Four Systems, One Partner,
From the Design Office to the Shop Floor
Two of these manage what your product is. Two manage what actually happens when you make it and move it. Implemented separately or together, by a team that answers for all four.
Two Domains,
Four Systems That Work Together
Each of these solves a distinct problem and can be implemented on its own. Where two or more are in place, the connections between them are where most of the value sits.
Windchill PLM
Product Lifecycle Management
One source of truth for product data, across the entire lifecycle.
Manage engineering data, BOM structures, revisions, and change workflows in a system that the rest of the business can actually read. One of the most widely deployed PLM platforms in discrete manufacturing.
3DEXPERIENCE Platform
Unified Innovation Platform
People, data, and processes in one collaborative environment.
Instead of separate tools exchanging files, a single platform where engineering, manufacturing, and management work from the same source. Available in the cloud, on premise, or as a combination of both.
InfoBiro WMS
Warehouse Management System
Every movement under system control, from receiving to dispatch.
Full traceability by lot number and by SSCC code on the pallet, with expiry dates held in a live register and issuing running on FEFO. Location-directed operations cut empty travel and remove the errors that come from working off memory.
DigiPro System MES
Manufacturing Execution System
Real-time production data, from the machines you already own.
A small wireless device attaches to a moving part of the machine, with no modification to the machine itself. From there the system tracks work orders, records every stoppage and its duration, and shows operator output on a phone or a desktop.
Start From the Problem,
Not From the Product Name
Nobody wakes up wanting a manufacturing execution system. They want to know where an order stands. Find the sentence that sounds like your company and follow it.
Nobody is entirely sure which revision is the current one.
Drawings live in several folders, someone keeps a personal copy, and production occasionally builds from a version that changed last month. The problem is not carelessness, it is that no system decides what is current.
Windchill PLM See how “Someone re-types every BOM into the ERP by hand.
Engineering releases a revision, planning enters it again manually, and every transcription is a chance for an error. The manual step has been quietly correcting for a structural mismatch all along.
Windchill PLM See how “Two sites work on the same product and their data has drifted apart.
Each location configured things its own way, reporting across the group requires manual reconciliation, and the same part can carry two different revisions depending on who you ask.
3DEXPERIENCE See how “Reviews with clients and suppliers happen over email attachments.
Feedback arrives as comments in a message thread, approvals are hard to trace, and nobody is certain the external partner is looking at the latest file. The approval cycle takes longer than the design work.
3DEXPERIENCE See how “A supplier recall means searching through delivery notes by hand.
The question is simple: which customers received goods from this batch. Answering it takes two people and most of a day, and the answer is never fully certain.
InfoBiro WMS See how “Expired stock gets discovered during a count, not before it.
Goods leave in whatever order is easiest to reach, so shorter dated pallets sit behind longer dated ones. The write-off arrives every quarter and everyone treats it as a cost of doing business.
InfoBiro WMS See how “Nobody can say where an order stands without walking the floor.
A customer asks when their delivery is ready, and answering it means a phone call to a shift supervisor who then goes and looks. By the time the answer comes back it is already slightly out of date.
DigiPro System MES See how “The same machines produce different output depending on the shift.
Everyone can feel the difference, nobody can put a number on it, and the conversation always ends in impressions rather than evidence. Without a measurement, there is nothing to improve against.
DigiPro System MES See howMore than one of these sounds familiar?
That is the normal case rather than the exception, and it is usually a sign that the symptoms share a cause. Which one to address first is a question worth answering before buying anything, and it is what a consulting assessment is for.
The Value Is Rarely in One System.
It Is in the Space Between Them.
Each of these works on its own. What one partner across all four changes is the connections, because nobody has to negotiate whose responsibility an interface is.
The BOM stops being re-typed
The most common pairing, and usually the one that pays for itself first. Released revisions move into planning automatically, so production works from what engineering approved rather than from a copy made a month ago.
The floor works from the current version
Product, tooling, and instruction data reaches the operator through the work order, and execution data comes back. Engineering finally sees how long a design actually takes to make, which changes the next design.
Stock figures match physical reality
Movements confirmed on the warehouse floor update the ERP as they happen, with lot and pallet identity carried through. The count at year end stops being a negotiation between two sets of numbers.
You do not need all four, and most companies start with one. The reason to note the connections early is that they are far cheaper to build when the first system is being configured than to retrofit two years later. What is feasible depends on how your ERP is set up, not only on which one it is, so integration scope gets defined during the assessment.
Buying the Licence Is the Easy Part.
Everything Around It Is the Work.
Whichever system you choose, someone has to decide how it should work, build it, and keep it running. Three services, each with a defined boundary, so you know exactly what you are ordering.
Consulting
Deciding what should be built and why, before a platform is chosen. Process assessment, requirements, architecture, and a phased roadmap.
Implementation
Building it, in five phases with an exit criterion each. Configuration, migration, integration, testing, and a phased go-live.
Managed Services
Keeping it running, under an agreement with defined response times. Administration, security, integration maintenance, and optimization.
You can enter at any of the three
The sequence above is how a project usually runs, not a package you have to buy end to end. Companies come to us with a finished specification and need only the build, or with a system that already works and needs someone to run it. Where you start is your decision, and each service is contracted separately.
Four Systems, One Team,
and One Conversation to Begin With
Some companies arrive knowing exactly which system they want. Others arrive with a problem and no idea which of the four solves it. Both are normal starting points, and the first conversation looks much the same either way.
You know which system you need
Tell us which one and where you are starting from, and we will come back with a realistic scope and a schedule rather than a brochure. If you already have a specification, bring it.
Request a ConsultationYou have a problem, not a product name
Describe what is not working and we will tell you which of the four applies, or whether the honest answer is that the process needs fixing before any software does.
See How an Assessment Works