Siemens selects Agile to drive competitive advantage

Siemens Communications is to implement ‘collaborative manufacturing commerce’ IT firm Agile Software’s Product Collaboration and Product Sourcing suites at its UK engineering and manufacturing facilities, with extensions for its key supply chain partners. Siemens says it expects the system to help it reduce the cost of goods sold, the time to source direct materials, and both the time and costs associated with ramping new products to volume production. Siemens’ Operations Division does design, manufacture and distribution for its OEM telecommunication products. The division also provides engineering design services and contract electronics manufacturing for third parties. Director of Operations David Bartlett says: “We look to the Agile solution to provide time compression within our new product introduction (NPI) process, so we can be more flexible and responsive. We operate in very competitive markets … and meeting the increasing demands … is always a primary consideration.” Mike Harby, head of manufacturing, adds: “We expect to start getting ROI in less than seven months. [Agile] systems will help us optimise sourcing, quotation and NPI processes. “By improving the flow of information and shortening the time necessary for these, the Agile solutions will help us get products to volume production more quickly while minimising direct materials costs. This is essential to the management of our OEM and CEM customers’ expectations.” The system is to be integrated with Siemens’ existing Baan ERP system. Agile, which started out providing product and production definition software for the electronics and high tech industries, spanning from R&D right through manufacturing, sales and after-sales service, sees the contract as right in its heartland. Greg Schott, Agile’s senior vice president of marketing, says that firms like Siemens are notable for seeing steadily shrinking product lifecycles and profit windows, so Agile’s provision of a product description-centric view (e-drawings, BOMs, the lot) are key to success. He also suggests that as these characteristics become more common across more of the manufacturing landscape, the market for its systems will grow.