Process engineering can help you transform your business into one that’s more efficient, more reliable, and ultimately more profitable. But if you want to harness the full potential of process engineering, you’ll need a dependable partner who can help you do it.
How do you choose the right process engineering partner for your business?
What Is Process Engineering?
Process engineering is a collection of strategies that can help you streamline your business operations in a multitude of ways. Whether you’re planning a new facility or trying to optimize your old one, process engineering can help you identify points of waste, evaluate and eliminate bottlenecks, and generally optimize your layout and processes so they flow much more smoothly and reliably. Ultimately, process engineers are invested in your success, and they’ll help you transform and rearrange your business into a form that’s more efficient and profitable.
However, not all process engineers work the same way, and some choices may work out more favorably for you than others.
Qualities to Look for in a Process Engineering Partner
These are some of the most important qualities to look for in a process engineering partner:
- Areas of expertise: One of the most important qualifiers for a process engineer is area of expertise. Most process engineering firms have multiple areas of expertise, working with mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, layout optimization, and more. You’ll need to find a partner with expertise in all the areas relevant to your business, and in some cases, you may want to find a process engineering partner intimately familiar with your specific industry.
- Geographic location: You may also need to exclude candidates based on geographic location. Process engineers may not be available or interested in traveling great distances to reach you.
- Years of experience: As you might expect, process engineers become more experienced and competent with each passing year. Accordingly, you should scout for process engineering talent with many years of experience. That doesn’t mean you should disqualify any relatively new firm or team, but you should favor more experienced candidates as a general rule.
- Team members: Dig deeper to look at the team members who will be responsible for managing your process engineering project. What areas of expertise do they bring to the table? How long have they been working? What types of projects have they tackled in the past and what were the results?
- Approach and philosophy: Work philosophy matters in a process engineering relationship. For example, some process engineers are very structured and methodical, while others are more flexible and agile. If you want the best possible results, you need to find a process engineering partner with an approach and work philosophy compatible with yours. It’s going to make things flow much more smoothly, with fewer potential issues and hiccups along the way.
- Communication: Next, you need to evaluate communication. Good process engineering partners communicate promptly and clearly, answering your questions with transparency and facilitating a dialogue that leads to faster and better results. If you have trouble getting in touch with your chosen process engineers while you’re still deciding on a candidate, take it as a bad sign.
- Reviews and ratings: Of course, you should also pay attention to reviews, ratings, testimonials, and other indicators of past experiences. Have people who have used this process engineering partner in the past been happy with their results? Pay close attention to the specifics of what people are saying.
- Availability and flexibility: It’s possible to find a hypothetically perfect process engineering partner, only to discover that they aren’t available to start your project in a timely manner. Always ask about availability and flexibility before you start narrowing down your list.
- Pricing: Process engineering comes with a cost. However, it’s important to remember that quality process engineering can save you a lot of money in the future, boosting your profitability as a result of your expenditures. Accordingly, you should strive to think in terms of return on investment, or ROI. Is this process engineer worth the money they’re charging?
Starting the Search
So how do you start the search for process engineers? If you’re not sure where to begin, you can conduct a standard online search. There are probably multiple process engineers in your general area, and you can use their websites to research and learn more about them. You can also get referrals from other business owners in your area, or broaden your approach to networking so you can tap into more connections and find a referral that way.
In any case, you are likely to have multiple process engineering candidates to choose from. Create a list of your most important priorities, then narrow down your process engineering candidates until you find the best fit for your needs.
