PLM system deployment: Critical integration touch points
Successful deployment of a PLM system like Teamcenter is more than just managing CAD data and generating an Engineering Bill of Materials to throw over the wall to Manufacturing to use. PLM is “successful” when it integrates business processes from all areas of a company to maximize the investment made in PLM to achieve faster times for innovations to market, reducing costs and improving quality. Manufacturing requirements, Supply Chain materials and component optimization, Engineering Change Orders and Regulatory/Compliance needs all are touch points into PLM from outside of its traditional but expanding domain. The most successful PLM deployments account for these touch points through end to end process workflows and common attribute data modelling for all enterprise systems, and in all PLM modules to be used (Teamcenter has many!).
In many PLM projects involving Teamcenter, existing ERP systems must be integrated to, as well as other types of enterprise systems. Most companies use a point to point integration model when the number of these systems to “integrate” with PLM is small. When the number is larger an SOA architecture is usually a good idea for the long term IT support and strategy for a company to efficiently manage all of the PLM data moving around in multiple systems. Either model requires a very good understanding of the data stored in attributes to be used in these many places, and for the processes which must cut across many departments and IT systems to complete the end to end business scenarios used for successful product launches.
One of the first places a company should start in a PLM deployment is creating a product structure to store and link in the various CAD data, documents, requirements and other lifecycle data required for use in PLM. This product structure should not be made in isolation, traditionally from the CAD assembly structure. Instead it has to account for all lifecycle data needed for use in PLM, such as SW programs & packaging data, but most importantly the data and item structures from other enterprise systems needed to integrate or release data to/from PLM with. This product structure may have some unpopulated data placeholders until later phases of a PLM project fill it in (like sales/platform configurations), but it is much better from a cost, time and design need to do it all early on than constantly modify it later on and ask for longer launch dates or additional project funding.
Accounting for the attributes, processes and data structures across all enterprise systems sounds difficult, and it does take more time during the design stage of the PLM project. But in the long run this coordinated effort pays off when integration work & process improvement designs are needed with the PLM system. Many projects try to cut corners cost and time wise in the short term in this area, and they all pay for it later on as PLM expands its footprint functionality and usage wise in a company. “Paying it forward” really pays off here for PLM project managers who spend the extra time on these critical foundational steps, looking at PLM from an enterprise view rather just engineering or R&D.
By spending the time upfront in a PLM project on enterprise process design and mapping, common data attribute modelling and product-item structure alignment, later phases of PLM projects go much faster, especially when Manufacturing gets on board. This also pays big dividends in understanding the integration needs between PLM and systems like ERP, MES and MRP and how to minimize the number of bi-directional data workflows and optimize performance.
There is no need for overly complex process workflows and integrations between systems if the enterprise processes are well understood early on, and adjusted to reduce multiple system usages, training, licensing and integration requirements. Engineering Change Requests and Orders are one of the best areas to look at for improvements in integration performance by complexity reduction early on process and system usage wise. Documents, assets, component libraries, their creation, releasing and management of them are some others. Significant savings are possible from PLM projects when the all data in scope is looked at from an authoring versus consumption viewpoint, tied to end to end processes, with common attribute data modelling and the enterprise systems involved with them.
The PLM World Integration Focus Group exists to help our citizens in these areas. I hope to hear more from the Siemens PLM user base at PLM World to address your concerns, hurdles and questions around Teamcenter integrations enterprise wide.
Eric Wines
Capgemini
integration@plmworld.org
