Success – SGW Taps TechHelp Talent Pipeline to Meet Growing Demand
Company Profile
SGW Designworks was founded in 2008 in Boise, Idaho by three colleagues who had worked together in the corporate world on large development projects for a Fortune 500 company. The trio noticed a lack of firms qualified to help companies with product development challenges and formed SGW to fill the void. SGW planned to offer services including mechanical design, predictive analysis, embedded systems development, IoT, and smart product development, as well as cloud connectivity and manufacturing management. SGW Designworks has earned success and respect by passionately delivering exceptional engineering services to companies across Idaho and throughout the United States.
Situation
SGW Designworks creates next-level engineering solutions by applying creativity, experience, and multidisciplinary development principles to solve difficult problems.
Ryan Gray, SGW President, expressed the company’s need for talented and experienced engineers to address their growing clients’ project needs. Such talent has not always been easy to find in Southern Idaho but is increasingly available thanks to the Boise State New Product Development (NPD) Lab, managed by TechHelp, a member of the MEP National Network™.
As SGW’s customer portfolio grew, so did their need for engineering talent. Gray recognized that he would need to hire new engineers annually to meet demand. He also knew NPD recruited top student talent and gave students real client experience in design and prototyping. In addition to making use of the Lab’s prototyping and 3D printing capabilities, SGW began to tap the NPD talent pipeline of Mechanical Engineering students to bolster their engineering team. SGW leveraged NPD’s willingness to find and mentor student talent to then use at their company to address much-needed help for large projects and overflow work.
Solution
Rather than compete, SGW and NPD formed a partnership to develop local engineering talent necessary to meet client design, engineering, and prototyping needs. NPD is known locally for hiring, training, and mentoring top Boise State engineering students and engaging them on client projects. TechHelp and SGW recognized that the most important “product” generated at the NPD Lab was the
talent pipeline of young engineers who hone their skills working on client projects. SGW took its relationship with TechHelp a step deeper by “embedding” student employees within SGW to work on specific customer projects. This gave SGW the ability to augment its staff with top young talent and to evaluate NPD student employees for potential full-time employment. NPD student employees benefit by gaining exposure to industry skills and experiences that augment their academic curriculum. As part of the growing partnership, SGW has helped NPD become more relevant to the evolving needs of its client base by providing training in product design lifecycle and innovation brainstorming strategies.
SGW’s relationship with TechHelp also helped the company land its largest-ever project that involved developing a product for a large medical technology company led by an NPD alumni. The NPD alum had developed a trusted working relationship with SGW and knew that the SGW NPD partnership could effectively execute on the project.
During the COVD pandemic, SGW’s relationship with TechHelp became even more valuable thanks to the quick turn additive manufacturing capabilities provided by the Lab. TechHelp helped drive business at SGW by offering subsidized funding for third-party contractor design work with Idaho manufacturers and entrepreneurs for SGW customers.
Results
TechHelp has been honored to play a role in helping SGW meet its growth challenges. Our work together helped SGW:
- Develop new & retained sales of $24,150,000
- Increase & retain 35 jobs
- Realize cost savings of $1,600,000
- Make productive investments totalling $1,057,000
- Form a sustainable partnership to develop a local engineering talent pipeline that includes engineering students embedded in the workplace and sharpening their skills on client projects.
