Five Ways To Make Engineering More Productive

Five ways to make engineering more productive!

Change management is one of the most challenging processes in the industry. You have armies of staff that need to keep the BOM, Bill of Materials, up to date and thus track part changes, part position changes, quantities, usages...the list is long. Modern PLM tools and practices enable engineering to be far more efficient, but most companies choose to do what they know only.

Note that I said engineering because companies typically have an ERP system that is used to manage a copy of the BOM and part effectivity. So here are five things companies can choose to do & be more efficient.

1. Leverage a dynamic view of the BOM. In Teamcenter, these are called imprecise assembly revision rules. Once a part is on any assembly, changes to the part may or may not require a new revision of any top level assembly. This is enormous productivity savings and the more levels in your finished product BOM, the more you will save.

2. Enable your PLM system to release one or 100+ (exaggerating a bit) parts at a time. Some customized PLM processes require parts to be released one at a time. This is a sin. A change notice may impact multiple parts, the PLM process must support the release of all of them.

3. Manage parts not drawings and place your parts under change control. I heard for too long manufacturing not knowing what CAD revision to use. Let's simplify how many files you need to track in an engineering LOB meeting. This is in line with MBD (model based definition) more powerful.

4. Skip the Change Request processs and go straight to the ECN (change notice). I know this is different but sometimes I think we do work for the sake of keeping people busy and PLM vendors benefit because they sell more licenses. If you implement this, you will save on software licenses and increase productivity.

5. Lastly, before I tell you this, I must warn you that it is radical and in my heart, I am risk adverse; yet, I am about to propose something you may not have heard before. Just keep an open mind. Make the PLM BOM the only BOM in the company. I have seen ERP systems not being able to handle the entire full capability that the PLM system has to offer. Pull the BOM from the ERP system real time.