Eliminating integration complexity

There's an inconvenient truth lying at the heart of most manufacturing businesses, says John Sharp, solutions architect at K3 Syspro. Namely, that despite extensive investments in ERP, manufacturers still possess a proliferation of disparate systems which must somehow be integrated into their overall IT infrastructure. Sometimes, that means integrating such disparate systems with other disparate systems. Sometimes, it means integrating them with the ERP system. And sometimes, unfortunately, it means both. And the number of such disparate systems is frightening, says Sharp. "At one manufacturer we recently worked with, an internal audit identified no fewer than 36 separate manufacturing-related systems, in addition to the core ERP system," he points out. "And that's by no means unusual: quite simply, small niche packages and self-developed Access and Excel systems are far more common than most people imagine." So how have manufacturers found themselves in this predicament? Wasn't the logic of ERP that it got rid of the need for so many separate systems? Yes, says Sharp – originally. And in certain core areas, that is very much the case. "Go back to ERP's roots, and you see its real core strengths: bill-of-material management, MRPII, inventory control, sales order processing, purchase ordering and accounting," he says. "And over the years, that core has been added to: document management, quality, maintenance, advanced scheduling, human resource management, and so on. But that still leaves gaps – and the recent additions, such as document management, are of varying calibre." And the result, he says, is that manufacturers take the core ERP system, and surround it with systems that either suit them better than the ERP vendors' secondary offerings – a best-of-breed quality system or document management system, for example –and then add third party and self-developed systems to fill the gaps that ERP doesn't cover. Which is how we get to today's situation, he points out. "What you end up with is a very good core ERP system, surrounded by a second layer of systems which are a reasonable fit, and then a proliferation of other systems, developed to fill specific gaps that the ERP vendors don't regard as strategic," sums up Sharp. "It's a headache to manage, a headache to integrate, and you don't have the workflow opportunities between all of the systems that exist in the outer layers that are present in the core ERP system." But don't hold your breath waiting for ERP vendors to somehow expand their core offering to encompass the workloads undertaken by these ad hoc systems at the perimeter. They're ad hoc for a very good reason, says Sharp: it's here that most manufacturers' processes, procedures and priorities vary most widely. "At the core, there's an awful lot of commonality. Because what one manufacturer wants from inventory control, or MRPII, or sales order processing, will be very similar to what another manufacturer wants," he argues. "And that's true, too – although to a lesser degree – of 'secondary' offerings such as quality management, warehouse management or maintenance. But on the perimeter, there's a huge amount of variation." And just look at the sort of activities embraced by these perimeter systems: change control, defect investigation, new product introduction and document management – here, a lot of the content and workflow is dependent on how the manufacturer performs the activities, which in turn depends upon aspects of its culture, management style, and corporate DNA. Forget a universal 'best practice', in other words – it's about developing an approach that works for an individual organisation. In short, says Sharp, these systems are out there, and must be managed, integrated and leveraged. They're important, and fulfil a need – but they aren't going to be subsumed into any vendor's core ERP offering. "Buy a mainstream ERP system and you'll still need to have all these extra 'perimeter' systems, because they're vital to the business," he says. "You need the information contained within these systems, you need it in real time, and you can't afford to re-key it." In other words, manufacturers must recognise that their integration issues aren't going to go away – irrespective of their choice of ERP vendor. Which, in turn, means that for both manufacturers and ERP vendors, there's a strategic opportunity to embrace that integration challenge, working to proactively simplify and manage it as seamlessly as possible. And for proof, says Sharp, look no further than longstanding K3 Syspro ERP customer Cobham Antenna Systems, part of FTSE-250 aerospace group Cobham. Wanting to streamline its business processes, the management team at Cobham recognised that it needed to integrate a number of best-of-breed individual solutions to deliver levels of automation and control that were appropriate for the advanced aerospace environment in which the company operated. And the specific impetus for change was the need to automate its engineering change control and document management systems, integrating them with Syspro to provide controlled access to the more than 70,000 designs and production documents it held, making them easily accessible in a controlled way to its design and engineering staff, as well as the company's production operators. The solution? SinglePoint, a software product from K3 Syspro, which consultants use alongside Syspro's Workflow Service to integrate the ERP system and the SinglePoint document management module, allowing companies to design, manufacture and supply products through one simple system. The Workflow Service transfers data between the two systems in real time, explains Sharp, allowing Cobham to control its design and production processes from end to end using a fully-integrated document management system. This system provides a workflow-driven document change control process along with a web-based document viewing portal, ensuring Syspro users can only view properly-released and version-controlled documents and drawings. But this, though, was just the start, says Sharp. Wherever they looked, Cobham managers began to see other opportunities to use SinglePoint to simplify integration and workflow – and duly tasked K3 Syspro with delivering the capability to do just that. The reporting of labour times associated with individual works orders was a case in point, calling for a rules-based solution that would enable Cobham to book the time and labour costs associated with orders – from design, where time is recorded on a weekly basis against individual projects; to production, where real-time labour content reporting is associated with work orders on the factory floor. In short, says Sharp, the combination of a workflow engine, the simple screen design tool contained within SinglePoint, and the interface with Syspro delivered a solution to meet these diverse needs. And the fact that Syspro's internal design is built around 446 'business objects', he adds, makes that tie-up even more straightforward: the 'business object' handles issues such as validation, meaning that all that is required is a link between SinglePoint and the appropriate business object. "We're hugely impressed with what the combination of K3 Syspro and SinglePoint has achieved at Cobham, and we see it as a template for future rollouts," sums up Sharp. "The potential to deliver not just integration but simplification is enormous – and at Cobham, a large number of separate systems have shrunk to just two: Syspro and SinglePoint. And functionality has been enhanced, not reduced."