Aras Innovator Integration with Microsoft SharePoint

Three Steps Manufacturers can take to Reduce the Cost of Quality

Summary

 Figure 1 - Generalized View of the Product Lifecycle of Activities

Manufacturers are constantly striving to reduce the “Cost of Quality” (CoQ) associated with the design and manufacturing of their products. This cost is reflected in the expenses of redesigning existing parts, scrap and rework, expedited shipping, warranties, and even the company’s reputation. According to analysts and industry groups, these expenses can represent profit leakage from 3 to 10 percent of a company’s annual revenues.

This is not surprising, given that the product life cycle consists of a maze of activities supported by inherently disconnected manual processes and applications producing a steady flow of product-related content. These applications can include product data management (PDM), product lifecycle management (PLM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and others.  Figure 1 illustrates both the activities (chevrons) and various applications.

Organizations have long recognized that data silos impact profitability. They have pursued various initiatives to “unify” access, including attempts at point-to-point integrations, building data warehouses, and more recently, standing up cloud-based data lakes. The results have been mixed. In part, these initiatives were designed to provide analytics and insights not intended for end-users and consumers across the enterprise, let alone contract manufacturers, suppliers, and vendors.

The good news is that a convergence of proven technologies and processes are available to offer manufacturers a reduction of 15% to 25% in their CoQ. This article highlights a three-pronged approach that brings Aras Innovator together with Microsoft SharePoint, provides corrective action/preventative action (CAPA) feedback mechanisms, and is infused with AI capabilities applied to the collection of released product data and files.

As noted in Figure 1 above, product lifecycle management (PLM), or Aras Innovator, is the cornerstone of product design and engineering activities. It supports the treatment of parts, bill of materials (BOM), documents, and drawings, as well as processes for change/configuration management, requirements management, quality (proactive and reactive), manufacturing process planning and routings, other modules of functionality.  It is effectively the “headwaters” of product data that feeds vital downstream activities such as sourcing, procurement, inventory management, production planning, and so on.

 The Impending Paradigm Shift

The introduction of car-sharing apps many years ago combined the prerequisite technologies of the internet, mobile phones, location services, and payment services that make these applications ubiquitous. Likewise, today there is a unique convergence of technologies and proven processes that collectively offer manufacturers the opportunity to reduce their CoQ. It’s early enough … it doesn’t even have a name yet. Regardless, the solution represents a three-pronged approach that includes …

•  unify data by leveraging Microsoft SharePoint as the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platform - acts as a central repository for all product data, including files, documents, and drawings automatically released from Aras Innovator

• enable Corrective Action/Preventative Action (CAPA -  empower SharePoint users to effect change back to Aras Innovator

• leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) - train AI on your internal, released product data, drawings, documents, etc.

Figure 2 highlights the convergence of these key technologies …

 Figure 2 - A Paradigm Shift in Extending the Value of Aras Product Data to the Enterprise

Given Aras’ central role in defining product data, it might be referred to as the “System of Record.” Products/parts are designed and engineered in Aras. Once completed, Aras’ engineering change process “releases” the product data, documents, and drawings to SharePoint as well as ERP and other applications.  In this context, SharePoint can be considered the “System of Engagement.” The advantages of SharePoint are its ubiquitous presence in the Office 365 suite, integration with Teams, rich library of add-ons, and now AI.

 A critical overlay to the product data and files that now exists in SharePoint is functionality that empowers users to effect change. However, rather than recreating change processes in SharePoint, a problem report or investigation request in SharePoint is used to activate a corresponding problem report in Aras Innovator.  The engineering change process developed in Aras Innovator is often the result of months of crafting the right combination of workflows, tasks, and assignments. Hence, the theme is to leverage this existing functionality.  From within SharePoint, users can markup and annotate files and/or drawings (PDFs), describe the issues, and then start the process.  Upon doing so, an Aras Innovator problem report is automatically created. 

 Finally, infuse the product data with AI.  This capability only recently appeared.  But today, Microsoft’s Copilot is ubigquotous in the Microsoft stack.  And this game changing functionality is trained against released product data. 

 What Does This All Mean?

 Net-net, this is all about reducing the CoQ by 15% to 25%.

 The approach to achieving this business outcome is to automate the release of product data from Aras Innovator to SharePoint.  Within SharePoint, as the system of engagement, product data is now easily and securely accessible to users across the enterprise and can even include partners, suppliers, and vendors. SharePoint users are empowered to effect change to ensure issues that arise can readily be brought back to Aras Innovator, the system of record. And AI is being trained against internally “released” data, not external sources that can include questionable content. In turn it is expected to drive user adoption, design maturity, and other decision-making insights. This can include finding internal expertise, accelerating, discerning quality trends, augmenting product ideation, and more.

 Interestingly enough, the ability to achieve this vision is possible without disrupting and/or displacing existing applications. The technology is here today and leverages out-of-the-box capabilities, hence minimizing extensive and lengthy implementation efforts and costs. Like ride-sharing apps came into existence years ago, a significant opportunity exists for manufacturers to readily effect change and ultimately drive down their cost of quality. It is an imperative that manufacturers must embrace to remain competitive and profitable in our ever-changing global economy.