CAD ERP INTEGRATION

4 Things To Expect — More to Demand!

CAD ERP software integration reduces the engineering effort, especially in an Engineered-To-Order (ETO) production model. Without it, the transfer of your Bills of Materials (BoMs) may consume as much as 20% of your total engineering time. This adds up to costly errors on the shop floor, as a result of faulty data transcription.

Finding the right CAD ERP software integration solution is like any other journey. It will be safe and pleasant, as long as you know what to look for, and what to expect.

The following summarizes what we’ve learned from our 30+ years in Bill of Materials (BoM) management. It should help you find out what to look for in an efficient CAD and ERP integration software, either homegrown or purchased.

Finding the right CAD ERP integration solution:
The basics

That is how we have developed a comprehensive list of elements shaping the core benefits to expect. Those should help you put together your own checklist of what you need to implement a successful CAD ERP integration.

Agni Link’s design pillars are the ingredients for success. Indeed, our CAD ERP solution was designed for businesses that follow an ETO production model.

We are confident that this tool will help you compare different approaches and solutions and find out which one works best for your company.

1. No matter the orientation you take, the system should allow you to integrate and synchronize, at a minimum :

• • Part/Component/Assembly data: data’s processed, sent and updated appropriately.
  • Bills Of Materials: your edits of assembly or subassembly automatically update to ensure consistency of Bill of Materials data.
  • Routing instructions: you can manage manufacturing steps whenever you edit a drawing of a component or assembly. When done, an updated routing table is sent to the MRP system, and a copy is automatically inserted into the drawing.
  • Other data : There is actually a whole universe of data objects that can be shared between the CAD and ERP environments.

2. The basic process of your CAD ERP integration should include the following steps :

• • Get existing CAD and ERP data from their respective databases.
  • Automatically resolve discrepancies between CAD and ERP data.
  • Allow the CAD software user to edit the data, always validating it in real time against the ERP data.
  • Automatically create the required CAD and ERP data objects, if required.
  • Simultaneously updating CAD and ERP data.

3. The system should automatically detect errors and correct them :

• • You should have complete control on the business rules… again, without any programming.
  • Your systems automatically resolve any discrepancies, while always leaving the final say to the end-user.
  • You should be able to avoid any redundant data entry.

4. Ah, one more thing: although it is true that 90% of known CAD and ERP integrations are about Items and Bills of Materials, there are huge opportunities for other types of integrations, such as floor layouts, quotes, etc. Here is a non-exhaustive list of possibilities :

CAD, PDM, PLM and ERP environments are quite hermetic data silos that are not designed to communicate freely.

Most PDM and PLM software vendors claim to have ERP integration. However, their offering is limited to a mere export-import process that is hardly better than manual data transcription, mainly because it lacks the real-time, bidirectional approach that is the only sensible way to achieve a failsafe CAD and ERP integration every time. The export/import approach leaves the door wide open to data rejection by the target system, partially completed transfers, improperly validated data, discrepancies, etc. If you’re at the PDM or PLM stage, such a Dark Age process is certainly not an option.

Successful CAD/PDM/PLM-ERP integrations necessarily require real-time data exchange. It is proven that any other way is destined to failure. Why real-time? Because you need a layer of protection, a temporary data object that you will use to populate and validate data prior to the final transfer to the ERP system.

Any user-issued change requires validation prior to the transfer to ERP. Until then, product data should be « frozen » until final user confirmation, thus ensuring the quality of the data to be passed to the downstream business processes. That is the only way to ensure the accuracy of your documents accuracy.

For example, you want to make sure that everyone will working on the current version/revision. Agni Link ensures a consistent workflow by faithfully passing version/revision data to both sides, thus preserving perfectly the document history of versions/revisions. For the full details, click to arrange a meeting with one of our experts

The Agni Link Benefits

Rapid ROI

Agni Link usually pays for itself very quickly. Recovery periods of 180 days or less are not uncommon.

No Programming. Ever.

An Agni Link customer has full control over the integration process, thanks to the Agni Link Integration Builder. Add as many mappings as you like, modify or suppress existing mappings. Define data validity by your own rules. Without any programming whatsoever.

Multilingual

Agni Link currently works in English and French. Configuring other languages is a straightforward process, and can be easily done upon request.

Will Agni Link support my CAD and ERP systems?

Elmo Solutions’ Agni Link is currently available as an add-in to the following platforms: