Rethinking consumer goods innovation: The value of process design and planning

Disconnected workflows and inefficiencies are costing consumer goods companies valuable time and opportunities in today’s demanding market. Customers expect personalized, sustainable products delivered faster than ever. Process design and planning provides a powerful approach to overcome these challenges, seamlessly integrating design and manufacturing workflows, fostering collaboration, and enabling earlier planning to ensure consistent, high-quality results.
The power of parallel development
Imagine if your design and manufacturing teams could collaborate seamlessly from the start. With process design and planning, businesses can:
- Centralize data: Use a unified source of truth for materials, designs, packaging, artwork, tests, and production plans, ensuring teams have access to consistent, up-to-date information.
- Maximize design reuse: Adapt proven designs across projects, reducing redundancy and accelerating development timelines.
- Collaborate in real time: Integrate workflows so design and manufacturing teams can validate processes early and address issues before they escalate.
For example, BSH Home Appliances adopted this approach and improved accuracy across global teams by centralizing validated data. By fostering real-time collaboration between design and manufacturing, they accelerated workflows and cut costs through virtual validation.
This approach eliminates bottlenecks, drives efficiency, and shortens the path from concept to production. By enabling parallel development, businesses can deliver high-quality consumer goods faster while reducing costs and improving agility.
For senior executives, this means achieving faster time-to-market and ensuring your business stays competitive. For managers, it’s about streamlining operations and minimizing risks. And for technical teams, it enables smoother workflows and fewer late-stage issues.
Integrated BOM management: Creating alignment and accuracy
At the heart of process design and planning is the ability to align teams with accurate, centralized data. Integrated BOM (Bill of Materials) management ensures that:
- Product data is unified: All stakeholders work from the same data for materials, designs, and production plans, avoiding miscommunication and errors.
- Collaboration improves: Teams access validated, real-time information to streamline decision-making.
- Product launches are faster: Removing data inconsistencies enables smoother workflows and ensures on-time delivery.
For operations leaders, this means enhanced collaboration and fewer delays in production. By maintaining alignment across teams, businesses can focus on innovation rather than troubleshooting inefficiencies. Learn more about Siemens’ solutions for manufacturing process planning here.

Streamlining manufacturing planning for efficiency and success
Efficient manufacturing planning is essential to meet the demands of today’s market. Process design and planning helps businesses:
- Define manufacturing plans earlier, reducing the risk of last-minute changes.
- Optimize resources for higher productivity and better-quality outcomes.
- Validate processes early, ensuring smooth operations and reducing production risks.
Not only does this approach optimize resources and reduce waste, but it also aligns with growing sustainability priorities in consumer goods. By minimizing material use and ensuring more efficient production processes, companies can deliver on both operational and environmental goals.
Real-world results: BSH Home Appliances
BSH Home Appliances demonstrates how process design and planning can drive meaningful change. By adopting this approach, they achieved:
- Improved accuracy: Centralized, validated data ensured alignment across global teams.
- Enhanced collaboration: Design and manufacturing teams communicated seamlessly, accelerating workflows.
- Significant cost savings: Virtual validation replaced physical prototypes, cutting costs and speeding up timelines.
In fact, BSH reduced their engineering processing time by 33%, bringing high-quality products to market faster. Read the full case study here.
Why process design and planning is essential today
The consumer goods industry is transforming. Customers demand personalized, sustainable products delivered at record speed. Process design and planning provides the agility and efficiency needed to thrive by:
- Accelerating product launches: Streamlining workflows to deliver products faster.
- Enhancing collaboration: Breaking down silos with centralized data and integrated processes.
- Improving decision-making: Validating designs and processes early to avoid costly surprises.
This approach positions businesses as leaders in innovation, efficiency, and sustainability, empowering them to meet evolving customer expectations and environmental goals.
Shaping the future of consumer goods innovation
Process design and planning isn’t just about optimizing workflows—it’s a transformative approach for navigating the complexities of today’s consumer goods market. By integrating parallel development, unifying data, and embracing sustainability, businesses can deliver products faster, collaborate seamlessly, and build a competitive edge. For leaders ready to innovate smarter and respond to evolving market demands, this approach is the blueprint for success.