CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

24 July 2007

Product News

Apriso Announces General Availability of FlexNet 9.4

Apriso Corporation announced general availability of FlexNet® 9.4, the new standard for their business process-centric operations execution solution. Upgraded FlexNet applications include Business Process Builder 2.0, Quality Management 2.1, and Machine Integrator 2.0. These upgraded applications within Apriso's Operations Execution System (OES) work in concert to deliver improved performance, expanded user visibility and real-time integration capabilities.

MBDA ( http://www.mbda-systems.com/ ), a leading global missile manufacturer jointly owned by BAE Systems, EADS and Finmeccanica, is using the enhanced features of FlexNet 9.4 to shorten their process lifecycle workflows between their Manufacturing Execution System (MES) and their UGS TeamCenter PLM system. The "as-designed" product component definitions, routings, specifications and Bill of Materials (BOMs) are now collectively used to author detailed procedures and work instructions.

This manufacturer's globally integrated MES and PLM systems track product characteristics against specifications, including "as-built" genealogy, to improve overall visibility into production processes and the supply chain. This information is then fed into their SAP ERP system, adding "as-planned" materials and orders data, and is available through FlexNet for the engineering and production staff. The result is a continuous process improvement cycle that optimizes product design, resource allocation and tooling configuration.

"We have leveraged the strong integration between FlexNet Production and Quality execution with our engineering PLM and ERP data. We can quickly locate prior work instructions from previous processes to reuse them, significantly reducing our paperwork and quality cost," explained Jeremie Ropero, IT project Manager of MBDA. "Our method engineers now easily incorporate FlexNet standard operations containing best practices into new production processes. The graphic user interface is used to adjust specific business logic flows and hides the actual IT complexity."

As part of a manufacturer's IT architecture, Apriso's solution is an enterprise level application that implements, manages and optimizes business processes for manufacturing operations. Starting at the Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) automation layer, Apriso FlexNet directs production, warehouse and quality execution functions within established business processes. By gathering and monitoring actionable machine data, in real-time, that supports production adjustments and provides "as-built" product data to PLM systems, Apriso establishes a collaborative environment, providing access to valuable production data from the shop floor to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) programs.

Recognizing the need for real-time integration and improved flexibility between business, production and engineering systems, Apriso has improved the design, performance and integration capabilities of FlexNet. With this release, manufacturers can improve the monitoring of their global operations by providing production performance metrics from the machine to the enterprise layer - immediately via an actionable dashboard - achieving planned production metrics with far greater accuracy. Unlike rigid MES systems operating as 'silos' at the plant level, Apriso's OES supports real-time global visibility and control, and optimizes product design (PLM) and business strategy decisions (ERP) while contributing to faster new product introductions and shorter time-to-global market.

Several technological improvements are included within this new release of FlexNet, continuing Apriso's mission to enable improved systems integration, capable of continued adaptation while providing global visibility and control across manufacturing operations. A partial listing of improvements includes:

•  An architecture that supports 64-bit processing, with business process authoring capabilities that leverage the benefits of Microsoft .NET 2.0 and 3.0

•  Improved usability with simplified navigation, keyboard shortcuts, wizards and drag & drop functionality

•  Expanded integration with automation equipment and PLC controllers supports driving the PLC automation layer, in real-time

•  Support for Microsoft Office 2007 and the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system

With FlexNet 9.4, it is now possible to better aggregate production performance metrics into a single data infrastructure, greatly simplifying the task of compiling, measuring and adjusting performance indicators for global distributed operations to optimize production and minimize waste, as part of lean and other continuous improvement initiatives.

"The customer, partner and analyst feedback we receive continues to drive our product development to provide better collaboration, flexibility and communications on a global basis, between manufacturing systems and business processes," states Jim Henderson, president and CEO of Apriso . "The improvements included within FlexNet 9.4 address these challenges with improved visibility, flexibility and global integration capabilities, providing a stronger value and enhanced ROA proposition for our customers."

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