"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.
 

"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.

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


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