Market changes, complexity, and time pressure demand integrated processes. That's why engineering and production planning should work hand in hand in PLM. With Siemens Easy Plan, the intuitive production planning module in Siemens Teamcenter, ECS now brings production planners directly into the PLM system.
Development here, production planning there—these dual-track, sequential processes used to work well, but are now increasingly posing challenges for companies. In addition to the already increasing costs of product-related development, administration, and planning processes due to growing product portfolios and the need to respond more quickly to customer requests, this is particularly due to market adjustments and production relocations, which require greater resilience, higher flexibility, and shorter response times in all these processes. Many companies have already taken initial steps to meet these challenges, typically with ERP integration or specialized solutions. But it is worth thinking further: What if engineering and production planning could work hand in hand in PLM? What if product data and production planning processes were connected without system boundaries?
Production planning in PLM
The PLM system is the control center for product development and therefore the best choice for the seamless integration of production planning and development. With Siemens Easy Plan—the intuitive production planning module in Siemens Teamcenter—ECS brings production planners directly into the PLM system. Our customers design production resources, bills of materials, and processes efficiently thanks to the direct link between engineering and manufacturing. Based on the engineering bill of materials (EBOM), production planners create the manufacturing bill of materials (MBOM) and then link item, equipment, tool, and time data in the production process (BOP). Product views can be integrated into the BOP based on existing 3D data (CAD, JT), EBOM and MBOM can be visually compared, and cycle times can be analyzed. In addition, all data can be made available for the simulation of production and factory processes.
Everything in the same system
This reduces the overall production planning effort for our customers, which in turn reduces time-to-market. It also represents a further step toward paperless processes and automated production control (MES), which holds further potential. Instead of setting up interfaces to ERP and production, we establish integrated processes: from the CAD model and production resources through the production process to the work plan, this creates a seamless information chain. The resulting complete traceability and improved overall overview offer advantages for other product-related processes, particularly in the areas of compliance and quality. Take this important step in the overall process of digital transformation with us.
ECS as a partner
ECS Engineering Consulting & Solutions GmbH supports companies in this endeavor with its in-depth Teamcenter and Easy Plan expertise. Since 1996, ECS has been providing support for the introduction, optimization, migration, and integration of PLM and CAD/CAM environments. Our service portfolio includes strategic project analysis, process and application consulting, development of solution concepts and IT architectures, implementation of customer-specific adaptations and commissioning, as well as training and support. In addition, we offer our own software solutions for usability and system integration.