Supplier's Control Cycles Sped Up by PLM System to the Benefit of Vehicle Manufacturers

Published 25th February 2008

“With nearly 100 top level SKUs and more than 2000 parts in our database, we recognized the need for a system that would require us to be more rigorous in our change control process and provide the kind of history and documentation that is necessary to ensure the quality to which we are committed.”

- Gerrit Kruitbosch, Vice President of Engineering, Edge Products

PLM Speeds Up Supplier's Control Cycles to Benefit of Vehicle Manufacturers

Customer
Founded in 1999, Edge Products has become the premier name for aftermarket performance electronics for the gas and diesel truck, and Jeep markets. Edge has been named three times to the Inc. 500's fastest growing privately held companies, and was noted as Utah's fourth fastest growing company between 1999 and 2004. Edge currently employs more than 100 individuals and resides in a 32,000 square foot facility in Ogden, Utah.

Edge produces modules and programmers for all major vehicle manufacturers, including Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Jeep, and RV under the following brands: the A2, Juice, Attitude, Evolution, EZ, Insight, Mileage Max, and Trail Jammer. Since its inception, Edge has been known for the power its modules and programmers produce. However, what sets the company apart from its competitors is its monitoring capabilities. Coupled with the additional gains in horsepower, Edge's ability to display multiple engine parameters - and to provide associated safety features for those parameters on its stylish in-cab monitors - has revolutionized the industry. Edge endeavors to produce the highest quality products on the market and to deliver them with superior customer and technical support.

Challenge/Situation
Edge is a rapidly growing company and the nature of their products requires fast development cycles. For example, if a vehicle manufacturer makes a change to an existing product, Edge must react quickly, often with a change to their products. “Communication of change information from the vehicle OEMs is a major challenge”, stated Gerrit Kruitbosch, Vice President of Engineering for Edge Products. “Edge receives little to no information from the manufacturers on product changes which can sometimes happen weekly, so keeping up with the changes on our end required an automated system to help us keep track of our internal change process.” However, the benefit to the vehicle manufacturer is the model with the greatest quantity of advanced, after market products sells the best. Also, 90% of these add on products are purchased within the first 90 days of new vehicle ownership, adding more pressure on Edge's turnaround time.

Edge’s manual engineering processes were not conducive to this constantly changing product design environment. The company wanted to implement electronic processes for easy access to product information and improved efficiency. Edge had an ERP system in place which contained parts and order information but lacked the type of functionality required to manage detailed engineering data, particularly engineering changes.

“We release about 10-15 new products and process over 350 engineering change orders per year, with a Documentation Control department consisting of a single person who also has many other responsibilities,” said Mr. Kruitbosch. “With nearly 100 top level SKUs and more than 2000 parts in our database, we recognized the need for a system that would require us to be more rigorous in our change control process and provide the kind of history and documentation that is necessary to ensure the quality we are committed to.”

Customer Goals
Edge was looking for a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system to remove the paperwork burden and provide a complete documentation trail. They searched specifically for a system that included engineering change, Bill of Material (BOM) and documentation management. Direct integration with their existing ERP system, Sage MAS 90 ERP, was a necessity.

They wanted a flexible solution that could be easily adapted to their internal company practices such as part numbering schemes and revisions. Edge also wanted a PLM system with robust search capabilities and ease-of-use to get the company up and running quickly.

Omnify Solution
“We reviewed several of the key PLM vendors and were quite satisfied with the way Omnify provided solutions to meet our specific needs,” continued Kruitbosch. Omnify Software, headquartered in Andover, MA., is a leading provider of business-ready product lifecycle and change management solutions for manufacturers in the electronics, mechanical, medical and defense industries. The Omnify PLM solution is built on an open technology platform, offering direct interfaces to engineering tools and manufacturing systems for quick adoption without interruption in existing processes. Edge was able to deploy the system smoothly, from importing all of their part data to building all of their BOMs from scratch. Leveraging web services made customizing the environment to meet company practices and integrating with their ERP system a simple process.

As a result of implementing Omnify Empower PLM, Edge now has the ability to store all relevant product information in one location. Electronic change control has provided the complete review and sign-off process for which Edge was looking. The direct sharing of part and BOM information between Empower PLM and their ERP system, upgraded to Sage MAS 200 ERP, eliminates manual data entry errors and ensures accuracy of product change information across the enterprise.

Edge also uses Omnify Empower as a place to track their New Product Development (NPD) cycle. “We use a gated review process where each milestone is indicated by the revision increment of an NPD item in Omnify and all relevant documentation such as risk analysis and marketing requirements are stored with the item for reference by the entire cross-functional team”, said Gerrit. “Omnify has proven to be a very effective resource for not only our engineering design team, but also for our production group”.


Return on Investment
Product quality has increased resulting in a major reduction in product returns. “Omnify has been a significant contributor to a 50% reduction in our product return rates,” confirmed Gerrit. Warranty costs have also decreased dramatically without Edge having to make any substantial increases to overhead.

Omnify has provided a mechanism to facilitate communicating requirements with Edge's external manufacturing partners, enabling Edge to catch a number of inconsistencies in documentation with their suppliers and contract manufacturers that they would not have caught previous to implementing Omnify. “The documentation trail in Omnify is invaluable,” noted Gerrit.

“We have, without question, become much more refined in our change control management,” said Gerrit. “The structured processes we have established allow us to be much more thorough and eliminate inaccuracies we would have not known about prior to Omnify.” With Omnify Empower PLM, Edge is able to manage product changes effectively, helping them to react quickly to vehicle OEM changes while continuing to deliver high quality products.

Key Benefits

• Improved Product Quality

• Cost Savings
- Reduce costly rework
- Over a 50% reduction in product return rates
- Decreased warranty costs

• Streamline Communication
- Automate manual processes
- Controlled change processes
- Ensure accuracy of data across the enterprise
- Standardize and organize internal processes
- Easily share data with internal and external teams

• Business-ready solution
- Easy to use
- Fast implementation
- Open technology platform for integration with existing ERP system
- Flexible to adapt to company practices