Comments on: Back to basics: PLM and ERP Integration

By: olegshilovitsky

olegshilovitsky — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:16:41 +0000

Okay, I think your scenario is ok and not seems weird. The way I’d handle it is using effectivity dates together with design revisions. For me, this is the most natural way to keep design and ERP information consistent. You can also consider adding information about engineering bill (if you need one). Does it make sense to you? What systems do you use in your organization? Best, Oleg

By: Okay UGURLU

Okay UGURLU — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:22:57 +0000

Oleg,

Great to read such comments about PLM & ERP integration. I think, especially for the fast revising products area like home appliances, solution architects should decide where to stop about ERP integration because of the designer and production planner synchronization. PLM systems are generally CAD centric and rely on revisions which can be not the case for ERP systems.

Let me express myself with the help of an example:

Assume we have an assembly in AA revision.

Designer revises the assembly by adding part X to AB revision, which is valid 30 days later for production. This data is sent to ERP by the integration.

One day later designer faces an urgent change. This new revision should be valid 15 days later. He must add part Y to the assembly. He revises the assy to AC but… he needs it without part X. That is where he stops with two possibilities:

A) He should revise to AC by only adding Y. Now AC rev has part X and Y. 30 day later revision AB is in charge. No Y anymore… Both AB and AC are wrong. Manual product planning effort is needed.

B) He revises to AC by adding Y and removing X. The effectivity date is between 15 – 30 days. After that he revises a new revision; AD with adding X again. AD revision has both X and Y. The effectivity date is 30 days to UP (infinity).

In this case, revisions are true. However by removing part X and adding it again later on, designer makes a design change depending to the past. I don’t think that such a design method is feasible for fast revising products.

Hope my example does not seem weird.

By: olegshilovitsky

olegshilovitsky — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:11:52 +0000

Andy, I think you are absolutely right with regards to the issue of business requirements and changes. PLM+ERP is the topic where the gap between what possible to do today and business requirements is the biggest in industry. Things like design to manufacturing, engineering to order, etc. are in a huge danger if your PLM environment is loosely connected with ERP. From my experience, any PLM+ERP project requires lots of special skills, time and expensive software (depends on what solution you decided to choose). You either will be dependent on specialist-person who will do everything you need or on very costly software provider. Probably good compromise is to have a qualified IT staff that can handle it internally. Best, Oleg

By: AndyF

AndyF — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:46:22 +0000

Oleg,

I agree with the comments above on meeting business requirements. For example, PLM vs. ERP used to be a big deal for us. Then the management team decided to outsource manufacturing and now ERP isn’t a requirement anymore. We send the EBOM to Flextronics and let them deal with ERP issues in their systems. Production planning regressed back to spreadsheet forecasts that are emailed to Flextronics. These things are always changing and the big ERP and PLM vendors can’t really keep up with the rate of change. Sometime in the near future we might be able to get rid of all code from the big vendors and run everything on stuff developed internally using platforms such as Aras Innovator and Microsoft SharePoint. At least that gives us some flexibility to change the code on the fly to meet the new business requirements. And new business requirements seem to show up on a daily basis via email!

By: olegshilovitsky

olegshilovitsky — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:36:30 +0000

Dvora, Thank you for your comments and welcome to Daily PLM Think Tank! I will try to answer on your questions…
1. In my view, we cannot limit ourselves to one of the approaches. Balance between both will be good. However, it is a bit challenge to support it in most of the products today.
2. Semantics of data potentially can be different in each system. Therefore, integrations are trying to bridge between them. Sometimes it happens successfully and sometimes it causes to create mediated schema between all systems (this is what middleware is doing) and it makes integration very costly.
3. Most of CAD systems today provide capabilities to create/extract BOM. Some of products (CAD-PDM) can successfully create engineering BOM from CAD.
4. I think, “standard items” or sometimes it called “catalog” is a functionality that supported at least on several CAD systems, I’m familiar with. However, connection with ERP domain very often is problematic and requires a lot of customization in existing system to make it done.

You asked good questions, thank you! I’m sure will use them for the future discussions. Stay tuned …
Best, Oleg

By: olegshilovitsky

olegshilovitsky — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:20:39 +0000

Randy, You are welcome! Oleg.

By: olegshilovitsky

olegshilovitsky — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:20:14 +0000

Jeff, Agree. The benefit of middleware in providing of common layer on top of all systems. However, the same thing is the major cause for high upfront cost of middleware based solutions. There is a need to create mediated schema between all systems. I haven’t seen any vendor successfully solved this problem. All of them relies on partners/services and therefore, all these projects cost big $$$. With regards to reports, you are just right. Most of them done by partners/service providers. Best, Oleg

By: Dvora

Dvora — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 04:38:33 +0000

Very interesting. I agree the business requirements are essential. Questions such as should be discussed:
Do we work top down or bottom up?
Do Balloon numbers stands for the same thing in each of the departments using the data ?
What functionalities we use in the CAD to create and update the BOM? Does the PDM 0- CAD integration is aware of this functionality ?
Do we use standard items from a supplier catalogue ?

By: Randy Omlie

Randy Omlie — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:10:25 +0000

Oleg et all;
Great discussion. Thank you!

Best,
Randy

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:28:17 +0000

A big benefit of the middleware method of linking PLM to ERP is reporting and the integration/linkage of product information that doesn’t fit well or has yet to integrated into the PLM system, e.g. validation/test results. Regarding reporting, I have found that this is a real weakness in the current PLM tools.