Ask any manufacturing manager what keeps them up at night, and product launch timelines will land near the top of the list. After all, markets move fast and customer expectations keep climbing. Competitors release updates sooner than expected. Suddenly, what looked like a reasonable launch window starts slipping. 

The common assumption is that delays come from design challenges or supply chain issues. Yes, sometimes they do. More often, though, the real slowdown happens earlier in places that are easier to miss. 

It’s actually the information getting in the way. 

When teams can’t quickly access trusted product data, decisions stall and work gets repeated. By the time a product reaches market, the opportunity has already narrowed. For IT leaders, this is less about speed for speed’s sake and more about removing friction that quietly stretches every phase of development.

1. The pressure to launch faster keeps growing

Numerous factors are pushing organizations to move from concept to commercialization with less room for error. At the same time, digital transformation has shifted focus. It used to be on customer-facing systems. Today, the biggest gains come from employee-facing systems that help engineers, product managers, quality teams, and operations staff work better together. 

Yet many manufacturers struggle to pick up the pace. Teams just spend too much time searching, reconciling, and validating information instead of moving forward.

2. Where product launch timelines actually breakdown 

Most launch delays don’t come from one big failure. They come from dozens of small slowdowns. Product data tends to live everywhere: 

• Design details in PLM and CAD systems 
• Bills of materials and costs in ERP platforms 
• Test results in lab or quality systems 
• Supplier data in external portals 
• Compliance documentation in shared repositories 

Teams end up piecing things together manually while engineers double-check specifications. Quality teams verify which version is correct while product managers wait for confirmation before making decisions. A few common problems show up repeatedly: 

• No shared view of product information across teams 
• Conflicting versions of designs or test results 
• Security rules that make sharing sensitive IP slow 
• Limited visibility into upstream or downstream impacts 

AI and automation are often introduced to help; but without connected, prepared data, those efforts struggle. Many manufacturers cite data readiness as the biggest barrier to using AI effectively in product development. So the tools exist, but the momentum is dead on arrival. 

3. The business cost of launch delays

Launch delays don’t stay contained within product teams. From a business perspective, late releases can mean missed market opportunities and weaker competitive positioning. Development costs rise as cycles stretch longer than planned. 

Inside the organization, the impact is more subtle but just as real. Engineers and product managers spend a surprising amount of time searching for information or validating what they already have. Decisions take longer because no one wants to move forward on uncertain data. 

IT teams feel the pressure too. Late-stage requests for integrations, access changes, or data clean-up arrive when timelines are already tight. Instead of enabling innovation, IT ends up reacting to issues that could have been addressed earlier.

4. Enable faster innovation through knowledge accessibility

It’s a simple fact: speed improves when friction disappears. For IT leaders, that means focusing less on individual tools and more on how product knowledge is connected, prepared, and shared across the organization. 

1. The first priority is visibility. When R&D, engineering, quality, and manufacturing data can be accessed through a unified knowledge layer, blind spots shrink. Teams no longer have to stitch together information manually or rely on secondhand updates. 
2. Security still matters, especially when dealing with sensitive designs and IP. The goal is controlled (rather than broad) access that supports collaboration without creating risk. 
3. Preparation plays an equally important role. Product data needs context to be useful. Clear classification, consistent structure, and meaningful metadata help teams understand what they’re looking at and how it fits into the bigger picture.
4. Finally, access should feel natural. When product intelligence surfaces in the systems teams already use, work flows more smoothly.

5. How IT can architect a faster path to launch

Rather than requiring a full rebuild of existing systems, IT leaders can focus on a few strategic components that support speed without sacrificing control. Key areas to prioritize include: 

• A clear inventory of engineering, quality, and manufacturing data sources 
• Classification and enrichment practices that make product content easier to interpret 
• Governance models that protect sensitive IP while enabling cross-team visibility 
• Search and discovery capabilities that span systems and roles 

Future flexibility matters as well. Manufacturing organizations increasingly operate with mixed environments and evolving AI strategies. Planning for different models, copilots, and automation tools helps avoid rework later. The aim is consistency. When teams know where to look and trust what they find, decisions move forward faster. 

6. The outcomes IT leaders can deliver 

Product knowledge that’s easier to access and trust impacts all areas of your organization. Development cycles can shorten as teams spend less time validating information. Quality and compliance issues are minimized as decisions rely on clearer data. Overall collaboration improves as teams engage the same source of truth. 

AI initiatives also stand a better chance of success. With prepared, connected data, advanced tools support real work instead of adding noise. Not only does speed increase, but so does confidence. 

7. Speed to market starts with fixing your knowledge infrastructure 

Faster product launches don’t come from pushing teams harder or trimming steps that matter. They come from removing the quiet friction that slows progress at every stage of development. 

Through unifying, enriching, and securing product knowledge, IT can become a driver of innovation speed rather than a reactive support function. Manufacturers that invest in their knowledge infrastructure move faster with fewer surprises, all while bringing better products to market and adapting more easily when conditions change. 

Speed to market starts long before launch day. So start now by making the right information easy to reach, easy to trust, and ready to use. 

See how BA Insight can help streamline your product launches.

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