Miki Lumnitz’s Weblog

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Posts Tagged ‘Engineering’

The first steps a mid-market company should take when deploying PLM

Posted by mikilumnitz on October 29, 2008

The PLM vision is wide and can touch almost every hidden corner in the company. This is why we recommend our customers a phased approach or what we called as: “start small and grow as you go” (if you want it is like eating a sandwich – better to take small bites than try to have it all and choke… :-) )

Most of the companies are starting by managing their design environment. Establishing a solid PLM foundation with CAD Data and Document management. Then Expanding to cover the process from concept to manufacturing with item centric approach, collaboration around the BOM and Process/Change Management – based on the same modular PLM platform. Then Reaching PLM to the entire Enterprise with Global collaboration and effective decision making process.

I could say that, as wider the deployment is, the grater the benefits and the end-users acceptance are. Starting the deployment with concept to manufacturing solution will tie most of the end-users to this process and will deliver a huge benefit and users acceptance (because people see value from work been done by others – the secret of collaboration…). I am saying that even if in each business process you deploy first the most simple and intuitive solution and not necessarily the most advanced available, as long as again based on the same terminology: you can “start small and grow as you go” within the same PLM platform. (e.g. manage first requirements as documents in the system only after leverage the complete requirements management solution)

So, 1st get the process managed, get the people on board, only than enhance each area to a more advance solution.

Obviously, deploying PLM require a culture change within the company. I believe that if the solution own the following 3 elements, the impact on the company will be minimal and most beneficial:

Posted in Design, Engineering, Enterprise, PLM, mid-market | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Which industries would benefit more from adopting PLM?

Posted by mikilumnitz on October 27, 2008

The benefits from adopting PLM are touchable across all industries, but not all companies in all industries are currently mature enough in how they view PLM in order to adopt it. When we look at the PLM market (especially in the Mid-market), analyzing it within a technology wave. You will find that it is very hard to determine whether it is in ‘Growth’ phase or ‘Maturity’ phase. It is clear that a closer look and segmentation is needed in order to determine maturity of the market. When analyzing that you will find that companies from the manufacturing traditional industries (Automotive, Aerospace & Defense, Industrial equipment, High-tech, Energy & process, Shipbuilding, Consumer goods) are more mature to adopt PLM, next are the rest of the manufacturing industries (consumer packaged goods, Construction, Medical devices). The industries which we name as the emerging industries (Apparel, Pharma, Business services) are still in ‘Growth’ phase, and it means most of them in the Mid-market will be mature to adopt PLM only in several years. So, companies in the manufacturing industries must adopt PLM, their competition already doing that!. Companies within the emerging industries should understand that ‘The sooner the better’, adopt PLM before the competition and gain advantage in the market – more innovative products to the market, shorter time to market, shorter development process, better usage of the company IP (Intellectual Property) and the ability to reuse it while innovating.

Posted in General, Methodology, PLM, mid-market | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

PLM at high-tech/industrial mid-market companies

Posted by mikilumnitz on October 18, 2008

When looking at high-tech/industrial mid-market companies, in order to succeed in this market Those companies have to innovate new products faster (time to market of 3-6 months in high-tech), streamline operations and collaboration. They need to achieve global development excellence and efficiency by leveraging core competencies of the value chain to ensure on-time, on-cost and quality product delivery. Integrate regulatory compliance into product lifecycle processes to reduce business risk and sell products in global markets.

In order to achieve that, adopting PLM will streamline their processes especially across the following areas:

  • Requirements & Specifications
  • Collaborative Engineering
  • Standardization  & IP Reuse
  • Mechatronics – Multi-disciplinary product development integrating mechanical, electrical/electronic and software components
  • Business Processes & Change Management
  • Standard components Engineering
  • Linkage between product development and Project Management
  • Real-time Collaboration & IP exchange internally and across the value chain and the eco-system

The main benefits those companies will see are:

  • Increase product innovation – By adopting NPI methodology within a single engineering platform, from concept to manufacturing
  • Encourage global product development excellence – By leveraging streamlined global Innovation Networks and concurrent multi-disciplinary mechatronics product development
  • Improve profitability – By leveraging existing products/components and creating modular new products that facilitate re-use in multiple applications
  • Shorten time to market and improve return on investment – By lowering development, manufacturing and purchasing costs while delivering improved product performance
  • Increase control on costs, quality and delivery dates – By integrating quality and change management processes and enable real-time decision making for all levels
  • Ensure 100 percent customer satisfaction – By operate demand-driven and Integrate customer requirements and specifications throughout the engineering process

Posted in BOM, Engineering, Manufacturing, Methodology, PLM, mid-market | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

ECR / ECO is not only about the process

Posted by mikilumnitz on June 19, 2008

I have just read a post in Jos Voskuil blog concerning change management in SMB. You can read the complete post, but in general Jos had conducted an Engineering Express training for ENOVIA SmarTeam resellers. During the training people were wondering whether SMB companies should implement change management (like the big companies…), because the process is creating an overhead that compromises flexibility…well…the truth is that change management (ECR/ECO) is not only about the process!

Moreover, managing ECRs is about traceability, about data management and reducing cost, it is about improving decisions, accuracy and quality of our products. The last time I heard, SMB companies need that also… in a matter of fact… isn’t it why we implement PLM?

So let’s start look at the reasons why we need change management (ECR/ECO):

We all know that if a change will be done during concept or planning phases of the project will cost 1$, the same change in development phase will cost ~100 times more, if this change will happened during manufacturing probably it will cost ~1000 times more… in euros not dollars… it is clear I need to make sure I have as less changes in the product as I move forward from concept to manufacturing in order to achieve that, I need to have the ability to completely understand the items affected from the change (when I worked at Elta, before we implemented change management in our PLM system, we had ~3 ECRs in average for each change. people were working with ECR paper form and doing one for the part they needed to change but what about other parts affected by this change?).

I need to understand all the content of this change (the problem/affected items, the solution items, any references for the change, the change data).

Do I need to be Compliant with standards and regulation like CMII? EIA-649? MIL-STD-973A?

A lot of times you will find parallel change requests on the same item (e.g. I am performing a change on an item and on its assembly also, another engineer is now wishing to perform a change on a different item under the same assembly) can I join the effort and conduct a single ECR for both? probably yes… if I would have only knew about the parallel ECRs…

I need to have the traceability when I am looking at an item which ECO is the origin of this item, what was the change request that was approved for that, is that what was actually implemented in the part?

In order to improve my processes and make better decisions, I need to be able to get statistics and analysis data about the ECRs we are doing (which member of my team has ECRs with the reason of drawing errors? how much? can I start give my team members objectives, measurable objectives for improving the quality of our designs? If the customer keeps giving us changes, can I retrieve all ECRs with the reason of customer request, calculate the changes cost and ask the customer to pay? or do I just lose money… does SMB company has a lot of money to give away…? let’s say I would like to reuse a product developed 5 years ago, probably some of its components have newer versions, how can I easily gets all ECRs opened on this product in the past 5 years and retrieve the newer versions created based on those ECRs?).

Can I do all that by using manual forms? or the new generation data management system called emails? a9

By implementing change management with ENOVIA SmarTeam Engineering Express I can easily understand the items affected from the change, making sure a change is complete and being done ones. By using all links navigation I can easily navigate to where the problem item is used, what are the documents/analysis/tooling/… related to it that are affects. I can also understand the full content of the change (the problem/affected items, the solution items, any references for the change, the change data):

ECR2

I can be easily compliant with standards and regulation like CMII, EIA-649, MIL-STD-973A. I can also have single and comprehensive ECR instead of parallel ECRs that will save me money and will improve my quality:

ECR3

I will have the traceability when I am looking at an item which ECO is the origin of this item, what was the change request that was approved for that, what are the original (affected) items that this item is based on:

ECR4

I can improve my processes and make better decisions, I will be able to get statistics and analysis data about the ECRs we are performing:

ECR1

I also will be able to get an ECR report to even see it manually like I used to:

ECR report

Ahhhh… So I guess the overhead that compromises flexibility actually will make my development process easier, will make my decisions better, will reduce my development time and will save me money… a lot of money… just for the example, a company with only 10 engineers creating around only 1 change a week can save by implementing this ‘pure overhead’ change management around 150,000$ a year!

I actually will be able to deliver my products earlier to market (maybe before my competition?). Isn’t it what PLM is really about???

Now… does it really matters if I have 2 or 3 or 5 nodes in the process?

Posted in Engineering, PLM, mid-market | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Components Engineering

Posted by mikilumnitz on June 2, 2008

I have recently visited several companies (in the E&E industry, but I think this post will be relevant not only for those). Each one of them sees in standard components management a big challenge. The amazing thing is that most of the PLM vendors in the market do not take this issue seriously (otherwise each one of them would have been already delivered a ready to use, best practice for this challenge…)

Do not worry… I know one vendor that does take it seriously… clip_image002[6]

So, first what is the issue: In order to streamline work between the engineering department (working with PLM) and the purchasing department (working mainly with the ERP system) and in order to control the standard components that are approved for the engineers to use, it is important to manage the manufacturer assignments within the engineering environment (PLM). Companies should not depend on a single manufacturer to supply the standard items as such a
dependency will not allow the company to negotiate over the item’s cost price. More than one manufacturer may supply the same item to the company with different prices and levels of quality levels.

For electronic components, the same manufacturer may produce the same functional item in different qualities. In such a case, the same manufacturer can supply more than one item to the company. These “external” items are referred to as “Manufacturer items”, and the company needs to decide how to manage them internally.
The list of manufacturers that are approved to supply a certain item is known as “Approved Manufacturer
List” or “AML”. This list is proposed by the engineers and defined by the components engineers, as they can decide on the functional data of their internal items.
The importance of such a definition is that the purchaser now is able to review the AML without the need of the engineer, and the engineer has the correct and valid data to decide on the standard components he will use in the product structure.

In fact, you can find several best practices to manage components engineering:

  1. Manufacturer items directly linked to the BOM
    In this approach, the manufacturer item numbers are the only ones managed for standard/purchased components. The manufacturer item number is manually defined in the item data. The manufacturer will be defined for the item as part of the item definition.
  2. Manufacturer items as a link between the company standard item and the manufacturer
    This case is similar to the previous one, but the manufacturer information is defined on the relation between the item and its manufacturer(s).
    The manufacturer item number will be stored on the relation between the company item and the manufacturer.
  3. The company standard items are linked in the BOM, Manufacturer items are linked to them
    In this approach, the manufacturer item is defined with its own data and relevant attachments
    such as data sheets, drawings etc.
    This approach enables various manufacturer items to be linked to the company standard item (with the different priority) for the same manufacturer. This approach also enables much robust methodology when you need to change/replace manufacturer item because of obsolesces for example.

If you ask me, the best approach is #3, but any of those are OK and valid.

You can have a look at an example how this is been solved within the PLM system. Obviously from the only one takes it seriously…clip_image002[7]

Posted in Engineering, Methodology, PLM | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

From Documents management to BOM management…

Posted by mikilumnitz on June 1, 2008

Many of the companies I know do understand and implements data management for mechanical CAD design. Many of those think it is enough. But, is it really enough? Does it represent my product structure?

Let’s see an example:

What do you see in here? This is my mechanical design.

clip_image002clip_image004

What I can see is: A palette with two screws.

Is that the definition for the product? The truth is that this product is: A movement detector to identify earthquakes.

Can you realize that from the mechanical design only? Probably not…

clip_image006clip_image008

The problem is that in the organization we have a lot of islands of information. all are related to my product structure and defining it: Mechanical design, Electrical design, Embedded software, Requirements, Specifications, Analysis, Simulations, Testing specs, Tooling… and more…

So… what should I do? How do I manage my complete product structure if managing my mechanical design only is not enough?

The answer my friend, will be… you need to manage BOM (Bill of Materials) – Items structure.

Item is this magic entity invented in order to comprise all definitions of the product and to represent its complete physical structure.

This will also enable you to follow the leaders:

  • CMII
  • EIA-649
  • MIL-STD-973A

If you are looking for an easy and robust solution for BOM management you can have a look at ENOVIA SmarTeam Engineering Express.

image

Posted in BOM, Design, Engineering, PLM, mid-market | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »