Manufacturing Document Management & Control - Engineering Industries eXcellence

Information Management in Manufacturing

Product and production document creation and control is an important part of any manufacturing organization's information management process. Without a high-quality, reliable and centralized solution for in place, it is nearly impossible to manage the creation, versioning, distribution and security of all of the documents required to design, plan, produce and qualify your end product. Documentation tools play an essential role in the product lifecycle. Documents can be expensive to produce and have a long life – sometimes longer than the products they describe – and can be very complex, even having to meet stringent standards in some industries. Done right, documents can be very profitable, especially when they support the service business.

PLM: A Single Source of Truth

Many companies today are already using Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems for the management of their product design data and documents, but they are not leveraging the same system for their manufacturing data and documents. While most see PLM as a tool to manage engineering documentation alone, we focus on PLM as a central environment for the management of all the data related to the lifecycle of the product. By creating a single source of truth, and enabling both engineering and manufacturing to revise, collaborate and communicate within one system effectively, a consolidated PLM solution ensures that the transition from product concept to a concrete, touchable object will be done correctly, efficiently and cost-effectively.

Digital Solutions for Document Management

A complete PLM solution will offer a centralized repository where relevant personnel from different groups - business, design, manufacturing planning and production - can all go to create, update, access, share and utilize tools to support and facilitate the create of design documents such as:

Specifications
Analysis reports
2D/3D illustrations
Spreadsheets
Test results
Technical publications
Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
Inspection and quality documents
Setup sheets
Tool and resource documents
Machine instructions/NC programs
Engineering Bill of Materials (eBOM)
Manufacturing Bill of Materials (mBOM)
Manufacturing Bill of Process (mBOP)
Parts lists
CAD (Computer-Aided Design) and CAM (Computer-Aided Manufacturing) files

All documents and technical publications will be in the same Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system as all your other product-related information. Authorized personnel will have direct access to up-to-date product information like Bill of Materials (BOM), parts lists and 3D geometry, and can work to the same milestones. Within your integrated PLM environment, you can keep your product design and documentation aligned with product changes to reduce the time and cost of development, while improving document accuracy and effectiveness.

Benefits of Digital Solutions for Document Management

Engineering can help you implement a system that will be flexible enough to integrate with your existing processes and IT infrastructure while providing the security and usability necessary to make sure that the right people have access to the right information at the right time. Leveraging the leading PLM software and tools on the market, we will deliver integrated document management solutions to help you

Increase efficiency through automatic content creation and organization
Improve quality of data and documents by centralizing management
Facilitate sharing of important documents across enterprise (engineering to shop floor to ERP)
Improve change management and revision control processes
Reduce duplicated efforts in drafting documentation
Reduce costs of managing physical paper copies
Improve security by ensuring that document access is controlled and stored documents are only accessible to users who are authorized to view them