Jeff is the VP for Windchill Digital Thread. His team leads Navigate, Visualization, Windchill UI and Digital Product Traceability. Prior to joining PTC, Jeff spent 16 years implementing and using PLM, CAD and CAE at Industrial, High Tech & Consumer Products companies including leading the first Windchill PDMLink implementation in 2002. He was active in the PTC/USER community serving as Chair for the Windchill Solutions committee and on the Board of Directors for PTC/USER helping to bring voice of customer input together and create a community where people could network for tools and processes. Jeff attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Lehigh University.
Defining PLM, ERP, and MES
In the face of faster design and manufacturing cycles, increasing product complexity and variability, and pricing pressure driven by innovation and the growth of global capacity, every modern manufacturing enterprise is working harder to stay competitive. Installing, configuring, and aligning the right support technologies are central to this effort.
Chief among these systems are product lifecycle management (PLM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and manufacturing execution systems (MES). Properly deployed and coordinated, these systems can deliver critical benefits, both discretely but also working in concert. Cohesively integrated, they can greatly amplify the power and value of the overall manufacturing operation. Streamlined operations, improved efficiency and better quality are among the many available benefits. To begin the process, though, it’s important to first understand the individual roles of each system.
PLM
PLM systems aggregate, automate, and centralize the management of product data for distribution across the enterprise. The purpose of PLM is to manage the entire lifecycle of a product, from conception and design, through manufacturing, to after-sale service and even final disposal.
ERP
ERP systems manage a broad array of business processes across the organization. Domains like supply chain management, operations, personnel, and finance are integrated within ERP systems. Design, engineering, and manufacturing activities also interact with ERP in ways that are critical to the overall smooth operation of the enterprise.
MES
Manufacturing execution systems, as the name implies, are focused on the production process itself – the fabrication, assembly and quality control activities that result in a discrete product, ready to sell. By monitoring and controlling in-progress production flows, MES can capture data and provide critical, real-time feedback. The result is better-informed decision-making to optimize manufacturing operations.
Comparing the manufacturing software
Understanding the discrete purpose and function of each of these major systems, what’s the specific relationship of ERP and MES, respectively, to PLM?
PLM vs ERP
Though fully complementary, PLM and ERP differ significantly in their scopes, objectives and focuses. PLM concerns itself with product-specific data and information, while ERP, as noted above, is more broadly concerned with enterprise-wide business processes.
Thus, ERP’s wider functional aperture encompasses subjects like resource utilization and pricing, whereas PLM seeks to dial in more narrowly on product quality, faster time to market, and fueling innovation. The systems also serve fundamentally different audiences, packaging and serving information in the forms required by different roles and departments.
PLM vs MES
Whereas ERP has a wider reach in the enterprise than PLM, the MES domain is narrower. It’s a “necessary but not sufficient” component of a robust PLM strategy. MES is about execution – getting the product built, built well, and ready for market – while PLM helps manage the pre-execution (design and engineering, for example) and post-execution (service, retirement) phases as well.
How do PLM, ERP and MES work together?
These three technologies can work together and form a cohesive and effective system only if effectively integrated. It’s a complicated task and needs to proceed according to a sound business strategy and careful, comprehensive planning. Key considerations include stakeholder alignment across all involved disciplines, thorough training, data consistency and integrity, architectural compatibility, scalability, security, and more.
Hear from Simon Storbjerg, Head of Digital Part Lifecycle at Vestas, about why and how they connected their various manufacturing systems. For more on how Vestas is utilizing their connected systems, go here.
An ongoing evolution: PLM and ERP as functional platforms
In considering integration strategies, it’s also important to understand a newer dynamic that’s been redefining the domains of PLM and ERP in recent years. Traditionally, ERP has been treated as an all-encompassing enterprise platform, with PLM feeding it product and manufacturing data as an “ingredient.” But as the reach, functionality and sophistication of these systems increases, the relationship evolves to become the two essential pillars of manufacturing.
Today, ERP’s role is increasingly that of the organization’s business execution platform, with PLM assuming a more prominent place as the enterprise-wide product data management (PDM) platform. The more discrete focus of each system yields more powerful results for each and, when well-integrated, for the business.
What are the benefits of integrating PLM, ERP, and MES?
When integration is effective, and driven by a carefully defined IT strategy, each of these technologies compounds the value of the others. Functional redundancies are avoided, and the return on the enterprise’s often significant investment in these software tools is significantly amplified, across multiple measures of value.
Streamlines workflow
Friction is removed from many aspects of the workflow through improved communication, and the resulting clarity of vision and execution across multiple departments. Specifically, integration improves coordination between design, resource controls and production, so scheduling becomes more efficient. In addition, when external partners are brought into the communication loop, supply chain interruptions that may arise for myriad reasons can be mitigated or avoided, keeping the work flowing smoothly.
Eliminates rework
This streamlined workflow, by definition, eliminates bottlenecks and other points of inefficiency in data and knowledge transfer that can result in one of the most expensive consequences of poor integration – rework. Rework badly degrades operational value, in terms of real money spent to replace incorrectly built products, the costs of waste disposal, and most importantly in the very valuable time required by top talent to re-engineer products or fix processes impaired by slow or inaccurate information exchange.
Strengthens security
Obviously, the product lifecycle data being managed comprises an extremely valuable business asset, and often defines a company’s intellectual property. A comprehensively planned and carefully integrated system can largely eliminate the leaks within - and the “seams” between - technology platforms, through which cyberthreats can intrude. In keeping the enterprise safe from threats like data theft and unplanned shutdowns, manufacturing operations can exploit the full production potential of the physical plant and keep the business on track to meet delivery and revenue plans.
Improves decision-making
In aggregate, the integrated systems will generate an immense amount of homogenous (or harmonizable) data, which can be fluidly interpreted and parsed to provide actionable insights. Data-driven decision-making enables faster execution with higher levels of confidence, which mitigates risk and leads, most importantly, to better business outcomes.
Reduces cost
In all these ways, the effective integration of ERP, PLM and MES as a coherent system can drastically improve the efficiency of resource utilization, keeping costs down and paving the way for continuing cost improvements. Through better visibility and coordination, duplicative work and production delays are avoided. And the reinforcement and improvement of product quality reduces the potential for product returns.
Final thoughts
The virtues of the strategically driven, carefully planned, and diligently executed integration of PLM, MES and ERP systems become more and more obvious the deeper the analysis goes. Not only can every discrete manufacturer profit significantly by making integration a top priority, it’s increasingly evident that those who wish to succeed and lead simply can’t afford not to.
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