Greenwood Village, CO -- (SBWire) -- 11/09/2011 --Streamline Systems just published a vital tool for Engineer-to-Order manufacturers; the white paper is objective and looks at the history, trends, and future of ETO manufacturing. Streamline Systems is already receiving tremendous responses from Engineer-to-Order manufacturers looking to discover how the utilize best-practices, best technologies, and a lean continued process improvement approach to their operations.

Larry Cohn and the ETO experts at Streamline Systems work with industrial manufacturers to manage and grow their businesses through the effective use of software designed for engineer to order manufacturing companies. “We focus exclusively on ETO manufacturers, who benefit from the knowledge and experience of ETO experts,” commented Cohn.

The paper does discuss the development of ETO ERP Solutions, including AX2012 ETO ERP which now includes a focus on two key features that benefit the engineering design and release process of ETO companies: Centralized product master and Constraint-based product configurations.

Centralized Product Master
Product Information Management in AX 2012 works for both the mid to enterprise level organization, but its primary benefit is for the larger enterprise organization seeking a centralized structured approach in creating and maintaining core master data such as product definitions.

For the multi-entity organization (multiple legal entities), products can be entered only once, then released to the distinct entity where further entity-specific data can be modified or added. This reduces redundant data entry across the enterprise while maintaining centralized control.

An ETO electronics or equipment builder, for example, has manufacturing and sales companies in Asia, Europe, and USA. They offer standard products but must be configured differently in each market even though the core design and definition are exactly the same. Instead of creating and maintaining the products in all three entities, with AX2012 they can maintain the core master data once, release the products to the affected entities, then configure or maintain the entity specific data. The product is defined only once at the master level, but the specific configurations or versions of the product are entity specific maintained at the company or regional level. This approach provides two key benefits of tighter control of product data while eliminating much of the redundant information.

Product Configurations

The product configurator capability of AX 2012 provides flexibility. In the same scenario, each entity can configure the product models for their region or the countries served, instead of creating separate unique products for each possible configuration. For the USA division more specific product options are available, so a product model can be set up to be configured with features and options that support sales quotation and order processing. This greatly reduces the burden on product development and engineering while ensuring more accurate order processing. “Wizards” guide the user through the selection process to help eliminate errors. The cost of an improperly configured product in terms of rework or repair including customer dissatisfaction is unacceptable.

The Streamline Systems ETO ERP white paper may be requested at: http://www.streamlinesys.com/engineer-to-order.php.