Product category:
Supply chain planning and execution software
News Release from: hybris UK | Subject: ERP and PLM in supply chain management
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 26 November 2007
Securing the manufacturing supply chain
with PLM
Enhancing sales, marketing and after-market business processes have to be integrated within the context of the overall manufacturing value chain, writes Andrew Piscina.
Over the last five years, most manufacturing organisations in Europe have been following a cost-cutting and labour reduction path as the industry strives to pull itself out of recession and cope with the ups and downs of a turbulent economy However, as cost reduction strategies begin to pay off, manufacturers are beginning to focus attention on more strategic investments and direction
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 1 Jun 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Digital Stores expands business model with Hybris
Hybris e-commerce suite.enables Digital Stores to expand online retail business and move into the wholesale market
E-commerce product enhances data management
E-commerce solution to provide complete transactional and information site making it easy to purchase products at agreed pricing
The real challenge remains the ability to grow top product lines, while bringing innovative products to market faster at lower cost.
Introducing new products and services to customers, expanding outward into new markets, and increasing customer intimacy all point to the need to re-focus on enhancing sales, marketing and after-market business processes.
These departments have been somewhat neglected while manufacturers have been striving to attain production and operational efficiency.
Further reading
Revised e-commerce platform for Virgin
Vastly improved site, geared towards the needs of today's online customer will form a major pillar of Virgin's multi-channel strategy
Simpler online shopping with scrollable catalogues
E-commerce module facilitates the integration of scrollable online catalogues into online shops and allow product information to be located quickly at the click of a mouse
Optimising E-business performance
W Schneider and Co has adopted the hybris Catalogue Suite to manage its product information on one platform.
However, the integration of these departments within the context of the overall manufacturing value chain is imperative if manufacturers are going to be able to achieve a truly demand driven manufacturing business.
In addition, many manufacturers are realising that significant costs can be shaved off business operations through further automation and modernisation of business processes.
There are many challenges facing multi-product companies in today's global manufacturing business environment and good communication, good information and efficient systems are three 'must haves' amidst fierce competition.
* The role of PIM - every manufacturing company is in the business of delivering value to the customer for the purpose of making a profit.
Most manufacturing operations are well disciplined in analysing production processes, optimising fixed and variable cost relationships to maximise profit, balancing customer service and warranty practices with their corresponding overheads and deploying technologies to support their objectives.
A myriad of customer and commercial systems such as ERP, CRM, MRP and MES exist for such purposes.
However, there is an interesting phenomenon in the manufacturing environment; among mid-to-large manufacturers, there are a series of business activities that have tended to fly below the radar screen in the recent past.
These include sales and marketing activities, which not only support the manufacturer's product life cycle, but they are in their own right a significant source of revenue, and a greater than average contributor to profit margins.
However, what is clear in the manufacturing market is that many companies still have to automate and integrate these business processes and information that supports these functions, including information about the product, price and parts.
* Product information management - product information management (PIM) activities in the manufacturing value chain influence the key activities from the R and D to inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales and service.
The traditional processes frequently in use at manufacturers' require a significant amount of staff resources to correct and maintain information manually and these processes result in errors and costly loss of efficiency.
PIM solutions are acting as a strategically binding layer in the manufacturer' value chain.
PIM actively consolidates information and helps rationalise the conflicts within the data from changes in different systems.
PIM solutions in essence are fulfilling three key functionalities, as follows.
1 - Collection and consolidation of data - required product data typically found in multiple different systems, including ERP, PLM, manufacturing, and other systems.
This information must be identified and consolidated into a central repository that includes links to the original data sources.
2 - Cleansing and rationalisation - data from multiple sources must be transformed into a common format, duplicates must be removed, obsolete information removed and missing information augmented.
3 - Publishing and synchronisation - information must be dynamically updated as it changes in the underlying data stores, and the resulting information published in multiple formats to requesting applications or third party registries.
By aggregating all product information into a central repository means that PIM can bring lower delivery costs, accelerated time-to-market, increased sales, reduced errors and improved efficiency.
And, for PIM to work properly there needs to be integration between suppliers, manufacturers and customers.
* Benefits - the key benefits that PIM implementation can bring include lower delivery costs, accelerated time-to-market, increased sales, reduced errors and improved efficiency.
The benefits are as follows.
* PIM investments can drive critical business process improvements in the supply chain operation and elsewhere that can not only reduce admin headaches but also yield top-line growth.
* Faster time-to-market for new product launches.
* Speedier notification of product changes - better data quality ensures that every target market and channel is coordinated, consistent and made available through controlled releases.
* Growth in sales by employing coordinated sales and marketing activities throughout all channels.
* Easy to integrate supplier, customers, and business partners by exchanging product information data and catalogues electronically on the basis of industry standards.
* Database-driven generation of printed catalogues reduces time and costs during the publication process.
* Creation of a single item master across all applications and cross-functional systems to create a single version of product truth across the organisation.
* Improve customer service and satisfaction by eliminating errors and responding faster to information requests.
* Costs are reduced and the production of print and Web catalogues are streamlined.
* Costs are reduced across the enterprise - fewer purchase orders and invoice errors, product returns, inventory errors, call-centre questions, labour costs spent reconciling errors.
Also, the maintenance and production of the data is reduced through structured data maintenance and the resulting reuse of data.
* The data gathering potential of RFID is pushing manufacturers to look hard at PIM.
Increasingly, manufacturers based on customer requirements need to be able to compile and transmit multiple product data attributes to a data pool.
Consolidation of ERP systems also contributes to the interest and companies need a way to combine data and ensure that it is clean and accurate.
The benefits outlined can help to increase profit margins and drive top line growth.
PIM software can serve as a strategic investment for the entire enterprise, not just for collaborative supply chain efforts.
When product, part and pricing is not managed as a comprehensive business system, organisations can expose themselves to and inevitably experience missed revenue opportunities, unnecessary margin erosion and sub-optimal customer service, which can lead to serious erosion of customer satisfaction.
PIM is fast becoming an integral part of everyday business across all manufacturing sub-industries.
* Example - Kistler is a Swiss company that manufactures and distributes around 4000 different piezo-electric and piezo-resistive sensor types for measuring pressure, force, strain, torque and acceleration.
95% of what they produce is exported and Kistler's sensors can be found in a wide range of applications worldwide - in automotive development plants, in shaping and cutting processes within manufacturing, in assembly lines for quality assurance, in the plastics industry for monitoring constant internal tool pressure.
Even in the field of biomechanics, Kistler force measure platforms supply valuable information that helps, for example, to monitor the training progress of sportspeople.
Kistler wanted a new website that would address the needs of each different target group and wanted to offer a proactive tool that would help customers select the best sensor for them.
Today, they have a product information management system that enables structured and unstructured data to be captured, managed, maintained and allocated to any channel that needs up-to-date product information.
This can be a website with a product finder, an electronic procurement solution at a large customer wanting to hook directly into their suppliers' product offering, or electronic and printed catalogues.
The challenge was to centralise the existing product data in such a way that the new website could be used as a complementary knowledge database accessible to both staff and customers during consultations that is easy to navigate so that the product search can be narrowed down step-by-step.
Kistler now offers a tool that helps customers select the best sensor for them from among the 30,000 variants of the 4000 basic models.
Although Kistler products are far too advice-intensive for a 'classic' Internet shop, Kistler wanted to retain a basic e-commerce principle.
Said Thomas Berther, head of the Kistler group management team: "We want to allow our customers to select products on our website and place them in a trolley".
"Our consultants can then view this initial selection and contact the customer to help them finalise their order".
"Our website has matured from a static information source into an interactive communication and sales platform".
The e-business platform is linked directly to Kistler's CRM system which ensures fast contact between the company and its customers and a BMECat interface is now opening up another sales channel via e-procurement - Kistler now supplies materials for crash barriers to two large German automobile manufacturers.
The benefits of PIM and e-commerce are there for all to see and more and more businesses are now seeing that PIM is not so much as a 'nice to have' but a 'must have' if they are to compete and grow their businesses.
* About the author - Andrew Piscina is UK Country Manager for hybris.
• hybris UK: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Manufacturingtalk email newsletter
• Manufacturingtalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
