Collaboration - Apriso

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These strategies may involve new technologies, structures, partnerships, and commercial conditions.
To be successful, it is necessary to work as part of a network and collaborate across all disciplines both
in-house and with partners. Engineering, sourcing, procurement, supply chain, production, sales,
marketing, distribution and service must share information and expertise. Good collaboration creates
value because it allows the speed, flexibility, and holistic view of small decision-making units combined
with the quality and efficiency of a connected network.
Collaborate to co-ordinate
Imagine a supply chain incident – a supplier mixed up deliveries between two sites. Moving
materials between sites will take 48 hours, but they are needed for a customer order scheduled
for production tomorrow. Is it possible to fulfil the order and maintain workloads at both sites?
ERP scheduling shows a solution – but it involves delay to other orders, and planners need more
information. Does the ERP materials information match reality? How critical are the orders
according to sales? What is the impact of paying premium prices for materials from an
alternative supplier today?
Planners would use a collaborative environment to: review real inventory and shop-floor status;
discuss priorities with sales and customers; negotiate with suppliers; and quickly implement a
new optimal plan.
Collaborate to sell
Imagine the situation: a sales rep calls the office to report a meeting with a portable machinery
manufacturer. “They love our technology, but they’ve rejected our offer because they want to
use their existing supplier’s power management systems and get an integrated unit. We could
do that, but it needs engineering. What shall we do?”
Leading companies recognise that the way to win orders is to work with customers and,
potentially, customers’ suppliers. This requires collaboration involving design, procurement,
manufacturing, distribution and sales – in-house and throughout the supply chain.
Collaborate to innovate
In the old design office, team leaders, the chief engineer and office manager could walk around
the room, get an impression of progress, discuss ideas, and explain new concepts.
Early CAD systems offered productivity, quality, re-use and standardisation benefits, but small
screen sizes and controlled environments worked against ad-hoc communication and big
picture collaboration.
Now, collaborative CAD environments can create the equivalent of a meeting around the
drawing board – bringing together, say, electronic designers in Asia, functional designers and
ergonomics specialists in Europe, and engineers representing contract manufacturers.
Conditions to trigger innovation remain hard to define, but collaborative multi-disciplinary
communication is a great start. A continuous stream of incremental innovations can be as
valuable as a single big new concept.
LEADING EDGE COLL ABORATIVE ENVIRONMENTS IN DISCRETE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES