The future of engineering — scenarios of the future way of working in the engineer-to-order business
Companies of the engineer-to-order (ETO) business face various trends such as digitalization and globalization. These trends will radically change the way of working in engineering. First, this paper carves out four basic categories of engineering in the ETO business — ‘Easy Engineering’, ‘Zero Engineering’, ‘Perfect Engineering’ and ‘Pioneer Engineering’ — and describes their distinctive characteristics and implications for engineering companies. Second, this paper elaborates engineering scenarios that show how the described trends will change the way of working in the respective engineering categories. It further outlines how the trends will change the relative importance of the engineering categories within the ETO business. Finally, the contribution discusses what challenges engineering companies need to tackle on their way to the future of engineering.