Industrial digital continuity: the lever for improving your ROI and accelerating time-to-market

In many manufacturing companies, product data changes hands around ten times between the idea and delivery: from the design office to manufacturing engineering, from purchasing to production, from quality to after-sales. At each handover, it is exported, re-keyed and reinterpreted. Digital continuity means moving this data without breaks, from design to maintenance, using connected systems: PLM, ERP, MES, EAM.

This is not purely an IT matter. It is a direct lever on two indicators that every executive team tracks: return on investment and time-to-market.

What breaks in the digital chain cost

Breaks do not show up on a balance sheet, but they are paid for every day:

• engineering time lost searching for the right version of a drawing, a bill of materials or a document;
• re-keying between PLM and ERP, with the errors that come with it;
• changes not properly carried over: purchases on an obsolete revision, production launched on an old revision index, scrap and rework;
• parts recreated because an existing reference could not be found, inflating inventory and the part database;
• back-and-forth between the design office and the shop floor, lengthening every development phase;
• traceability reconstructed by hand during a customer audit, a certification or a non-conformance.

How digital continuity accelerates time-to-market

Time-to-market is rarely decided at a single stage. It is won by eliminating the dead time between stages.

• Concurrent engineering: when manufacturing engineering, purchasing and quality access the product definition in real time, they can prepare industrialisation and consult suppliers before the design is fully frozen.
• Faster changes: a change request flows through a single workflow, with its impact analysis on bills of materials, routings and open orders, instead of a chain of emails.
• More reliable industrialisation: the transition from the engineering bill of materials (EBOM) to the manufacturing bill of materials (MBOM) is rule-driven, and production starts on the right revision.
• Reuse: finding and reusing already qualified components avoids redevelopment and requalification.
• Controlled ramp-up: production feedback goes back to engineering for quick correction, instead of piling up.

Where return on investment is created

The ROI of a digital continuity project is built on several items, to be assessed using your own data:

• Productivity gains: time spent searching, re-keying and checking saved by engineering, manufacturing engineering and sales administration teams.
• Reduced non-quality: less scrap, rework and fewer supplier disputes caused by a wrong version.
• Optimised inventory and purchasing: fewer duplicate parts, obsolete parts and unnecessary purchases.
• Earlier revenue: every week gained on a product launch brings first sales forward by the same amount.
• Easier compliance: traceability, audits and regulatory requirements (including the forthcoming digital product passport) handled from reliable data rather than reconstructed data.

Measure before, during and after

A credible digital continuity project starts by measuring the baseline. A few simple indicators are enough to quantify the gains objectively:

• average processing time for an engineering change, from request to implementation in production;
• time between design freeze and the first good part;
• number of discrepancies between the engineering bill of materials and the manufacturing bill of materials;
• cost of non-quality attributable to a data or version error;
• reuse rate of existing components in new projects;
• time spent preparing for an audit or reconstructing traceability.

Tracked before the project and then at each stage, these indicators make it possible to steer the investment and demonstrate its value to executive and finance management.

A pragmatic roadmap

• Diagnose: map product data flows, systems and breaks, and quantify their impact.
• Govern: define which system owns which data (parts, bills of materials, routings, documents) and the distribution rules.
• Prioritise: start with the most costly flow, often bills of materials and change management between PLM and ERP.
• Integrate step by step: one product family, a pilot site, then extension to MES, quality and maintenance.
• Support: train teams, evolve processes, measure and communicate results.

The CNEXT Consulting approach

Since 2015, CNEXT Consulting has been supporting manufacturers in their digital transformation, from aerospace to energy, by way of automotive and transport. Our consultants master the entire PLM, ALM, ERP, MES, APS and EAM chain: this is what enables us to address digital continuity end to end, rather than system by system. Our conviction: put the product at the centre of the information system so that every team works on the same data at the right time.

Would you like to assess the potential gains in your digital chain? Let’s talk about your project.