Solutions for Product Development Challenges

The core mission of a solution designed to manage product development is to effectively manage the communication of information between product and manufacturing engineering and the shop floor.

The PeopleSoft Product Development business solution places you in control of the current engineering environment by providing each individual in the engineering process access to the information that they need, as well as the ability to accurately pass that information through each phase of the product development life-cycle. This workflow driven solution enables engineers to proactively process new product introductions from concept through detailed design through prototyping and into full-scale production. Post-release engineering change requests resulting from product defects, enhancements, material and component and substitutions are also effectively managed. The business solution for managing product development is flexible enough to be tailored to meet the unique requirements of your business; yet, it clearly provides the necessary structure to manage this complex process.

The PeopleSoft Product Development business solution enables you to define and maintain ECRs, ECOs, EBOMs, ERTGs, and item revisions.

You can manage documents with secure versioning and a supported computer-aided design (CAD) viewer. Clicking one field sets up the integration to Documentum™. You accurately control product revision history, always associating or accessing the correct documents for the appropriate revision.

You can also roll up and calculate the cost of new or changed products, make mass BOM changes, and incorporate PeopleSoft Workflow.

The work resides in an independent engineering workbench that isolates changes from production data. You can transfer BOMs and routings to manufacturing either by assembly item or by approved ECO.

Engineering, planning, costing, quality, shop floor, marketing, customer service, as well as suppliers and customers can all use one tool set and user interface to access crucial product development data.

The process-oriented approach enables you to view data in terms of business processes rather than as raw transactions, making it easy for managers and directors to access the information that they need to meet operational objectives.

The PeopleSoft Product Development (or design-to-deploy) business solution includes these applications:

  • PeopleSoft Manufacturing

  • PeopleSoft Cost Management

  • PeopleSoft Inventory

  • PeopleSoft Engineering

PeopleSoft Engineering

PeopleSoft Engineering provides both specific product development functionality and openness to other systems. It provides an independent engineering workbench environment consisting of EBOMs, ERTGs, ECRs, ECOs, cost roll-up capability, online EBOM comparisons, and seamless integration to a leading document management vault product. This workbench enables you to create and maintain engineering data without affecting production.

This functionality, combined with the workflow-enabled PeopleSoft architecture, enables you to manage the routing, approval, and notification of ECRs, ECOs, and associated BOM and routing additions or changes.

Integrated Engineering Functionality

You can tailor the implementation and complexity of PeopleSoft Engineering to meet your business needs. You can use it to maintain new and pending product structures or to manage the engineering change order approval process throughout the organization. PeopleSoft Engineering delivers:

  • An independent engineering workbench that isolates changes from production data.

  • ECRs that enable you to receive, review, and maintain and then optionally convert to ECOs.

  • Robust ECO functionality and complete change process support.

    You can use ECOs to manage the various activities required to implement multiple types of engineering changes.

  • EBOMs and item revisions that incorporate all manufacturing BOM features, including a full range of inquiries, as well as online and background looping verification.

    You can specify both pending and approved items as components on an EBOM. In addition, you can specify component placeholders in cases where the item number isn't yet known. When managing engineering BOMs using ECOs, you can view pending ECO information within EBOM and revision pages.

  • Engineering routings that incorporate all production routing features including the use of work centers, tasks, resources, and copy functions.

  • PeopleSoft Navigator and PeopleSoft Workflow capability.

    You can maintain and route ECOs within PeopleSoft Workflow so that multiple users can be involved in creating, reviewing, and implementing changes.

  • Engineering BOM comparison.

    At any point during the development process, you can compare engineering BOMs online with manufacturing BOMs or other engineering BOMs. This is available for engineering routing comparisons.

  • Enterprise document management integration with secure versioning.

  • Integration with PeopleSoft Manufacturing, including copying BOMs and routings or transferring them by either approved ECO or by assembly item.

    You can also make mass manufacturing bills of material (MBOM) or EBOM changes from within PeopleSoft Engineering. Also, there is integration with PeopleSoft Cost Management, including the definition of engineering cost versions for cost simulations.

  • A diverse set of inquiries and reports.

  • The capability to specify alternate BOMs for an item and define and track multiple outputs (co-products and by-products) throughout the system.

  • EBOM, ECO, and ECR data sharing with the suppliers over the internet (if you have also purchased PeopleSoft Engineering.)

    Suppliers can view EBOMs and ECOs, as well as view and create ECRs, and use PeopleSoft Workflow to facilitate successful outsourcing.

  • The capability to define specific component revisions to be associated with an assembly; automatically generate revisions; define substitute items; plan for the end of life of components and the beginning of life for their replacements (use up effectivity); create rework BOMs; define master routings; and indicate that a component could be a potential output from a teardown order.

  • Detailed variance analysis after production is complete.

  • The capacity to analyze potential production variances: utilizing workflow to notify appropriate roles when variances exceed a predefined tolerance.

  • The capability to define engineering-specific cost versions and related data.

    You can roll up and calculate new or changed product costs, as well as estimate the cost of newly designed manufactured items.