For over 30 years Treske Precision Machining Inc has provided precision-machined parts, welded frames, and integrated assemblies to their customers. To respond to the demands of today's rapidly changing manufacturing environment, the Oregon company uses high-quality, state-of-the-art equipment and systems. Understanding that superior quality and on-time delivery are basic expectations of any supplier, Treske strives to exceed expectations by developing efficient manufacturing methods and supply chain systems matched to its customers' particular requirements.

CHANGING REQUIREMENTS

A substantial growth in Treske's customer base and pending ISO certification changed its requirements for managing product information. Legacy processes were no longer sufficient to keep up with the significant increase of documentation that needed to be managed. Treske's product documentation was stored in various files on network servers; bills of materials (BOMs) were managed in Excel spreadsheets and prints were saved as PDFs. This setup lacked accessibility and the capabilities to keep documentation in a controlled environment, such as tracking, linking and where-used searching.

Managing data was tedious and often led inefficiencies. “To prevent losing control over our increasing product documentation, we needed to implement a system to track and manage this information and make it accessible to everyone,” stated Mark Brenden, engineering manager for Treske Precision Machining.

Treske had implemented an enterprise resource planning (ERP) program from Epicor Software (www.epicor.com), Epicor Vantage^® 8.0, to manage manufacturing information such as job planning, purchasing, inventory and financial data. Treske determined that the best way to manage its growing volume of product information properly and to track documentation for ISO certification was to employ a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution.

The goal was to integrate the ERP and PLM environments to share information directly through an automated process, and eliminate double entry of part data. The operators enter new part data on a daily basis, and manually entering that data into two systems is error-prone and time-consuming. Treske wanted all released information, particularly BOMs, loaded to Epicor automatically from the PLM system.

“As we searched for a PLM solution, one of the key requirements was that it needed to integrate with our Epicor ERP system,” said Brenden. “Also, with over 100 users required to access the system, we wanted a straightforward and user-friendly product that an average user could navigate without difficulty.”

“We compared several PLM vendors during our selection process and found that Omnify was the only product that provided the intuitive solution, integration capabilities and affordable price point we were looking for,” continued Brenden. “Beyond that, the Omnify sales and support team was responsive to all of our questions and truly understood our need for integration with Epicor.”

OPEN INTEGRATION

“Omnify had everything we wanted, and more, in a PLM solution: an open integration platform, ease of use, low cost, and an outstanding support team,” stated Brenden. “Omnify's support team was instrumental in making the overall implementation a smooth process. The Omnify system was implemented, complete with training and integration to Epicor, in a little under a week.”

Omnify Empower is now the master control database for all system and product documentation at Treske. With Empower, Treske has a single system to manage over 20,000 part numbers and associated prints. Centralized storage for all product documentation with revision control, part association, and controlled editing helps Treske to comply with ISO standards and facilitate their requirements to receive certification.

The ability to enter a part number quickly, bring up a print, and see the latest revision has eliminated the delays in finding information. “Omnify has empowered people to find information themselves, and to move forward with their work without having to wait for engineering,” added Brenden. “All product development team members, including engineering, document control and planners, have a single location to access accurate product information.”

Omnify's open integration platform coupled with Epicor Service Connect made the integration process easy. With the integration to Epicor, engineers do not have to enter information manually in two locations. When engineering releases a part or ECO (engineering change order) from Omnify Empower, it is automatically loaded to the Epicor ERP system. Then, planners can create a method for manufacturing, approve a revision, and generate a job within Epicor. Sharing data between Omnify Empower and Epicor through an automated process has allowed Treske to eliminate the introduction of errors due to manual entry of BOMs, and to ensure planners have correct and current information within Epicor.

As part of Treske's philosophy to develop efficient manufacturing methods, they plan further integration of Omnify Empower with their manufacturing operations. All documentation used by machinists to set up a job will be managed within Empower. Wireless remote stations setup on the shop floor will make it easy for machinists to pull up the required documentation. This will save time not only in finding information but also by eliminating the need to print these files, which contain numerous pages. “The fewer tools we have to use, the more efficient we are,” commented Brenden.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT

“Now that we have Omnify, our ability to look at parts and find documents is much, much faster,” said Brenden. Sharing data between their PLM and ERP environments also sped up ECO cycles for Treske. Now, all necessary information — such as the quantity of parts in inventory, how many parts are being manufactured, and change history — is at the fingertips of the engineers processing ECOs. Information can be accessed immediately within Empower to create an ECO and then automatically routed via workflows for appropriate signoff. Then, the released ECO is uploaded to Epicor automatically. “Prior to Omnify, people used to have to physically go onto the shop floor to find this information,” explained Brenden. “Our overall ECO processing time has been reduced by more than 75%.”

Treske is able to support its customers more efficiently also. Accurate and up-to-date information across engineering, manufacturing and sales, guarantees that the paperwork that must ship with a part — from the invoice to the packing slip — is correct, with matching revisions and part numbers. Because parts are returned if the documentation supplied is not correct, this automated process has helped Treske to reduce returns and achieve significant cost-savings. “With the data sharing between Omnify and Epicor, we are assured that the documentation generated in Epicor reflects the most current revision,” said Mark. “This has also relieved some big headaches in our shipping department.

“We could not be without Omnify at this point in time,” concluded Brenden.

---

Alaine Portnoy is vice president of Marketing for Omnify Software. Contact her at alaine@omnifysoft.com, or visit www.omnifysoft.com.

PLM selling points

Unified location to manage product information

• Controlled environment for managing data
• Easily accessible by all necessary parties
• Supports ISO certification requirements

Time and Cost Savings

• Reduced ECO cycle time by over 75%
• Reduced product errors
• Reduced returns
• Eliminate manual entry of data
• Eliminate delays in searching and accessing product information

Streamlined Communication

• Automate manual processes
• Direct data sharing between engineering and manufacturing
• Ensure accuracy of data across the enterprise

Business-ready solution

• Easy to use
• Fast implementation (less than one week)
• Open technology platform for integration with existing ERP system

Support Staff