Engineering services cover key sections of the industries in the world, with approximately $750 billion worth of value addition each year. These services include a huge amount of design and support services vital to the performance of virtually all industries, covering the full length and breadth of engineering. Much of these services also are being outsourced, with headroom for still more outsourcing.
There are massive economic and political pressures for manufacturing companies (such as in the G8 countries) to which they are forced to respond. The combined pressures and responses are radically transforming the industry. The pressures include high-cost labor pools, and costly raw materials (e.g. steel and petroleum). The responses include internal consolidation, outsourcing to global product development, and assembly flexibility. The companies must change their operations to suit these.