Vehicle Manufacturers Benefits from Supplier's Control Cycles Use of Omnify PLM - Automotive

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September 7, 2010

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Automotive

Vehicle Manufacturers Benefits from Supplier's Control Cycles Use of Omnify PLM
Jan 29, 2008 – By Drew Barrows, IT Freelance Writer

“With nearly 100 top level SKUs and more than 2000 parts in our database, we recognized the need for a system that would require us to be more rigorous in our change control process and provide the kind of history and documentation that is necessary to ensure the quality to which we are committed.”
-- Gerrit Kruitbosch, Vice President of Engineering, Edge Products

Founded in 1999, Edge Products has become the premier name for aftermarket performance electronics for the gas and diesel truck, and Jeep markets. Edge has been named three times to the Inc. 500's fastest growing privately held companies, and was noted as Utah's fourth fastest growing company between 1999 and 2004. Edge currently employs more than 100 individuals and resides in a 32,000 square foot facility in Ogden, Utah.

Edge produces modules and programmers for all major vehicle manufacturers, including Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Jeep, and RV under the following brands: the A2, Juice, Attitude, Evolution, EZ, Insight, Mileage Max, and Trail Jammer. Since its inception, Edge has been known for the power its modules and programmers produce. However, what sets the company apart from its competitors is its monitoring capabilities. Coupled with the additional gains in horsepower, Edge's ability to display multiple engine parameters - and to provide associated safety features for those parameters on its stylish in-cab monitors - has revolutionized the industry. Edge endeavors to produce the highest quality products on the market and to deliver them with superior customer and technical support.

Edge Products experienced some changes in management that brought in new personnel with vast industry experience. The new team identified a need for improved change and part control processes.

Edge is a rapidly growing company and the nature of their products requires fast development cycles. For example, if a vehicle manufacturer makes a change to an existing product, Edge must react quickly, often with a change to their products. “Communication of change information from the vehicle OEMs is a major challenge”, stated Gerrit Kruitbosch, Vice President of Engineering for Edge Products. “Edge receives little to no information from the manufacturers on product changes which can sometimes happen weekly, so keeping up with the changes on our end required an automated system to help us keep track of our internal change process.”

Edge’s manual engineering processes were not conducive to this constantly changing product design environment. The company wanted to implement electronic processes for easy access to product information and improved efficiency. Edge had an ERP system in place which contained parts and order information but lacked the type of functionality required to manage detailed engineering data, particularly engineering changes.

“We release about 10-15 new products and process over 350 engineering change orders per year, with a Documentation Control department consisting of a single person who also has many other responsibilities,” said Mr. Kruitbosch. “With nearly 100 top level SKUs and more than 2000 parts in our database,we recognized the need for a system that would require us to be more rigorous in our change control process and provide the kind of history and documentation that is necessary to ensure the quality we are committed to.”

Edge was looking for a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system to remove the paperwork burden and provide a complete documentation trail. They searched specifically for a system that included engineering change, Bill of Material (BOM) and documentation management. Direct integration with their existing ERP system, Sage MAS 90 ERP, was a necessity.

They wanted a flexiblesolution that could be easily adapted to their internal company practices such as part numbering schemes and revisions. Edge also wanted a PLM system with robust search capabilities and ease-of-use to get the company up and running quickly.

“We reviewed several of the key PLM vendors and were quite satisfied with the way Omnify provided solutions to meet our specific needs,” continued Kruitbosch. Omnify Software, headquartered in Andover, MA., is a leading provider of business-ready product lifecycle and change management solutions for manufacturers in the electronics, mechanical, medical and defense industries. The Omnify PLM solution is built on an open technology platform, offering direct interfaces to engineering tools and manufacturing systems for quick adoption without interruption in existing processes. Edge was able to deploy the system smoothly, from importing all of their part data to building all of their BOMs from scratch. Leveraging web services made customizing the environment to meet company practices and integrating with their ERP system a simple process.

As a result of implementing Omnify Empower PLM, Edge now has the ability to store all relevant product information in one location. Electronic change control has provided a more thorough review and sign-off process that Edge was looking for.The direct sharing of part and BOM information between Empower PLM and Sage MAS 90 ERP eliminated manual data entry errors and ensures accuracy of product change information across the enterprise.

Edge also uses Omnify Empower as a place to track their New Product Development (NPD) cycle. The company did not have a formal NPD process in place prior to Omnify. “We use a gated review process where each milestone is indicated by the revision increment of an NPD item in Omnify and all relevant documentation such as risk analysis and marketing requirements are stored with the item for reference by the entire cross-functional team”, said Gerrit. “Omnify has proven to be a very effective resource for not only our engineering design team, but also for our production group”.

Edge has realized improved product quality and cost-savings. Product quality has increased resulting in a major reduction in product returns. “Omnify has been a significant contributor to a 50% reduction in our product return rates,” confirmed Gerrit. Warranty costs have also decreased dramatically and Edge has not had to make any substantial increases to overhead to achieve these results.

Edge performs their design in-house and manufacturing is a combination of contracted and in-house. Omnify has provided a mechanism to facilitate communicating requirements with external partners enabling Edge to catch a number of inconsistencies in documentation with their suppliers and contract manufacturers that they would not have caught previous to implementing Omnify. “The documentation trail in Omnify is invaluable,” noted Gerrit.

“We have, without question, become much more refined in our change control management,” said Gerrit. “The structured processes we have established allow us to be much more thorough and eliminate inaccuracies we would have not known about prior to Omnify.” With Omnify Empower PLM, Edge is able to manage product changes effectively, helping them to react quickly to vehicle OEM changes while continuing to deliver high quality products.

Results

1. Improved Product Quality

2. Cost Savings

- Reduce costly rework

- Over a 50% reduction in product return rates

- Decreased warranty costs

3. Streamline Communication
- Automate manual processes

- Controlled change processes

- Ensure accuracy of data across the enterprise

- Standardize and organize internal processes

- Easily share data with internal and external teams

4. Business-ready solution