Engineering projects involve varied domains such as civil, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and more. Each has its specific drawings, documents, and designs. Across several engineering disciplines—utilities, metals and mining, manufacturing, oil and gas, and transportation companies—the volume and complexity of a project can make locating critical documents challenging.

G2 has added a new Engineering Document Management category to help software buyers compare and choose the best tools for managing their organization’s engineering information while streamlining collaboration with all stakeholders and providing a central, consistent repository for all project and asset-related documents.

Creating G2’s category for managing engineering information

Before the shift to engineering document management solutions, there were other tools available to help organize general business and product-related data. On G2, these products were listed in the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Systems and Product Data Management (PDM) categories.

ECM solution helps manage documents in digital format for the whole organization. The tool allows companies to organize, manage, and deliver unstructured content such as documents, emails, images, and more.
PDM software is primarily used by manufacturing firms to manage product data such as computer-aided design (CAD) models and manufacturing instructions from design to production.
While these tools help manage data, they do not particularly cater to managing engineering documents which are large in size and highly complex due to the frequent updates made to asset-related information. The new engineering document management category will  provide visibility to products that help with managing engineering data and technical documentation relating to plant facilities, equipment, and more in asset-intrinsic organizations.

Rise of SaaS engineering document management solutions

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed organizations to devise ways to continue operations in a remote environment. Companies are hence opting for SaaS or cloud-based engineering document management solutions to ensure business continuity and timely completion of capital projects.

• Stakeholders can access files from any location and using their mobile devices. Unlike an on-premises system, a cloud-based tool doesn’t require organizations to maintain their own servers. Engineering workflows can be easily managed and scaled in terms of servers, storage, and the number and speed of processors used. 
• Companies can also save the expenses incurred for maintaining in-house servers, new devices, disk space, and more.
• A cloud solution ensures high levels of security by ensuring compliance with the guidelines predefined by the organization and the regulatory frameworks that apply for its protection.

Engineering document management vs. enterprise content management: Which is more ideal?

Enterprise content management (ECM) software plays a key role in managing the unstructured content of the enterprise as a whole. It has a much broader scope and aids in capturing, storing, analyzing, and automating business content. 

Managing engineering data is highly complex as compared to general business information. Each discipline generates its own technical designs, which need to be assessed by stakeholders from other disciplines to minimize bottlenecks in project execution.

A regular content management software doesn’t offer attributes focused on managing interdependencies in workflow across different engineering disciplines. Most of these solutions do not have built-in support for managing integrations with CAD and building information management (BIM) tools. 

Engineering document management software is custom built to specifically focus on the management of engineering data that includes CAD files containing technical specifications and designs, BIM models, and circuit layouts. This kind of data is usually more structured, highly interrelated, and needs proper management for a smooth workflow. It allows organizations to ensure compliance, reduce engineering project costs, maximize security, and extend asset life.

ECM tools are best suited for sharing, storing, and managing generic, usually non-technical documents such as legal documents, marketing materials, and financial statements.

Despite being newly introduced, the Engineering Document Management category has already been able to gain the requisite number of reviews from buyers to auto-generate a G2 Grid^Ⓡ. Buyers can refer to this G2 Grid® to identify the key vendors in this space.

In a nutshell

While there are a host of document management tools available in the market today, it is imperative for organizations to realize that engineering teams need more than just a regular content management solution. An efficient solution can save resources, promote efficiency, and increase safety by providing a centralized, up-to-date single source of truth.

Edited by Sinchana Mistry