One of the smartest investments that you can make regarding cost with respect to benefit is by putting your money into smart engineering. Engineering takes on many different forms, but essentially it is the physical manifestation of smart thinking and intelligent design.
Within each industry, you can focus on modular concepts, emergency backups, intelligent grids, and maintaining function over form. With proper engineering, all of those concepts can integrate seamlessly with your ultimate goal. You could be attempting to design a product, or you could be figuring out some way to plan an entire city block. The size and scope of the project don’t matter as much as how much focus is put on the overall engineering of the systems in question.
Modular Concepts
Creating modular equipment for various projects works in many different ways. There can be massive infrastructure systems for major industrial areas and projects, but eventually, everything gets broken down into smaller and smaller pieces. If you work with an engineering company that creates those smaller pieces, and then even has the potential to customize them, then you have a system in place that is easy to modify and repair over the years.
Emergency Backups
Especially with all the news of recent natural disasters, the importance of emergency backups built into systemic engineering has been highlighted. If the power goes off, what happens to a business? Millions and millions of dollars can be lost because some emergency backup generator was not in place. If you have components or structures that need to be heated or cooled using electricity, any lack of emergency backup can be a fatal flaw in your business planning.
Intelligent Grids
Especially in densely populated areas, the grid is king. This could be an energy grid, or a grid of sewer systems underneath the land surface, or a grid of telephone lines or cell phone towers. The more money that companies are willing to put into designing intelligent networks, the less opportunity there will be for significant risks to cut into profits later.
Function Over Form
Essentially, focus on putting money into engineering is a focus on producing high function over form. There are lots of things in life that look pretty, but if they don’t work, or they are too expensive, or they are easy to repair, then all that money is simply lost. The majority of the cost of any project should go into ensuring smooth transitions between different states of use, which means that early financial backing into real engineering resources will mean a far greater return on investment later in the life of a company. Don’t take shortcuts, or those engineering flaws will come back to haunt you.