Increasing Engineering Process Participation

In traditional systems, many manufacturing system users, who should be participants in the engineering process, aren't able to participate because of the lack of integration between the manufacturing system and the supporting engineering systems. This list demonstrates how different enterprise participants outside the engineering department need to be involved in the process:

• Suppliers need to:

  • Provide component quotes.

  • Participate in the design process.

• Purchasing needs to:

  • Provide and track quotes.

  • Look at the short- and long-term availability of components.

  • Look at short- and long-term contracts and pricing.

• Accounting must evaluate costs, to determine the potential return on investment (ROI) for products.

• Manufacturing needs to determine whether the designs can be manufactured.

• Planners need visibility to future new product requirements so that they can properly plan for new materials and capacity.

• Sales and marketing must review products, for customer feedback.

The engineering system is also involved with product changes that can impact all of the groups mentioned. The ability to effectively coordinate the tasks of all of the participants in the design and approval process and give them timely access to the right information can help businesses to:

• Improve quality.

• Reduce costs.

• Shorten the time to market.

This is where PeopleSoft Engineering and its workflow-enabled system comes in.