Proposal of a CAD/PDM-ERP Integration Procedure

The current globalization process exposed the compa ni es to new challenges. One of those strongly related with the competitive strateg y of the companies is to develop better quality products faster and cheaper than the competitors. The companies have been investing great amount of resources in computer applica tions that aid the new products process development, such as: Computer Aided Des ign (CAD), Product Data Management (PDM) and Enterprise Resource Planning-(ERP) , only to name a few. A quick investigation inside these companies reveals that the computer applicati ons are being used in an isolated manner yielding automation islands inside the companies as a result. The responsibility of administrating product data (design or manufacture view) v aries from company to company, depending on the business sector the company belo ngs to. Based upon this criterion as well as the product complexity level of the , the companies can be usually classified into two categories: design center ed or manufacture centered. This activity classification of the companies is fundamental to establish the in tegration path between the PDM and ERP systems that differs greatly for both cat egories. This is due to the fact that the PDM systems are priority of the design -centered companies whereas ERP systems are priority of the manufacture centere d companies. The product structure (BOM Bills of Material) possesses a prominence position am ong the fundamental product information, because it represents the first step fo r the elaboration of a base of product data to be integrated. The BOM is also an element that generates integration once its data are used in the accomplishment of the activities of several areas of the company, as engineering, quality, PCP , purchases, maintenance, costing, marketing, sales and configuration, technical attendance and technology of information. Thus, the form as it is managed, cont rolled and structured directly it can influence the success of the company. Now, the segments of development of products that use of systems PDM and ERP, th ey use with a certain frequency two types of cadastres of materials for a produc t: the BOM of project and the BOM of manufacture. Usually, when the company poss esses two BOMs (I project and it manufactures), the BOM of project is used by th e project section and, consequently, in the system PDM, and the BOM of manuf acture is used in the system ERP to assist the manufacture activity. These struc tures present some differences, because, the planners list the items in agreemen t with the relationship (dependence and independence - father and son) among th em. But this is not enough to represent the manufacture restrictions or toleranc es, needing a different arrangement that assures its manufacture. Several they are the reasons that justify and implant of interfaces among the ap plications computer of administration of data of the product as: the need to cen tralize information in an only base of data, reduction of the cycle of developme nt of the product, automation of the administration processes and consistency of the data of the product. They are not all the companies that possess its problems identified, a lot of ti mes ignoring the problems that can be solved through the implant of an interface among the systems PDM and ERP. Thus, during the process of identification of th e possible tools they be she used in the optimization the process of development of products, a lot of subjects should be illuminated. This work seeks to present the main difficulties and advantages in the use of so lutions integrated in the process of development of products, as well as to tech nical analyses of the integration process among the systems CAD/PDM with the sys tems ERP.

The current globalization process exposed the compa ni es to new challenges. One of those strongly related with the competitive strateg y of the companies is to develop better quality products faster and cheaper than the competitors. The companies have been investing great amount of resources in computer applica tions that aid the new products process development, such as: Computer Aided Des ign (CAD), Product Data Management (PDM) and Enterprise Resource Planning-(ERP) , only to name a few. A quick inv...