Managing Automation - December 2007 - (Page 44) [ TRANSFORMATION ] Transformation Integration TechWatch Windchill, automatically link to databases containing information on compliance standards, such as RoHS, WEEE, and ELV, compare a product’s bill of materials with the compliance standard, and then issue quick reports on pass/fail status. PLM’s collaboration, process, and workflow control capabilities are also central to ensuring that compliance is integrated into the overall product development and introduction process, according to Mark Holman, senior vice president of operations and strategic development at PLM maker Arena Solutions Inc. Arena PLM also of fers real-time visibility into the Avnet Promiere and HIS parts database, allowing engineers to see RoHS compliance information within the context of a BOM. “Without PLM or something like it, you typically have three or four people along the way checking the same documents multiple times to verify compliance status, and there is no place to hang that information,” Holman says. “It’s in a file cabinet, on some guy’s desk, or in the Oracle ERP system. Everyone ends up looking for the same document again and again.” PLM systems have a leg up on ERP and other systems to maintain compliance data for several reasons, Holman says. CAD or EDA systems have no capabilimanagingautomation.com ties for storing the collection of compliance data, and though RELATED ARTICLES: ERP systems offer more opPLM Emerges As Compliance Management Enabler tions, engineers don’t typically www.managingautomation.com/PLMCompliance use those systems. “If you’re The Innovation Imperative: More Than checking for compliance in an Better Product Design ERP system, you’ve lost the opwww.managingautomation.com/innovation7 portunity to design for compliPLM and Manufacturing: A Digital Bond ance,” Holman says. “It’s the www.managingautomation.com/plm9 equivalent of doing quality conPLM and Product Agility trol when a product is at the www.managingautomation.com/edges13 end of the manufacturing line.” MA’s PLM Knowledge Center For large companies, PLM, www.managingautomation.com/PLM7 perhaps accompanied by a Siemens Startles Industry with UGS broader master data manageAcquisition ment (MDM) strategy, is the www.managingautomation.com/dailynews7 way to achieve a successful design-for-compliance strategy, COMPANIES MENTIONED: says Mike Burkett, vice presiArena Solutions Inc. www.managingautomation.com/Arena3 dent PLM research at AMR Research Inc. Though PLM Oracle www.managingautomation.com/Oracle3 vendors propose the platform as the central repository, the PTC www.managingautomation.com/PTC truth is, there are many systems handling compliance- and Siemens PLM Software (UGS) www.managingautomation.com/Siemens product-related information and materials. Industries “Instead of constantly reacting, forward-thinking companies are saying, ‘Wouldn’t it make sense to identify a data model that allows me to know all the attributes about a product and easily ID whether it meets new regulations and, if not, what needs to be changed?’ ” he says. “That’s the more sophisticated IT approach and that’s where MDM fits in. It’s about how to make that connection between the data created in the PLM system and downstream data.” For most companies, starting with PLM or even formulating new business processes around compliance will help move compliance efforts further “If you’re checking for compliance in an ERP system, you’ve lost the opportunity to design for compliance.” — Mark Holman of Arena Solutions upstream in the design process. Narragansett Imaging, a manufacturer of imaging subsystems for medical, defense, and machine vision applications, brought in Arena PLM to do just that. Prior to implementing the system a year ago, the company had no formal system for managing compliance. Engineers were responsible for ensuring that components met standards, collecting the appropriate evidence from the suppliers, and feeding that data into a document management system. With the new system, engineers can attach all of the compliance evidence collected directly to individual parts. Exemptions and other annotations can be noted in the system. “Any time we do a bill of materials, there’s a column that tells us whether it’s compliant or not,” says Doug Sherman, Narragansett Imaging’s vice president of engineering. “Also, there’s a really quick search capability, so reuse is a lot easier. Everything is in one place.” Establishing business processes that make compliance part of the initial design phase is saving Narragansett Imaging money over the long run — despite the challenges of building extra time into the process to accommodate the engineers’ validation work. “The minute you transition something to manufacturing, you put the product under much tighter controls in terms of changing things or swapping out components [with an engineering change order (ECO)],” Sherman says. “Running and managing the ECO process takes a lot of time and people’s effort, [and] therefore costs a lot of money. Making component changes at that stage to meet RoHS compliance costs a lot more than having engineers research and gather information on parts.” ■ maonline ma December 44 2007 Photo courtesy: Arena Solutions http://managingautomation.com http://www.managingautomation.com/PLMCompliance http://www.managingautomation.com/innovation7 http://www.managingautomation.com/plm9 http://www.managingautomation.com/edges13 http://www.managingautomation.com/PLM7 http://www.managingautomation.com/dailynews7 http://www.managingautomation.com/Arena3 http://www.managingautomation.com/Oracle3 http://www.managingautomation.com/PTC http://www.managingautomation.com/Siemens
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.