understanding the
customers' products, development processes, manufacturing
processes, systems and so on. In other words, we can
customize according to each customer.
Mr. George says, "We keep extending support to our
customers. We have a few customers at present, but we have
been supporting them for a long time.” He also adds, "We are
not introducing our engineers to customers on a temporary
basis; they will provide support for a long period of time."
Increasing number of QuEST engineers
At present, more than 850 QuEST engineers are in Japan, USA,
UK, Germany, Italy, China, India and other countries. This
number is increasing every year.
One team supports the same customers for a long period. The
longer the support continues, more understanding develops
between the customer, process and products. In this way,
higher productivity can be achieved. Furthermore, a larger
team can be organized to match the maximum volume of
customer's business. Mr. George continues, "If we move one
engineer to this customer today, and if he is shifted to
another customer tomorrow, the task will not be
accomplished."
Mr. George adds, "As QuEST recruits multi-faceted young
engineers from varied domains, they can tackle the
requirements of customers in various industries." (Refer to
the pie chart.) They provide technical services for
industries in aerospace, power generation, oil/gas and
automobile, as well as other general manufacturers.
For instance, British Rolls-Royce has requested QuEST to
support its non-core engineering works and its business
support operation through Rolls-Royce Operations India, its
wholly-owned subsidiary based in Bangalore, India. "These
works are different and range from those of less than 100
man-hours to large-scale data conversion programs of more
than 10,000 man-hours." says General Manager Mike Bradley,
Rolls-Royce Operations India. He explains that the business
works are selected from the entire life-cycle of gas
turbines and services pertaining to product and system
design, design for cost cutting, modelling and detailed
design, engineering analysis, performance testing of gas
turbines, testing technologies, design of ground support
equipment, creation of technical documents and so on.
Years of experience for QuEST engineers
0-5 years; 5-10 years; 10-15 years; Over 15 years
Mr. Bradley says, "In addition to reduction in
administrative costs, our engineers have advantages in
dedicating themselves to the primary technologies and
accelerating their innovation in engineering. There are also
advantages in developing human resources to deal with the
maximum workload from the whole Rolls-Royce Group”. He adds
that graduates coming out of Indian Engineering universities
have high capabilities. Mr. Bradley continues, "We currently
have our professional team consisting of 100 engineers
employed locally. This head count will double in 2006." The
workload trusted to these engineers and their high rate of
efficiency should be of great significance to Rolls Royce.
Mr. Mike Bradley adds, "We have close relationship in
business with QuEST and a common view of values between both
companies. Rolls-Royce is convinced of having this
relationship grow and bringing about mutual benefits to both
sides." He insists that the scale and the scope of this
contract depends mainly on QuEST's ability to complete
solutions in terms of cost and quality with respect to
workloads. The future workload will depend on various
factors within Rolls Royce.
Mr. Bradley says, "The most important requirements for
protecting our Intellectual Property Right (IPR) and the
security regulations for ourselves and our customers, legal
duties such as international export control terms and
conditions, as well as the strategic policies decided at the
Rolls-Royce's Board of Directors must be adhered to."
Flexibility in labour market
In Japan, QuEST has a tie-up with Newton Works, Technical
Consulting created in 2001, and supports customers in
automobile and electronic industries through Newton Works.
For Toshiba’s in-house companies, QuEST provides direct
services for power, oil and gas industries and presently
supports several important projects, which directly cut down
the design cycle time and the operating cost for Industrial
and Power Systems and Services Company.
Some of these projects take 6 months to 2 years. QuEST’s
contract works have cut down roughly 60 percent of the
design cycle time and over 40 percent of the expenses.
President Aravind Melligeri of QuEST says, "We are
supporting Toshiba in specific functions such as design
process automation to shorten time-to-market, Finite Element
Analysis (FEA), fluid analysis (CFD), detailed design,
services to support manufacturer's management and so on.
It is said that more than 60 engineers in QuEST support
Japanese manufacturers at present. The company must
understand Japanese customers, products and processes more
deeply to work on more projects in Japan. Mr. George says,
"We are increasing our engineers in Japan for this purpose."
In labour-expensive countries like Japan, US, UK and the
like, as a result of economic value chain, engineers in
those countries tend to shorten the life-cycle of product
development. But engineers in charge of product development
must also work on non-core jobs at the same time. However,
more and more engineers working in countries with
comparatively lower labour costs will carry on these jobs in
many cases.
QuEST contracts those jobs concerning conceptual design,
project management, customer management and process
improvement from these high-cost countries, and contracts
detailed design, designing automation, technical analysis,
supplier management, mould design/assembly and manufacturing
process design from low-cost regions such as India and
China. There are highly qualified technical engineers who
have high-end to low-end design and analysis skills in
India. QuEST can provide talented personnel suitable for a
project without hampering the delivery time or quality, and
have its customers benefited from a lower cost.
Furthermore, QuEST can provide support in parts procurement
as well. Mr. George says, "Some of our customers come to us
for parts procurement in addition to the product design. The
details of the parts, which meet our customers’ standards,
are sent to us. We then search for suppliers who can
manufacture these parts and introduce them to our
customers."
China mainly supports procurement and produces low-price
parts. India also procures low-price parts.
Japan will face with a shortage of engineers after
baby-boomer engineers are forced to retire by an age-limit
system. Products are getting more and more complicated, and
yet delivery times are getting shortened at the same time.
More engineers would be needed for designing, analyzing and
testing products. Mr. George says, "No customer has yet
organized any team of hundreds of engineers in Japan. We
want to take time to build such relations with Japanese
manufacturers from now on."
(Written by Yasunori Oimura)
Contact for QuEST in Japan:
Tel: 045-670-7044
info_japan@quest-global.com
Website Information Sources
- Contact for QuEST:
http://www.quest-global.com/
- Contact for Rolls-Royce:
http://www.rolls-royce.com/
- Contact for Industrial and Power Systems & Services, a
Toshiba in-house company:
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/company/ips_j.htm
For direct access to this news article in Japanese, click
the link below
http://www.designnewsjapan.com/magazine/2006/05news_02.html
Click here for pdf version of this article in Japanese
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