Most engineers are not interested in maintaining the product once they have developed it

A white paper recently released by Cyber Group, Inc in Dallas, Texas revealed how even the most competent application companies can unwittingly overlook significant portions of their products’ lifecycle, resulting in constant under performance of their products and services. The paper revealed that the most cost-effective way for engineering development companies to optimize their products and services is to engage external experts to complete that portion of the product lifecycle that begins once the product enters the market.

According to John Pillow, Cyber Group vice president, "Most engineers are not interested in maintaining the product once they have developed it. Their primary expertise compels them to move on to developing newer products and services, and relying on someone else to worry about maintaining the software. In such situations, partnering with a technology expert whose core competencies comprise the maintenance end of the lifecycle often is the rational and only viable choice."

Given the negative ramifications that result when engineering resources are misallocated, the Cyber Group paper offers a framework for understanding the requirements for engineering throughout the lifecycle of a product, system or service. In particular, throughout the course of engineering a product from conception to market and into its twilight, the cost of designing and developing the software alone, not counting the hardware, typically consumes only about 30% of the total engineering cost. The remaining and often neglected 70% of the effort and associated cost are attributed to maintenance, enhancement, re-engineering, migration, continued testing and deployment. Many companies that produce products and services wrongly assume that the lifecycle is complete as soon as the product or services enter the market. In fact, in-market existence comprises the majority of the lifecycle of a product or service and must be competently maintained in order to manifest the product’s full capability and return on investment.

“By partnering with experts whose core competencies are the 70% solutions, your costs go down, your profits go up, and you manifest a 100% win-win solution for yourself and your customers,” concludes Pillow.

Cyber Group, Inc. partners with customers to design, develop their embedded electronic control systems and products, and to maintain, reengineer and enhance their customers’ products. Their proven process significantly reduces their customers’ time and cost to market. Cyber Group offers their customers a comprehensive, tightly coupled set of life-cycle system engineering services, i.e. services to engineer their control electronics and to maintain, reengineer, support and enhance their products and systems through all phases of their product life-cycles. Coupling of their resources in India with those in Dallas enables Cyber Group to deliver a "virtual 24-hour day". Cyber Group, Inc., launched in 1998, is a U.S. corporation headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Additional information can be found at www.cygrp.com, 469-916-7730 x 309.