Operations execution solution for global manufacturing
Operations execution solution for global manufacturing
Keywords: Aircraft components, Transport industry
Apriso Corporation recently announced that manufacturers with distributed enterprises have a powerful new way to integrate and standardise operations across multiple plants and geographies. The company has released FlexNet Global Manufacturing Suite, a complete operations execution solution for deploying,managing and monitoring manufacturing processes and performance within a single plant or across the enterprise or extended supplier network.
Best-in-class manufacturers have learned to manage their global manufacturing operations as a single cohesive supply network, which requires integrating product supply processes across locations. The suite acts as an integration layer across “siloed” operations and systems, empowering manufacturers to synchronise activities throughout their operations and extended enterprises so they work as a cohesive whole.
Since, its inception in 1992, Apriso has deployed multi-site, global software implementations for many of the world's leading manufacturers. Apriso has leveraged that expertise in creating the Global Manufacturing Suite, three separate but fully integrated modules that support the key requirements of global manufacturers for plant control and data reporting:
- 1.
Global process manager – facilitates fast, reliable deployment and management of process flows within a facility, an enterprise, and a supply network; manages FlexNet configurations to ensure system synchronisation across distributed manufacturing computing environments.
- 2.
Global production manager – tracks and traces materials and products across the manufacturer's enterprise and those of suppliers and contract manufacturers.
- 3.
Global performance manager – built on a robust KPI analytics engine,provides detailed visibility into production status, product attributes, SPC and quality for resources, material, labour and machines, both locally and across multiple locations.
“Manufacturers with distributed enterprises need two things to operate efficiently and remain competitive: a single platform flexible enough to co-ordinate activity across multiple plants and geographies; and the technology infrastructure to manage multiple, disparate deployments with agility”says Jane Biddle, Vice President of manufacturing research, Aberdeen Group.“The Apriso platform is flexible for local implementation, yet global in its ability to provide visibility into, and drive decisions down to, the individual plant floor, whether the plant is in Chicago or Shanghai.”
According to Apriso it has enhanced FlexNet to include a configuration management and deployment application that supports real-time deployments of full FlexNet solutions, regardless of customisation levels, with support for single- and multi- production server environments. Updating configurations network-wide is now said to be faster, more manageable and more reliable. The new capability:
automates the identification of configuration entities needed to be deployed to external systems; identifies all dependencies across entities; and provides wizards for manual intervention;
automatically builds and transports a deployment package for distribution within a plant or across firewalls;
deploys the package on the destination server automatically, according to defined schedules or manually, as appropriate;
manages a full FlexNet implementation, including processes, products,configuration data, dictionary data, software fixes, data access components, SQL Scripts & Stored Procedures, business components and product data.
The current release also expands FlexNet's visualisation capabilities with easier distribution of KPI data, helping ensure consistency of performance monitoring enterprise-wide. The release also includes significant process-authoring improvements, such as traceability of execution activity, sub-operation drill-downs, and the option to test processes before they are deployed.
Powered by Global Process Manager, FlexNet provides the ability to actively manage processes and best practices on a global scale, ensuring consistency across an evolving manufacturing base. Using the application, supervisory personnel can define and perfect processes in one location and deploy them instantly to multiple sites and geographies throughout their operations, and those of suppliers and customers. The system has full revision control and accelerates new product introduction and time-to-volume production by integrating with third- party PLM/PDM systems, and managing operational data across the supply network.
According to the company the key difference between the Apriso platform and competing solutions is the ability to not only view KPIs and plant activity, but also to actively manage the definition, deployment and calculation of KPIs and,therefore, performance across facilities and suppliers.
The key to this capability is Apriso's unified data model, which enables– and enforces – uniform material flow and “a single version of the truth” in all operational areas. Global performance manager creates consistent KPI standards for every location, so every plant measures information accurately and the same way. Then, the software rolls the real-time information up to the business level where executives can make real decisions, based on real information, and take immediate action.
Global production manager provides a global, real-time view into manufacturing operations and those of suppliers. The software gives complete work-in-progress production visibility and traceability across sites and multiple companies, with full material synchronisation and manufacturing bill of materials (MBOM). The configurable visual controls make driving business process improvement and aligning global organisations easy.
The FlexNet platform features complete genealogy and traceability across the entire manufacturing operation where needed, and offers a multi-level “as built” history for products several layers deep into the assembly process. The system has full alert and dashboard features and can record and manage deviations and exceptions across the supply chain.
Details available from: Apriso Corporation, Tel: +1 888 400 7587.
