CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
January 2008
Product News
Apriso Accelerates New Product Introductions for Consumer Goods Industry
Based on growing success in providing consumer goods manufacturers with an adaptive, globally synchronized manufacturing operations management solution, Apriso Corporation announced extended availability of FlexNet® for Consumer Goods. This industry-specific solution provides an adaptive operations execution system with real-time global visibility and control to synchronize and accelerate new product introductions while simultaneously preserving brand integrity.
Recently designated as a reader’s choice selection, Apriso FlexNet has been successfully deployed at several industry-leading consumer goods manufacturers, including L’Oréal (health & beauty), Amcor (packaging), Amica Wronki (durable goods), BAT (tobacco) and a number of other consumer goods companies.
Consumer goods manufacturers are challenged to bring new products to global market faster while insuring the highest product quality. The complexity of this challenge is magnified due to several conflicting forces, including an explosion of the global consumer marketplace, increased product complexity and shorter development, production and refresh cycles. The biggest risk, however, is the loss of brand reputation, as evidenced by recent product recalls and supplier snafus. Regardless of where fault lies, the resulting impact is damage to the consumer goods manufacturer’s reputation.
Apriso FlexNet for Consumer Goods is a Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) solution that simultaneously addresses these industry challenges by:
• Globally synchronizing operations processes within production, inventory and supply chains into one system with real-time visibility and control across plants and geographies
• Integrating to enterprise applications, including Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), creating closed loop processes for continuous improvement between new product development and engineering, corporate planning and the shop floor
• Improving product quality by managing production processes and providing real-time visibility if quality metrics are not attained, effectively shortening the time to global market without sacrificing brand equity
“The growing market acceptance of Apriso FlexNet by consumer goods manufacturers is attributed to the dramatic return on investment we have delivered to our customers,” iterated Jim Henderson, president and CEO of Apriso. “When our customers complete an effective new product introduction across 18 markets worldwide without any resulting quality issues, it is pretty clear the value we have provided.”
One Apriso customer now reaping these benefits is a worldwide leader in cosmetics, hair care, skincare, makeup and fragrances. Implementing Apriso FlexNet across 20+ locations within both discrete and batch operations, this customer has improved efficiency, visibility and control over operations. An immediate benefit has been better synchronization across globally distributed operations, enabling smoother integration between product development and new product introductions within each of their market geographies.
One area where accurate reporting of manufacturing performance is acutely needed is within the execution of Quality Control processes. Several high profile quality issues surfaced last year, resulting in unplanned delays, bad publicity and lost sales for several consumer goods providers, thereby hurting the value of their brands. Better managing production to eliminate quality issues, as well as providing real-time visibility as quality issues occur, helps avoid delays in bringing new products to market.
Apriso FlexNet provides a closed loop system between evolving product, supplier and engineering specifications, as well as complete integration between ERP and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) applications. In this way, information is continually updated between plant and corporate systems, enabling logistical and product design modifications to be easily managed. And, as the FlexNet platform leverages a unified data model, traditional issues surrounding master data management, such as which application should retain ‘original’ records or how ERP data will be updated, are easily addressed. The result is higher product quality, improved agility and a less likely chance of missing a product launch timeframe.
To learn more about how consumer goods manufacturers are using Apriso FlexNet to synchronize operations for reduced time to global market, please go to: http://www.apriso.com/news/events.htm.
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