By Eric Larson
There is a very specific problem going on in digital manufacturing when it comes to linking design engineering and manufacturing data in your Windchill product. Both departments need each other to complete their work, but they speak entirely different languages and it shows in the way they enter and share data.
Design Engineering and Manufacturing Operations speak different languages
When designing a component, engineers have their own process—typically that means creating drawings, creating a bill of material (BOM) or even identifying certain components that support the design of the item. This data then gets sent to the manufacturing team AKA the folks who actually build the component.
While engineering drawings are accurate and pretty to look at, they are not immediately usable for the manufacturing team. The engineers don’t know what’s required to build the component, so they draw it in their speak. Manufacturing has to translate these drawings or components into something that works for them. Typically this gets into adding raw materials, processing materials, or even listing site or plant specific items. This process is extremely manual and slows down your ability to execute customer orders which translate to more revenue and better cash flow.
Speed up production with integrated process and data
Does this disconnect sound familiar? The good news is your Windchill software can address the issue.
Windchill MPMLink supports manufacturing process management (MPM) processes using an integral solution where product, process, and resource data are managed in a single system – without the need for data duplication. It is the central repository and the design environment for manufacturing data management in Windchill.
MPMLink has the ability to link engineering and manufacturing data by seamlessly shuffling components and bills of materials into something manufacturing can work with. It will keep track of what was consumed from the engineering BOM and what was added to the manufacturing BOM. This then enables the user to reconcile the BOM very easily and to keep it updated as the data is revised over time.
MPMLink fosters concurrent and collaborative development of product designs and manufacturing processes, all supported by common Windchill services, such as change management, configuration, life cycle and access control. Design and manufacturing engineers experience the following benefits:
- Constant reconciliation of different professional perspectives
- Proactive validation of the manufacturability of product designs, reducing errors between engineering and production
The actions and features available to you in Windchill MPMLink are dependent on the privileges and roles defined for you by your Windchill system administrator. Element Consulting is a team of Windchill experts, and we can help configure or adopt your MPMLink solution.
