Analytical,
standardised
and
integrative.
Best practice standardised planning structures and processes as the basis of your success
With substantial business and process know-how we develop standard best practice structures and processes for complex project development and planning activities. In terms of a comprehensive solution made up of structures, processes and methods, our solutions will contribute to a considerable increase in efficiency in your company.
Process development through the "PER4M" agile procedure model
We draw on the "PER4M" agile procedure model to implement these processes. The model is based on early and active customer involvement in the solution development process. We are not only able to drastically reduce the implementation time using this model, but also achieve a high user acceptance level in the rollout of new processes and systems in your company.
Analysis
- Discussion and analysis of customer requirements
- Discussion of the current situation and identification of potential improvements
- Identification of the preconditions for the implementation of improved solutions
- Development of appropriate process images and a professional context diagram
- First check of mutual understanding of the envisaged solution based on process and context diagram
Prototype
- First implementation of prototype of the envisaged solutions
- Presentation and joint review of the prototypes
- Second check and assessment of business and system requirements based on the prototype
- Identification of changes and upgrades
- Upgrading of the prototype to meet the main requirements
Decision
- Joint workshop to assess the final solution
based on the prototype - Approval of the solution
- Calculation of the time and expense
- Joint decision "do it" or "don't do it"
Implementation
- Agile project implementation and speedy Go Live (reduced "time to success“)
Reference processes
Below is a brief extract of topics based on implementations of optimised processes and our EN4M™ IT solution.
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Project management
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Project management
Cross-process scheduling for a bodywork manufacturing process, subject to a Project Master Timing Chart.
- Cross-linked scheduling for selected parts of the process chain (for example project-component-tool set).
- Automatic recognition and communication of deadline conflicts when attempting to change dates, flagged for all linked process partners.
- Automated work-flows for the prevention of process risks initiated for specified events.
- Efficient collaboration via web portal, ensuring straight-forward and secure integration of internal and external partners.
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Scenario management
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Scenario management
Prompt assessment of new vehicle development projects using both business management and engineering criteria (for example investment required, anticipated product costs, commonality rating).
- Automatic creation of a range of alternative product designs using stored templates with reference information on technical and business management planning data (for example materials used, manufacturing process employed, required investment, product costs).
- Automatic computation of information relevant to a decision, for example investment, product costs, degree of material utilisation, for a product/product group (for example car bodywork, module, plant, production facilities).
- Automated comparison of alternative scenarios to facilitate recognition of differences.
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Program and deliverable management
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Program and deliverable management
Efficient scheduling and management of deliverables in the product development phase, as a preventative measure to safeguard serial production and product quality.
- Across-the-board and cross-process program management by standardised planning and management of gateway scheduling and deliverables, along with their associated dependencies.
- Automatic identification of critical deliverables with regard to planned gateways and SOP to ensure early avoidance of process risks and risks to quality.
- Automatic computation of the criticality of the development project as a whole, with advice on the causes and associated work-flows (drill-down).
- Automated reporting with integrated management information system.
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Change management
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Change management
Accelerated scheduling and control of proposed changes concerning the product or production, while also safeguarding the current engineering or production process.
- Automatic recognition and communication of any product changes via interface to BOM and associated automated work-flow.
- Automatic computation of the impact of changes with regard to product costs, investment, deadlines, and quality.
- Online monitoring of all changes of status, investment requirements, changes to product costs, deadline postponements.
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Production planning and control
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Production planning and control
Automated and universal manufacturing planning for the bodywork of a vehicle, from the early phase of product development to transfer for serial production.
- Early and continuous targeted information on the engineering and business-management aspects of the manufacturing process, automatically compiled from the manufacturing plans on the basis of prepared knowledge-templates.
- Safeguarding the subsequent serial production by automatic plausibility checks on the technical side to avoid planning errors, with an associated calculation of the maturity level.
- On-going cost and investment control by automatic calculation of investment costs and product costs on the basis of the technical planning data.
- Automatic generation of a work schedule and transfer to production control system for the avoidance of planning errors in the production scheduling.
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Feasibility management
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Feasibility management
Cross-process evaluation of the technical feasibility of manufacturing given products, so as to safeguard serial production and product quality at an early stage.
- Automatic calculation of the critical aspects of manufacturing, for speedy identification of risk drivers.
- Process-integrated documentation and assessment of product risks to accelerate and safeguard the assessment process.
- Visualisation of production risks to facilitate smoother traceability of risks.
- Computation of decision-relevant information needed to implement the changes - information such as supplementary investment, increases in product costs, deadline postponements and space requirements.
- Integration of all process partners involved, with an associated automated work-flow and notification system.
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Material planning and optimization
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Material planning and optimisation
Optimisation of material usage to reduce product unit costs.
- Structuring, parameterisation and calculation of the differing nesting (positioning of blanks on sheet metal) scenarios for the manufacture of selected shaped blanks, including variants to the scenario.
- Managing variants: Selection of the favoured variants as well as favoured results of a nesting scenario.
- Usage and control of an optimisation algorithm to calculate the cost-optimal nesting layout for a scenario.
- Plausibility check of a nesting scenario, to check if it is filled out sufficiently before doing an optimisation computation. The user is notified of any missing information at this stage.
- Current status checks of nesting scenario, to see whether/which of the used master data (for example blank, materials or plant) has changed since the last computation.
- Integration of a 3D viewer to display the geometry of the blanks and the nesting layout. The nesting layout can be post-adjusted manually by the user and the optimisation newly applied.
- Integration of a quality checker to check the quality of the blank contour.
- Implementation of both scenario and optimisation result comparisons.
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Product costs management
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Product costs management
Automatic computation of product costs based on technical and business parameters as well as integrating change management
- Top-down target-planning of product costs to control the target and budget compliance.
- Calculation of product unit costs based on technical and business management planning data.
- Automatic calculation of forecast values for production costs on the basis of identified changes.
- Bottom-up calculation of the actual product costs as compared to the planned and forecast values.
- Automatic calculation of deviation from target values and criticality with associated work-flow.
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Invest management
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Investment management
Automatic calculation of investment status on the basis of technical and business management planning data.
- Top-down target-planning of investment to control target and budget compliance.
- Calculation of investment on the basis of technical and business management planning data.
- Automatic calculation of forecast values on the basis of identified changes.
- Bottom-up calculation of the actual investment on the basis of the contracts assigned and/or approved, and amendments in comparison with the planned and forecast values.
- Automatic calculation of deviation from target values and criticality with associated work-flow.
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Pre-production planning
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Pre-production planning
Safeguarding of pre-serial startup by transparent planning and management of component requirements.
- Automatic determination of consumer needs.
- Automatic control of the scheduling process with integration of the supplier.
- Automatic control of the finishing process.
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System integration
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System integration
Increased efficiency by cross-process system integration.
- Unidirectional integration of production/manufacture bills of materials.
- Bidirectional integration of data updates.
- Bidirectional integration of financial data.
- Unidirectional integration of company master data.
- Bidirectional integration of production planning data.
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Calculation
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Calculation
Standardised generation of quotations in a customer specific quote structure incl. template use.
- For the calculation of services, resources can be used together with their costs and possibly different customer end prices.
- For the calculation of products, technical details can be taken into account and be considered in cost and price calculations. This is how, for example, prices for components are determined based on material and production costs and are considered in the calculation.
- Management and use of customer specific price lists.
- Quote specific price corrections or discounts after negotiations
- Margin calculation by quote item
- Definition of templates for recurring service packages
- Standardised customer specific quote text blocks to generate an offer document
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Issue management
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Issue management
Efficient planning and control of complex intentions
- Standardisation of intention and action planning
- Intentions are described by the goals and results to be achieved. Acceptance criteria defined for each intention help in measuring goal achievement.
- Simplified and transparent planning of dependencies (“predecessor” or “customer”) between different intentions
- Preventative control of the achievement of process results and identified issues
- Simple control of process results in the context of Gateway planning
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Demand management
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Demand management
Standardised control process for IT demands in order to manage demands efficiently and companywide
- Decentralised collection of demands at various locations
- Standardised evaluation and prioritisation of demands
- Evaluation of demands according to costs, investments, appoitments, business case
- Continuous controlling of status of demands by means of stage control
- Document Management Board
- Standardised approval process including several steps, which may be required for example because of various budget limits.
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Invest & budget planning
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Invest & budget planning
Standardised, companywide investment and budget planning processes that are integrated in area specific structures incl. Top-down Controlling
- Standardisation of investment and budget planning across all divisions of the company For every single division an individual planning or product structure can be used.
- Technical product structures (such as a manufacturing line with its machines, stations, setups and other equipment) can be integrated for the planning, calculation and control of investment and budget planning.
- Top-down target – commissioning and monitoring, bottom-up cumulation of the detailled investment and budget values.
- Integration of standardised change management as well as budget adjustments
- Integration of purchase orders and order management
- Consideration of project risks and provisions
- Top-down controlling process incl. dashboard and reports
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Test & validation planning
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Test & validation planning
Continuous test and validation process, can be evaluated according to preferred aspects, in order to keep an eye on the current quality status.
- Management of test case and requirements library with reference values
- >Generation of requirements with detailed requirement specifications, target values and test results as well as acceptance criteria to ensure the degree of maturity.
- Visualisation of dependencies between requirements and their impact
- Check of dependencies in test plans, direct overview of when which tests are upcoming and when they were carried out with which result
- Allowing for necessary test resources according to availability
- Protocolisation and versioning of test results as well as possibility to save protocols and test specifications as external documents
- Monitoring of planned and actual expense of tests carried out