Is Body Leasing Really Simpler?

Time to Read 3 min

For a development project, you would like to call external support. Is it more efficient to have the engineers on place in your company or to award the task as a project to an external full service provider?

We do projects, sometimes co-development, that does not have to be the optimal solution for you, sometimes specialists on site can be the better solution. In this article we would like to honestly look at the pros and cons and also discuss some myths. This way you can decide on the best solution for you.

What is body leasing?

Body leasing, also called staffing, means that a company provides you with engineers or other specialists who work on your site like your own employees.

Body Leasing has many Advantages

Body Leasing, i.e. engineers working on the premises of the customer has many advantages:

• In advance no specification and definition of the task is needed; the task can be defined during the project piece by piece.
• The communication with the engineer is simple because he is on site.
• The knowledge (know-how) remains in your company.
• Tool and IT environment including processes can directly be used locally.
• You see the engineer.

Really?

Is the piecewise definition of the task more efficient?

In most cases I know, a clear definition of the task at the beginning has lead to overall smaller effort for communication, error correction and maintenance. The effort can be significant at first, in return afterwards your own staff is free for their actual work.

Is communication on-site really needed?

We have just seen the efficiency of an up-front task definition. In addition many open-source projects show that persons who do not even know each other can successful perform large projects due to modern means of communication. And the current popularity of home office and video conferencing puts this point into perspective.

And of course we value personal contact, i.e. we like to be on-site for kick-off, handovers, coordination and integration.

Does the Knowledge of Temporary Staff Remain with You?

Does it not leave the company together with the leased engineer? Because the task has been defined bit by bit and so exists only in the head of the engineer in its entirety, most of the knowledge leaves your company with the engineer.

When a project has been defined and with it the extent of documentation, the knowledge can flow back to you and extend your core competencies.

And by the way: our engineers are on average 10 years here (for a company history of 20 years). Since body leasing usually uses younger workers who work in this mode for a few years, after 6 years you will definitely get a new person that needs to be retrained.

Do Tools have to be Used On-Site?

Thanks to virtual private networks (VPN), nowadays this is no problem at all.

Is there a Point in You Seeing the Engineer?

This is an advantage which a project cannot offer to you...

Instead a well-defined project with clear goals guarantees that the task is finished at the desired date and the required quality.
In addition we stay in regular contact with you during the project and as needed we conduct meetings and above all common workshops with your specialists.

What does a full-service provider offer in addition?

What is missing in the above list are the additional advantages which are offered by a full-service provider:

• You do not just get an engineer, but a complete team: Your project has access to our organizational knowledge, i.e. all staff.
• You do not get only somebody performing a "job" for a few months, but a partner taking himself responsibility for the final product.
• You do not just get a resource problem solved, but you benefit from the project management and quality assurance of your partner, us.

Where does Body-Leasing make Sense?

We think that body-leasing makes sense above all for an expert engagement as troubleshooter or e.g. project leader, i.e. where no project can be defines and also no complete development with documentation takes place.

An alternative is also mixed teams (co-development/ co-creation) , which can have a more lasting effect.

What do we Offer?

For the above reasons Solcept makes projects and invests itself in project management and quality assurance, in our processes from system definition to validation and support. Development is only the core of what we do for you!

We are interested in long-term partnerships and in product development with all its aspects: electronics, operation systems, platforms and applications, also for PC and mobile devices.

Andreas Stucki

Do you have additional questions? Do you have a different opinion? If so, email me or comment your thoughts below!