E 'really be reduced by 60% the time to market for custom products?
The answer is yes. Indeed, in some cases, the results are even better. Before going into details of "how" and the "what" is worth spending a couple of lines on the context.
Like all modern companies know (perhaps I should say, as they know all the companies survived ....) the key competitive variable in the modern market is the ability to offer customers products tailored (custom, in fact).
The main consequence of this trend is the Mass Customization. The increase, ie the variety of products offered, without compromising on quality, short delivery times and costs.
To achieve this goal, among others, the systems configuration type KBE (Knowledge Based Engineering ) or KBC (Knowledge Based Configurators ), are one of the most important technologies.
But what are the elements that lead to results so stunning?
Modern technology, in this case the Cloud Computing make it accessible to everyone (both with a proper internet connection ...) hardware resources (CPU, RAM, HD) and software virtually unlimited. In addition, the evolution of development tools and related frameworks, has made possible the development of applications that can take advantage of these technologies.
The combination of the foregoing, the modern KBC / KBE automate processes in a way unimaginable even a few years ago.
The following example is related to a U.S. company ( Arc Inc.) designs and distributes equipment for the semiconductor industry.
The traditional process, pre KBC, was as follows
- The commercial collects demands of the customer (in a document or a draft drawn by hand ...)
- Requests are sent (or physical ports) to the 'technical area .
- The technical specifications used to build a model, aimed to estimate
- The budget is sent to ' sales office
- The business converts the quote into a' customer offer
This process requires a huge manual work and, depending on the type of product, it can take anywhere from a few hours to several weeks.
The example refers to a specific company but is easily adaptable to many manufacturing companies, including Italian (perhaps, especially Italian ...).
Using a tool KBC powered cloud (and web interface ..) the process can be drastically improved .
In this case the solution is used KBMax developed by Citius Corporation.
- area sales inserts product specifications in the web during the first meeting with the client
- The configuration file is processed in real time
- are undertaken 3D CAD models ( independently of the type of CAD) are generated together with quotes and offers.
Everything is available online within minutes or, at worst, a few hours.
The previous process, slow and inaccurate has been replaced by an automatic rapid and effective. Many
intermediate steps have been eliminated or improved.
The waiting time for potential customers has been dramatically reduced (in this case and for some product lines, as much as 90% )
At this point, say, all companies should it!
Of course there are only "pro".
But the "cons" are primarily legal cultural factors (those who adopted these solutions in the past often did not obtain the expected benefits .... but the technology was not adequate ...).
From technical point of view the difficulties are mainly linked involved the integration of different systems (CAD, ERP, CRM ...) and this has impacts on costs.
Looking ahead, however, it is reasonable to think that, bringing even the traditional systems in the cloud, integration costs will decrease and these solutions will become accessible to a growing number of companies.
KBmax by Citus Corporation
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