MANUFACTURING SOFTWARE
either buying or integrating PLM with known ERP vendors,” he said, adding that most ERP vendors have a known PLM solution, like SAP.
“PLM is the answer—you need to be doing it, either inte- grating it or you’ve bought it, or you wrote it,” Trudell said. “In many of our projects for our larger clients that are engineer- ing-related, we end up doing both. It’s not uncommon for us to do a two-pronged approach.”
For a larger manufacturing operation, integrating PLM with ERP is essential. “If you’re anywhere north of $100 million, that’s going to be a factor.” Large manufacturing enterprises need an integrated approach to these applications in order to have the quality of business processes in place, Trudell added. “Once you make that happen though, it’s amazing. Every time we walk in and they haven’t implemented a high- end PLM, they’ll ask us, ‘How do I get information out of my CAD systems into my ERP?’ That’s the big issue.”
think it is,” Heindel said. Manufacturers embarking on such an undertaking need to start very early to identify and clean or enhance CAD data, he said, and to “estimate how much time’s needed for that data—then add 50% to it.”
ERP Transforming Manufacturing There are myriad ways ERP supports improved productiv-
ity, Epicor’s Palsule noted. “Improved operational visibility can reduce downtime by providing status information on key as- pects of shop fl oor operations such as labor, raw materials and production lines so companies can ensure they are all in synch and/or resolve potential issues before they become issues.” Additionally, he said, because ERP aids the enterprise
Crown Equipment’s SAP Global CAD Leader Allen Heindel illustrated the migration process of CAD data into SAP’s ERP software.
Integrating a manufacturer’s CAD data with ERP systems is no trivial task. At last fall’s SAP Best Practices in Automotive conference, Allen Heindel, SAP global process leader for CAD, Crown Equipment Corp. (New Bremen, OH), described how forklift manufacturer Crown accomplished a successful migra- tion of its CAD data from a legacy product data management (PDM) system into SAP’s Engineering Control Center (ECTR). A key goal with the migration was taking the company’s systems to the next level. “Can they support the company’s growth for the next 10 years?” Heindel said. Among the lessons learned by Crown in migrating its Siemens PLM Soft- ware NX CAD/CAM data is that “your data is more complex than you think it is … and your data is not as clean as you
56
AdvancedManufacturing.org | March 2017
in back-offi ce operations as well as on the plant fl oor, it can also assist with mission-critical activities such as invoicing/ billing and supplier management and streamline other key business operations such as corporate governance and regulatory compliance. “From a fi nished product perspective, we’re seeing a re- imagining of products to embody intelligence and be more self-aware—for instance, smart refrigerators, smart washers and dryers, even smart sneakers … Many of these prod- ucts are being produced via joint partnerships of traditional manufacturers and newer companies with predominantly digital DNA,” Palsule said. “As more intelligence is ‘baked’ into products, manufacturers need to boost capabilities for traceability around products and components including sensors and embedded software and work to eliminate blind spots in internal quality processes and eradicate waste that can impede velocity of new product introductions.” New ERP features tend to be in verticals as manufacturers and distributors try to shore up their offerings, noted Trudell. “Process manufacturing, both chemical and food and bever- age, is a key market segment that most ERP vendors are going after today, if they are not already there,” he said. “The increased federal regulations in these markets [and pharma] are driving the manufacturer to seek out new systems,” Trudell said. “Note that distributors in this market segment are also driving new systems demand. This market was un- derserved, as many of the mid-market vendors had left this business, for example, Infor is taking on process manufactur- ing with its latest release of CSI [cloud suite industrial].” Big Data and the IIoT are most important for larger companies, Trudell noted. “These organizations have the resources to invest and drive effi ciencies, by truly linking the shop fl oor to the back offi ce. The key is that this linkage is
Staff image
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92
