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Edge Products PLM Case Study
June 4, 2008 |Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Edge Products provides aftermarket performance electronics for the truck and Jeep markets. The nature of Edge's products requires fast development cycles that can wreak havoc with the company's engineering department.
For example, if a vehicle manufacturer makes a change to an existing product, Edge must react quickly, often with a change to their products.
"Communication of change information from the vehicle OEMs is a major challenge," said Gerrit Kruitbosch, vice president of engineering for Edge. "Edge receives little to no information from the manufacturers on product changes which can sometimes happen weekly, so keeping up with the changes on our end required an automated system to help us keep track of our internal change process."
Plus, Edge's window of opportunity is further constrained by the fact that 90% of these add-on products are purchased within the first 90 days of new vehicle ownership.
Edge's manual engineering processes were not conducive to this constantly changing product design environment. The company wanted to implement electronic processes for easy access to product information and improved efficiency.
Edge had an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in place, which contained parts and order information but lacked the type of functionality required to manage detailed engineering data, particularly engineering changes.
"We release about 10-15 new products and process over 350 engineering change orders per year, with a documentation control department consisting of a single person who also has many other responsibilities," said Kruitbosch.
Edge underwent changes in management that brought in new personnel. The new team identified a need for an improved change and part control processes and set out to find an engineering product lifecycle management (PLM) system to remove the paperwork burden and provide a complete documentation trail.
Selecting a Team
To select a PLM system, Edge formed a committee consisting of the VP of engineering, a PCB layout designer, and the electrical engineer responsible for the parts database. Criteria included engineering change management, bill of materials (BOM) management, document management, and approval routing.
Direct integration with the existing Sage MAS 90 ERP system was also a necessity. The team wanted a flexible solution that could be easily adapted to internal company practices such as part numbering schemes and revisions. Also required were robust search capabilities and ease of use to get company up and running quickly.
Over a three-month period, Edge researched PLM providers by viewing product demonstrations and researching various vendors' Web sites, comparing both hosted and client/server solutions. Edge narrowed its selection to three vendors. After determining that a hosted solution was not a route they wanted to take, and that the remaining vendors had equal functionality, the deciding factor was price, and Omnify Software was selected.
Edge deployed the Omnify system smoothly, from importing all parts data to building BOMs and determining all processes. But integrating the new system required the PCB designer to update the component libraries to match the company database. He had been using manufacturers' part numbers instead of Edge's in-house part numbers. He was able to export the needed data from the PLM system to create the new libraries, eliminating time-consuming data entry and potential errors.
Edge now stores all PCB files including schematics, Gerber data, fabrication notes, and drawings are stored in the PLM solution. All documents are now vaulted with their associated item number and revision, and can be easily accessed by those with permission. The ability to track all of the engineering related attributes of their parts assists Edge with auditing for environmental specification compliance.
The overall roll-out took about three months. Leveraging Web services made it simple to customize the environment to meet company practices and facilitate user adoption.
Valerie Harding is the vice president of Ripple Effect Communications. She can be reached at vharding@recommunication.com.