Work order reconciliation in DELMIA Apriso is key topic of our Work Order Creation in Fabrication (WOC-F) scenario.
3DExperience’s DELMIA Digital Manufacturing applications, such as Process Planning and Work Instructions, enable manufacturing engineers to define rich content that is intended to be used by employees using DELMIA Apriso on the shop floor. Traditionally, this process planning information is ‘dumbed down’ by being encapsulated into a single PDF or PPT, and sent to Apriso via the ERP. The problem with this traditional approach is that it significantly reduces the value of defining process planning content in 3DExperience, and then using the content in Apriso.
Alerts, sign-offs / buyoffs, 3D views, data collect plans, steps, resource specific documents, and skills, are examples of the process planning content I am referring to. By defining this content in process planning, there should be an expectation that Apriso and shop floor employees can go beyond just viewing this content in a PDF, or PPT. As an example, Apriso should be able to enforce compliance systematically for sign-offs and required skills. Apriso should be able to track and enforce the collection of multiple readings for a data collect in a data collect plan. Apriso should be able to generate an alert, or take action if a collected value is out of control, or breaches a spec limit. Apriso’s DNC should automatically know which equipment an NC program is defined for. But it’s impossible for Apriso to provide this functionality by parsing and interpreting a PDF, or PPT, from the ERP.
An alternative, better approach is for Apriso to receive this rich process planning information directly from 3DExperience. Thankfully, this functionality is available out of the box and improved with every release.
But this better approach does not come for free. Not everything needed for execution in Apriso is defined by manufacturing engineers in 3DExperience. Apriso still creates work orders from ERP production orders, and these production orders contain important shop floor information such as scheduled start dates, machines to be used, pegged inventory lots and/or serials and the production order # itself. And frequently there are dozens of customer specific details (from the sales order) that need to be understood on the shop floor, that do not reside in the process plan.
To further complicate things, there is some information that exists in both the 3DX process plan AND the ERP production order, which conflict. For example, the process plan has a theoretical operation ‘duration’ whereas the ERP production order has a scheduled duration that may include a change-over. The process plan has a list of possible resource types that could be used, whereas the ERP production order has the selected specific resource that should be used based upon current availability, capacity and recent performance.
If this better, alternative approach is to be used, it is important to determine which Apriso work order information will originate from which system.
In our DCTF Work Order Creation (WOC) and Work Order Creation in Fabrication (WOC-F) scenarios, the process to create a work order in Apriso is as follows:
- Receive production order from ERP.
- Explode work order in Apriso against process plan specified by the ERP production order.
- Overwrite process plan information with ERP production order information, where applicable.
The following chart, specific to our WOC-F scenario, outlines the source of the information per element in the Apriso work order.
Our selection is not the only way to proceed, and may not even be the best way to proceed, because each manufacturer has their own unique requirements and constraints. This is but a single example. The key take-away is that this reconciliation process to create the Apriso work order is a mandatory, EARLY design step that requires involvement from PLM, ERP, APS and MOM stakeholders. Choices that are made during this activity will have significant impact into how each of the applications involved will be implemented and then used.
