In the present day flattening world where trade boundaries are disappearing, emerging markets and developing countries are becoming increasingly importanr for manufacturers both to sell their products and to source parts & services. The key for any product manufacturer is to manufacture their products where it makes economic sense, but engineering managers are very apprehensive about outsourcing design and engineering which is core to any manufacturing company. Product design and R&D constitute to a significant part of cost associated with new product release.

Many large and medium sized companies have outsourced design and engineering successfully to India either through their identified partners or through their own captive units.

Leading manufacturers have embarked on strategic engineering outsourcing initiatives to take advantage of the large engineering talent available in India at competitive costs. Many of the service providers have proven and certified remote engineering management practices and some even use advanced techniques for executing engineering projects such as six sigma priniciples, design of experiments etc.

Most Engineering managers are of the opinion that core engineering can not be sent outside their premises (or outsourced) but only low end activities like detailing or 3D modeling can be easily outsourced. While this is a safe approach, this may not yield good results, on the contrary there are several success stories where in companies have successfully outsourced their core R&D and engineering activities.