How does the hottest PLM integrate scmcrmerp

How can PLM realize the integration of SCM, CRM and ERP

1. The value of PLM

at present, the GDP and product profit margin of Europe, America, South Korea and other countries are much higher than those of China, Taiwan and other countries. Let's observe the profit patterns of both sides, and we will find that Taiwan's development in recent decades largely depends on OEM production. Although Taiwan claims to produce notebook computers of which brand in the world and produce chips for world-class manufacturers, its profit is only a few tenths to a few percent of that of European and American manufacturers. While South Korea, which was almost in the same starting line with Taiwan at the beginning, and then almost faced national bankruptcy, after a short period of more than a decade of development, its Korean dramas and cars now flooded every corner of Southeast Asian society. Taiwanese exclaimed, "in fact, we are very unsuccessful!". People who understand macro-economy know that the important reason for this gap is that European and American countries use the product strategy of "product first and design first" and transfer the production links of low added value, high environmental pollution and high resource consumption to backward countries

in addition, according to the introduction and statistics of well-known domestic experts, foreign manufacturing informatization is an integrated information support system based on product research and development, combined with supply chain management and customer relationship management; ERP is the core of domestic enterprise informatization, and ERP was also the core of Taiwan more than a decade ago. This pattern is completely compatible with the profit models of Europe, America, South Korea, Taiwan and China, but it is by no means the pattern that China and Taiwan want. Judging from the development track and current pattern of European and American countries, the formation of a "product first" R & D strategy is an inevitable trend of competition. Fortunately, the manufacturing industry in Taiwan is developing from labor-intensive to high value-added product design, and PLM is also booming in recent years. This difference between domestic and foreign application software, the development track of Taiwan's informatization is worth pondering

look back at the development of PDM. PDM has experienced a process of CAD data management, product configuration management and management of all product related data since its birth in the 1980s. Around 1997, the theory and application of PDM were relatively mature. Most PDM systems can manage the data and processes of enterprise R & D departments, and realize the transmission of the right information to the right people at the right time in the R & D department. At the same time, PDM has been unable to provide a complete solution for product data management. Whether from the concept or the actual project, PDM system has not eliminated the enterprise's information island, nor provided a full life-cycle solution to the enterprise

just as the development of ERP has experienced two stages: MRP and MRPII, PLM system finally appeared in the vision of entrepreneurs and software manufacturers after going through two stages: e old material standard also poses obstacles to the implementation and use of new materials, DM and PDM. Unlike PDM, PLM proposed the concept of full lifecycle management for the first time, studied the implementation of software from the perspective of full lifecycle management of products for the first time, and considered the optimal management of product lifecycle from the perspective of comprehensive solutions for the first time. In the past, although PDM products have more or less the function of integration or effectiveness management to support the accuracy of ERP and production data, there has never been a PDM software that can effectively track and manage the manufacturing data, quality data and after-sales service data of products; In the support of change management and product modification design, it only realizes the distribution of design data and configuration management, and does not incorporate more valuable requirements such as product problem feedback and customer suggestions into the system management and solutions. In this sense, PDM only realizes the open-loop design change process, which is very similar to the MRP which can only carry out the open-loop production plan in that year

at present, most real PLM products use flexible object-oriented system to build product data framework, cooperate with internet environment and enterprise partners and ERP, CRM and other systems with process management, and control product evolution strategy and collaboration with the life cycle of business objects. Only in this way can PLM system fully support the conception, evaluation, development, management and support of enterprise business in the whole life cycle value chain. As a CIO said, "with PLM system, ERP, CRM and SCM systems finally have what they have always needed - a reliable, universally accessible, latest, most accurate and most complete product information source."

2. How to realize the collaboration of life cycle

from the previous PDM enterprise applications, managing the change of product information and maintaining control over the design and manufacturing process are generally considered to be difficult goals to achieve; How to manage specific product data and customer feedback is a blind spot. To successfully implement the "product first" profit strategy, it is necessary to provide an applicable infrastructure for product lifecycle data management and mutual collaboration to efficiently collect and manage different product information and support a complete and effective operation process

according to the classic Norman's structure in PLM industry (Figure 1), R & D activities are the source of all activities, and PLM system is the core architecture of key businesses of collaborative enterprises. The whole enterprise contacts customers through CRM system at the front end, and communicates with suppliers through eprocument or SCM at the back end; The output of R & D activities that must be valued by the whole industry - the data of new products will be transmitted to the lower MRP system to enter the production process; The contribution of the sales revenue, cost and profit of the enterprise will be reflected to the management through the financial figures of the ERP system. It is through this architecture that foreign enterprises realize the collaborative operation of the whole product life cycle through the integrated system dominated by PLM system

Figure 1 enterprise information system integration architecture (noman Architecture)

specifically, the collaborative operation of product data lifecycle management in PLM environment (Figure 2) is mainly divided into the following four aspects:

* sales: PLM stores all the information of product definition, and the input/output of the sales process is based on PLM

* design: designers directly obtain information and knowledge from PLM, such as order technical agreement, problem feedback of previous products, solutions of similar products, and design minefields, and then use cad/cam/cae software and all complementary software used with these systems to develop products in a collaborative manner

* production and procurement: manage product technical status and quality data in the production view, and maintain product delivery data and customer service data in the customer view; These are businesses that cannot be successfully solved by ERP system and previous PDM solutions, but have a significant impact on the overall optimization of enterprise management

* customers: customers access product maintenance data, submit problem feedback, and carry out self-service through the Internet, all of which will give users accurate service data and obtain first-hand customer needs to guide the next round of product research and development

it should be noted that the method of PLM system to realize the above architecture is not to blindly store these data in its own database, but to use the method of connection and integration to integrate the data scattered in different systems into a complete and real-time business data. At the same time, due to the different actual situation of each enterprise, the entry point chosen is also different

this is a major breakthrough made by PetroChina in the field of polyethylene catalyst

at present, we use the above model in an enterprise to realize the coordination of PLM system, ERP system and supply chain system. The key methods are as follows:

(1) first, PLM unifies the material data of design, manufacturing, procurement and other links

(2) led by standardization, the purchasing department assists in jointly determining the status of materials within a certain period of time. Materials are divided into three states: preferred, available and disabled. Materials with poor cost performance or cannot be purchased at present are set as disabled, materials with general or low cost performance are set as available, and materials with rapid price changes, high cost performance or serious backlog are set as preferred

(3) when designing or changing, the designer can only select materials under unified management. Forbidden materials are forbidden to be used. If they have been used, they will have a broad prospect and force the designer to change

(4) PLM integrates ERP, which not only provides the information stored in the PLM system to the designer, but also integrates the current ERP material inventory, WIP and other data in the PLM interface to the designer

through this method of PLM cooperating with ERP and procurement supply chain, the logistics of the enterprise can be controlled from the source. The leader of the enterprise said that in the next step, the modular design of products will be promoted in design, production, procurement and customer service, so as to provide users with more choices on the premise of the lowest cost and quality assurance

3. Carry out collaboration to the end

as mentioned above, the key to using PLM to integrate the architecture of enterprise information software is collaboration, which is to connect and integrate various systems in the process of product life cycle management, so as to interconnect the product information of upstream and downstream manufacturers and customers in the supply chain with the core manufacturing process, so as to save the cost and time required for developing and manufacturing products and stimulate product innovation as much as possible, Design killer products of the industry

according to the statistics of the Ministry of finance, at present, more than 80% of China's large and medium-sized enterprises have achieved financial computerization and preliminary informatization, and the accumulation of user data has reached a certain scale, but the effective utilization rate of enterprise data is less than 7%. The main reason for this phenomenon is that users lack tools to "approach and grasp information in a simple and easy way". So far, in the application cases of PLM system integration framework, the data integration in each system, how to integrate, and how to coordinate the overall business are also just starting

it is not difficult to imagine that in the next PLM wave, simply connecting the data of various systems is far from meeting the actual needs. How to better coordinate various systems and businesses with PLM will become the focus of solution and software design. Software design will focus on the research and support of collaborative mode, not just simple check in/check out and workflow. How to form a highly collaborative enterprise R & D team, how to integrate the existing CRM, ERP, SCM systems, and how to build a collaborative enterprise will become the key questions to be answered by the next generation of solutions

just as a region and a country must adhere to the strategy of "product first" if they want to develop, PLM system must carry out collaboration to the end if it wants to develop. (end)