Feedback from Engineers Moving away from UNIX in favor of the open Windows platform brought new opportunities and benefits to Kenworth. We are also able to perform Finite Element Analysis, which is used for stress calculations, on our own machines, rather than send it to the tech center. With the increased speed, we are able to try multiple design iterations without sacrificing time. Sharing information between engineers and applications is easier now, too. With all these time savings, Kenworth is getting its products out the door more quickly.
Engineers can use their time more wisely, too.
The additional 26 engineers were moved to new product development, allowing for more new product design. In addition, product quality as measured by outside agencies has improved. We've also achieved significant cost reduction. We could not have accomplished our aggressive engineering goals without the migration to Microsoft Windows and Dell workstations. Moving to Windows has had other significant cost benefits for the company as well.