How To Manage Product Design Documentation With A Connected Workflow

How To Manage Product Design Documentation With A Connected Workflow

This tool saved my (working) life

When I was working as an engineer, responsible for lean manufacturing and process optimization, I grew continuously frustrated every day! The reason? So many of our engineers
wasted a significant amount of their day searching for data.

During a product design process, engineers spent their workday on non-value-added tasks such as:

  • Collecting documentation
  • Storing documentation
  • Getting the right approvals
  • Going through gate approvals
  • Placing documentation correctly
  • And finally, update the overall project status

All of this was done manually. Not only is that time-consuming but because our engineers were forced to do manual updates of the product documentation, searching for documentation became a nightmare. It was difficult to know:

  • Who was working on a document?
  • If there were a change pending on it?
  • And which parts and products the documentation was related to?


In the end, it was a practice that resulted in a higher risk of error, an increase in effort that was required, and a lack of visibility. I grew frustrated by imagining what engineers could have spent their time on and what value that would have brought to the company!

That is why you need a connected workflow

In Aras Medical Device, we have created a connected workflow that matches the exact needs of engineers. The system can point to the exact data in a project status that is off track. That means when you make changes or revisions to the project, Aras Medical Device automatically keeps track of changes and logs them for future reference.

Every team member can see the latest revision of the document. Aras Medical Device is also able to automatically convert the documentation to other file formats such as PDF.
When a new deliverable is marked as ready and the person responsible has signed off, the next person in line is automatically alerted.

By managing all documentation in one system, you will be able to achieve:

  • Accurate project update status
  • Faster documentation retrieval
  • Improved visibility
  • Decreased risk of errors

For more info on Aras Medical Device, be sure to check it out here!