Managing Automation - December 2008 - (Page 33)

pletely changed the way companies do business.” While every company would say it strives for effective collaboration, some examples from successful manufacturing companies are wor th noting. In a recent study of top performing manufacturing companies — measured by how well they are able to integrate product innovation with operational excellence initiatives — AMR Research has identified among its list of best practices the need for cross-functional participation in new product development from the earliest stages of development. In the case of Toyota, for example, the automaker ensures that manufacturing and supply chain personnel are involved at the outset of product development projects, actively contributing to planning around customer and technical requirements, AMR finds. In some cases, suppliers provide input as well. The idea is to ensure consensus on product and process design early in the development cycle, before production begins. Another example AMR points to is mobile phone manufacturer Sony Ericsson. The company reduced time to market with its P900 Smartphone while ensuring that the device contained the features and design that customers were looking for. Marketing, product innovation, and supply chain teams worked together to optimize product profitability while focusing on customer satisfaction. TEAM TOOLS Modern technology tools that promise to smooth collaborative product development practices use the Internet to speed up processes that otherwise are slowed down or rendered impractical by traditional communication methods such as the telephone or e-mail. Tools such as Autodesk Inc.’s Inventor 3D design suite and Alibre Inc.’s Alibre Design 3D design software include synchronous co-mod- “People tend to do their work and hand it off in a serial process, by throwing it over the wall.” — Siemens PLM’s Carrelli eling technology that can help design teams in different locations using different systems to work on the same project with the same data. And visualization software such as PTC’s Windchill Product View, ProductCenter from SofTech Inc., and Visual Components’ 3DCreate can help make product information available to stakeholders throughout the enterprise and beyond, by standardizing data so that it’s portable and meaningful to a variety of end users. “For a long time, people have wanted to take engiTHE TOP FIVE CHALLENGES neering data and use it in othTO COLLABORATIVE, GLOBAL er places, but the model for PRODUCT DESIGN doing that hasn’t worked,” Protecting intellectual property says Rix Kramlich, vice pres66% ident of marketing at Right Retaining knowledge of product design decisions Hemisphere, a maker of vi38% sualization software. “It Keeping distributed designs synchronized comes down to the need to 34% take design data and make it act like business data — disMaking existing product knowledge available for learning, reuse crete bits of information that 32% can be dynamically assemManaging impact of changes across dispersed teams bled and delivered based on 27% how end users need it, whether they’re building Source: Aberdeen Group marketing materials, facilitating manufacturing process documentation, or working on MRO requirements.” Kramlich describes an example in which a group of New Mexico-based engineers at an aviation company, using Right Hemisphere’s product communication software, created a set of shop floor instructions for non-English-speaking plant workers in Russia. The resulting instructions contained minimal text, with each step mapped visually to the original design geometry. They were then incorporated into the end users’ plant MES system. Similarly, a shoe manufacturer used Right Hemisphere’s Deep Server tool in its ERP environment to collate data from two separate CAD systems. The product fused together the different data types so that a single set of data was available for the materials managers. All steps of the process were managed within the company’s ERP system, instead of in individual files saved locally, so that everyone involved in the project could track its progress. The result was an automated and streamlined process based on a single set of data. “By embedding visual content into the workflow itself and delivering it to all the different constituents in the way they already work, you can greatly optimize the process,” Kramlich says. The shoe manufacturer was able to compress a six-week digital prototyping process into a 48hour window by eliminating the need to produce thousands of physical prototypes at a cost of approximately $5 million. Synchronous technology built into product lifecycle management (PLM) systems can also support collaboration. Siemens PLM Software, for reality check Photo courtesy: Siemens 33 December 2008

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Managing Automation - December 2008 Contents Take 1 Business Objects Chief Says Union with SAP Meets Objectives After One Year Yes, Emerson, Too, Is in the MES Market Infor Chief Puts Off IPO, Restarts Buying Plans Kronos Now Tracks Shop Floor Machines IQMS Rolls Out User Interace, Other Upgrades Notes Five Ideas for Demand Planning Building on the SOA Blueprint Innovation Now A Team Effort Lean %2B Technology = LEAN^2 Finding Flaws Before They Spread Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - December 2008

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