D4M Mini-sode 3: A Brief Overview of Delmia Apriso

Gene: Who are you and what is your area of expertise?

Rene: My area of expertise is Apriso Delmia Apriso. I have almost 12 years of experience on that application.

Gene: How many years have you worked for D4M?

Rene: For D4M, I only have four months.

GENE: When you say you have expertise in “Delmia Apriso”, do you mean specifically in the automotive industry or just general industries?

Rene: General industries. My experience is only with the automotive, but here for D4M, I’m starting to look in another type of industries, like the inject industry or the molding.

GENE: Can you please explain what Delmia Apriso is and what exactly it does?

Rene: Delmia Apriso is an MOM system; it’s a system that can have traceability on the plant floor, but goes beyond and also have traceability with the clients in the shipping and receiving areas.

GENE: What size of corporations is Delmia Apriso specifically designed for? Is it small, medium, large?

Rene: It’s generally for large systems. However, it can only one track one way and within one side of the same company. The silver lining is that the one way tracking IS NOT bound by geographic area – so, you could do tracking between different divisions in single site or it could do tracking in a whole other country/ state.

GENE: Since my experience is mostly with SAP and ERP systems, can you explain an MOM system to me and all of the features that Apriso provides customers?

Rene: Though the application is Delmia Apriso, it has different models that can be allow it to be used in different ways to better fit what your company wants.

Rene: Also, Apriso can take on functionality from the ERP systems – like the time and labor, allow master data configuration, take payment for the employees, and can have also communication with other systems.

Rene: It’s not just meant to be used as an addressability system, it can also take on other models, like I mentioned. Models that the current ERP is doing, it can also be done via Apriso.

GENE: Getting to the main subject at hand here. So why are the tracking features on Delmia Apriso so crucial between tier ones and OEMs, specifically in the automotive industry?

Rene: The main example are tracking warranties/recalls. It is so important for companies to know where the parts are at any given time just in case there are production error on certain parts.

Rene: No matter which branch of production detects the issue, all the efforts of the company are focused on minimizing the impact. Knowing where the parts are and which clients that could be impacted can save you a lot of time and money.

Rene: One of the major reasons to have Apriso configured in your sites is to know where the parts are – not only if are in the receiving area – but anywhere on the production line, if/where it was shipped off to.

GENE: And obviously during the recall process, if parts were defective, that’s a very costly process. Does every single plant need Delmia Apriso installed?

Rene: It’s not necessary. For example, a Tier One facility can have the Apriso, while OEM doesn’t have Apriso in their facility.

Rene: If a Tier One has Apriso installed, you can send information to the OEM. So, in the case of recalls/defective parts, that information can be sent from Apriso to other manufacturing software – like, say, an ERP. So, the OEM can have another system like SAP or any other ERP system and receive that information which can help the client to take the right direction with that part at issue.

Rene: It’s not necessary for all parties to have Apriso installed in various facilities, you just have to have network communication between the two companies.

GENE: So, run me by how long this process would take because you just, in your previous answer, you said that the OEM alone can install Delmia Apriso and you can track things on multiple different sites. All you need is a network setup. So, just to summarize this process as simply as possible, how long would it take to set up all the bells and whistles of Delmia Apriso – from the software, to the ERP integrations AND the network functionality you just mentioned?

Rene: Honestly, it depends on the size of the company, but it could take eight months to one year to have Apriso configured and ready to send information to any other facility.

GENE: But, I’m assuming the eight months to a year, like I said, is for OEMs specifically. Potentially, could a midsize company do take less time? I’m assuming because there are less plants.

Rene: Yeah, of course. It depends on the size of the company. Maybe you only have a small line with, say, five production lines, it will not take too much to do it.

GENE: And in practical terms, because you said one of the most important things for tracking is setting up the network, I’m assuming the eight months to a year also includes the setup of this of this network?

Rene: That’s correct.

GENE: Obviously, because D4M is an SAP shop, that primarily focuses on ERP installations and integrations, so what’s integration like between Delmia Apriso and, say, SAP?

Rene: Apriso has a special mode to have communication with SAP, it’s called the “Business Integrator”. With an Apriso consultant, you only need to share the information of the SAP server and set up an account with a password, and you can have real-time communication with SAP. Also, in SAP, you can configure the information of the network connection on the server and the IP server of the Delmia Apriso. With those 2 parts configured, you can have a strict communication between the 2 systems.

Rene: Also, SAP manage the schema repository – that is the dictionary of how SAP sends information to other systems – and you can also configure that information on the Apriso server.

Rene: And, in that way, it can understand the 2 system and all the different fields that you may want to use. For example, SAP can send the product information to Apriso, and Apriso can take that information to record it in their database. Also, Apriso can send the par counts to SAP to close all the information on SAP.

GENE: I’m only thinking in terms of practical terms here. So, if a Delmia Apriso set up would take eight months to a year, is the SAP integration part of that process as well?

Rene: Absolutely.

GENE: In terms of a general sense, because I know that we try to explain various services to VPs that may not necessarily have an engineering background. So, in closing, what makes Delmia Apriso a unique choice in the MOM landscape?

Rene: Yeah. As you mentioned, maybe the users of Delmia do not have the experience on the manufacturing side, as they are VPs, managers and so on.

Rene: For managers, there is a special model dedicated for them, that is called the “Dispatch Board”. The Dispatch Board is a model just shows the KPIs, and other production numbers to the managers and VPs. Best of all, you can configure a special screen to have all the monitors, important data, graphic set up for that specific user. You can have the KPIs, the OEE numbers or any other specific data that you need to show how is the performance or your facility.

GENE: Do you have any additional closing thoughts on Delmia Apriso and how we could benefit the relationship between tier ones and OEMs?

Rene: I think the main benefit to use Apriso is to have the information ready to use it; so, as soon the part arrived to the production line, you can set the part information to Apriso to share at the same time with the with any other external systems. We mentioned SAP before, but you can send it to a variety of different systems!

Rene: That’s a great benefit to have, but only if you are prepared with all necessary production information. You can have all the information and – as I mentioned – one benefit is to allow communication with any other external system, not just SAP!