Enterprise Engineered to Order (ETO) Solution

Customer background
IES was approached by a mid-sized manufacturing company experiencing tremendous growth. They were in the process of identifying and pursuing methods to decrease their time to market and identifying and capturing their domain knowledge. They needed a partner with a strong engineering background and the ability model, optimize, integrate, and automate their unique processes.

Problem
The client had three roadblocks preventing them from achieving their new mission:

• They had no standardization and centralization of design rules, processes, or domain knowledge.
• Their existing enterprise software tools were isolated and not integrated into their workflow.
• The initial design and redesign of their Engineered To Order (ETO) product was too cumbersome and time-consuming, with very little domain knowledge reuse.

Solution
First we identified use-cases for all of the actors involved in the engineering workflow and evaluated where their performance could be improved. Next we defined the processes to be modeled, how the client would interact with the tool, and identified where the processes required flexibility. Finally, an architecture was designed and implemented that encapsulated their current and future needs.

The Enterprise ETO solution is an innovative, easy to use, three-tier application featuring integrated engineering and design rules, standardized components, and data and knowledge reuse. Its Web based user interface provides order entry, product development management, library creation and management, and site administration. The business logic automates processes for real-time CAD geometry creation, interactive reviews, analysis, and PDM maintenance. Back end servers and databases perform and track the engineering and geometry creation tasks.

Benefits
This solution allowed the client to plan, manage, create, and sell products in a fraction of the original time. Design and configuration histories were maintained to maximize product reuse. Their domain knowledge was captured, preserved, and leveraged in existing and future designs. Other benefits include:

• Easy to use sales, engineering, and project management tool.
• Engineers can dynamically add and modify models.
• Solution integrated with existing infrastructure and IT framework.
• Database servers collected, categorized, organized, and presented large amounts of data from disparate sources.
• Incorporation of domain knowledge in areas of heat transfer, machine design, fluid mechanics.

Results

• The customer reduced their time to market.
• They reduced their development costs.
• They maximized the re-use of original data and knowledge.
• Integrated their sales, manufacturing, and management workflows.