FastETO

FastETO - Methods and tools that support a fast and efficient engineer-to-order process (ETO) for parameterized product families (CTI No. 15021.1 PFES-ES)

Researcher:     

Prof. Dr. P. Schönsleben, Prof. M. Baertschi, A. Duchi, O. Willner                

Scientific Partners:

BWI Center for Industrial Management              

Industrial Partners:         

Schindler Aufzüge AG

Ammann Schweiz AG

Alstom (Switzerland) Ltd

Dissemination Partners: 

Intelligent systems solutions GmbH     

EAS Engineering Automation Systems GmbH

BWI Management Weiterbildung

Swiss Center for Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Companies (SWISSMEM)

Financed by:    

CTI (Commission for Technology and Innovation)

Background:

The development of the first product and pro­cess configurators dates back to the 1980s. The full potential, however, was achieved later on in the 1990s through the integration of the parameterization into CAD and CAM software. This made it possible to show the customer the final product already in the bidding phase and to rapidly program the CNC machines. Many companies that maintain this technol­ogy as one of their core competencies see config­ured products, although they might have diverse characteristics, as standard prod­ucts that are produced in a so-called MTO pro­cess (make-to-order). The terms “nonstandard” or “customized” describe products that cannot be completely configured and manual work-arounds are needed. In general, such companies try to configure as far as possible and use an ETO process (engineer-to-order) to finalize the constructions.

Motivation:

Recently, growing global competition has in­creased the requirements on ETO processes. Today, the customer is no longer willing to pay an additional premium – both in terms of time and costs – for technical and administrative preparations in sales, construction and produc­tion planning when producing ETO products that differ only slightly from configurable prod­ucts. This is especially the case for simple machines and equipment. Although the pre­mium is still paid for complex

products such as for entire plants, it is getting smaller. Thus, a reconsideration of existing ETO processes is necessary.

Objectives:

The aim of a joint project between the ETH and industry is to make the ETO process for parameterized product families faster and more efficient. This requires the consideration of a large number of organizational and tech­nical challenges. Issues such as design of ETO processes related to product, process, quota­tion or order structures, knowledge manage­ment – especially in global organizations – as well as the selection of appropriate IT tools are addressed in this project. The establishment of organizational requirements and the develop­ment of technical tools should support partici­pating companies to improve their competitive­ness in today’s global market.

Activities in 2015:

The project FastETO ended in March 2015. Until then, the implementation of solutions, such as IT tools or newly defined processes, continued. Beyond that, various dissemination activities took place; e.g. project results were discussed to an industry audience at the Smart Variant.Con and  presented to a scientific audience at several international conferences (EUROMA, MCPC).