It is a question we get frequently: “DELMIA Apriso is an MES/MOM solution. Why put Warehouse Management in MOM?” There are several reasons we chose to include WMS as part of the DELMIA Apriso MOM solution. The first, and probably most significant, reason is: Material Synchronization.
There are two significant gaps in a traditional environment where ERP or a stand-alone Warehouse Management System (WMS) manages materials and a typical MES system is used in a production environment:
- A typical WMS or ERP can’t see Work In Progress (WIP) and detailed operation status on the Production floor. The production floor and WIP are basically a “black hole”
An ERP or WMS system knows where raw materials and components are and knows when production is started and completed, but can’t see anything inside the process. This means that in a multi-step production environment – a long assembly line, for example – there is no way to move materials to a given station in a just-in-time manner; you have to have all materials in place for the complete assembly / production run when the first operation starts. If you don’t, you risk stopping the line due to stations being out of material. This leads to higher than necessary inventory costs, as well as lower productivity due to potential clutter and confusion at the stations in the line.
2. A traditional MES solution sees WIP and details of the production floor, but can’t see component and raw material inventory, completed sub-assemblies, or finished goods. This creates a couple of “black holes” in overall material visibility
Because a traditional MES system has no visibility into inventory, the system is always going to assume that all of the necessary materials are in place. In reality, this may not always be true, so lines and machines may be set up according to a predefined schedule but then may have to be stopped due to a lack of materials or changed over in the middle of a production run. This results in lower productivity and increased material handling costs since material handlers may be forced to stop their planned tasks to deal with emergency exceptions.
By providing traditional MES functionality and a manufacturing-based WMS / Logistics solution in a single, integrated platform, DELMIA Apriso provides complete visibility across the entire manufacturing and materials process from receiving through production and on to shipping
This visibility provides significant value in terms of reduced inventories, increased productivity and even improved quality and safety numbers. Our customers have experienced 24-45% reductions in inventory, 25+% improvements in throughput / productivity as well as significant quality and safety improvements through this ability to synchronize materials / logistics with the shop floor in real time.
Warehouse WMS MOM
