Company-Wide Availability of Engineering Data

The software system company Aucotec has developed a new, standardized interface to enterprise resource planning and product lifecycle management systems for its object-oriented cooperation platform Engineering Base (EB). It shortens the integration time as well as the subsequent data exchange.

Aucotec developed the ERP/PLM integration platform for EB to simplify the exchange of knowledge with optimum data quality, the company says. It does not require any special ERP/PLM expertise from the engineering user.

While the platform can be “docked” to any company's own middleware, it also offers all-round standardized integration for SAP, Windchill and TeamCenter in cooperation with the ERP experts from Aucotec's partner it-motive and their data hub imap. The interface always remains the same on the EB side, regardless of which ERP system is connected. This is said to reduce the necessary integration and maintenance effort: from set-up via implementation to configuration, it saves around half of the usual time for ERP integration projects, according to Aucotec.

From material master to project management, consistency is ensured for the configurable, regular bidirectional data exchange—without multiple entries and update effort, the company says. The ERP/PLM integration platform works in a service-oriented manner. All communication between systems can be done in the background via web services, as EB does not have to be started separately at the workstation. This enables the definition of time-based automatic processes, which always ensure up-to-date data in ERP/PLM and engineering. The entire exchange process can also be controlled with EB's Workflow Assistant, thus ensuring that nothing can be forgotten or overlooked.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.