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Last week, on March 27th 2007, Motorola University hosted the 2007 Kick-off event of the Aras Community Network. We had some great presenters, a full house, and lots of enthusiasm.
Peter led off in the morning with a rousing overview of the move to Microsoft Enterprise Open Source and the momentum to date.
Peter Shares Progress and Momentum
The move to Microsoft Enterprise Open Source is redefining what companies should expect from enterprise software solutions and is creating an unmatched value proposition in the marketplace.
Simply put, no charge for superior software solutions that can be easily modified, extended, and integrated within your company's existing environment. Enterprise-class support with direct access to live engineers who have deep knowledge of the solutions and understand the business processes, not just the technology.
A growing community committed to collaboration and contributions that expand the Aras Innovator solution suite faster than previously possible.
Next, we heard from Motorola, Freudenberg-NOK, and Ogihara America Corporation on how they are applying the Aras Innovator solutions to address their own strategic business initiatives.
Motorola Addresses Advanced Program Management
Motorola provided an overview of how they are applying Aras Innovator as the 'central hub' for business operations in the Networks & Enterprise Business Unit's applied technology division for government programs.
Advanced program management enhancements in Aras Innovator include resource management for identifying overloads & bottlenecks, precedence diagrams for critical path analysis, import / export to Microsoft Project, and business intelligence reports for earn value (EV), plan value (PV), schedule performance index (SPI), and cost performance index (CPI).
They are also integrating to the financial management system and the labor management systems for a single version of the truth for critical program-related business information. Next up is Portfolio views of programs, online change management workflows for configuration management to the CMII principles, and automation of the proposal process.
Motorola is actively participating in the Aras community and contributing customizations back for others to share and benefit.
Freudenberg-NOK Implements Lean Product Development in an APQP Context
Freudenberg-NOK provided an excellent presentation on how they have integrated product development for Lean Manufacturing with Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP)… something most manufacturing companies would like to understand how to do effectively.
By using Aras Innovator over the past 4 years and following Lean principles while keeping things simple, Freudenberg has been able to directly align Lean product development and introduction activities with the APQP compliance deliverables to achieve improved launch performance.
They have also implemented an initiative called the Flawless Launch program to track metrics on new product launches using scorecards in Aras Innovator. They then identify best practices and standardize those while targeting areas for continuous improvement.
Many of the features and solution capabilities in the Aras Innovator software now are a direct result of Freudenberg's ongoing contributions. They are a true example of business commitment to the Aras community.
Download Freudenberg-NOK Slides
Ogihara Implements Corrective & Preventive Actions for Quality Systems Compliance
Ogihara provided an energetic presentation on delivering quality products for superior customer satisfaction and on how they are implementing Aras Innovator to integrate and streamline processes enterprise-wide.
They are in the process of deploying Aras Innovator for the 5 phase 8D corrective & preventive action process (CAPA) solution and are already making substantivecontributions that are expanding the solution. Ogihara has integrated Aras Innovator with their QAD MFG/PRO system by connecting it to their Progress Sonic ESB system. So, when a critical quality issue is identified in Aras Innovator the containment action is sent to QAD and automatically identifies the effected material as 'nonconforming'.
Ogihara is contributing the integration adapter to the Aras community and will be posting it to the project site. Activities like this form the basis for how businesses can contribute back to the community, sharing solutions so other companies can benefit, and reaping the benefits themselves as they participate.
Aras Recognizes Corporate Leaders with Collaborate & Contribute Award
Just before lunch some of the leading Innovators were recognized with the Collaborate & Contribute award for commitment and a spirit of participation within the Aras Community Network and for contributions to the advancement of the Aras Innovator enterprise open source software solutions.
Rob proceeded by going over the direction of the Aras Innovator solutions moving forward and outlining options for participation. Of course participation is not required, but many companies don't realize that there are a number of ways to participate and contribute in the Aras community. Some of the options include:
Making requests and sharing concepts, ideas & inputs
Contributing specifications
- Form designs
- Use cases
- Workflows
- Data models
Collaborative development
- Prototyping
- Development
- Interfaces & integrations
- Testing & verification
Creating documentation
Sharing your story
All of these areas are optional and different companies have different interest levels. Some companies conduct paid projects which result in new features (i.e. Motorola's program management extensions) and other companies invest time & energy themselves resulting in options that would not otherwise have been available in the community (i.e. Ogihara's QAD integration adaptor).
The bottomline is that participation makes the software advance ever more quickly which benefits everyone, and as your company gets involved you see a direct benefit back to your business.
Motorola Serves up a Great Meal and Future Innovations
During lunch people could hardly wait for the tour of the Motorola Innovation center to get a look at the new advancements in mobile technologies. We saw everything from new products that are right around the corner to future innovations that I can't wait to get… as long as my cell phone bill doesn't start looking like a mortgage payment.
The afternoon was packed with Breakout sessions covering a wide variety of business topics and Aras Innovator collaboration projects including:
CMII Configuration & Change Management – The Institute of Configuration Management (http://www.icmhq.com) presented on the CMII principles. Aras Innovator's CMII-certified process workflows are an area for project collaboration with a number of audience participants interested in working on an ITIL specific variation.
CAPA Best Practices – QSG (http://www.qualitysupportgroup.com) provided content for a review of CAPA best practices for closed-loop problem resolution and participants discussed their process needs and the potential to further enhance the Aras Innovator quality systems solution moving forward.
CAD Integration – Freudenberg-NOK shared an overview of their CAD integration between Aras Innovator and Unigraphics and participants discussed collaborating on additional community CAD integrations.
Download CAD Integration Slides
Environmental Compliance – RSJ Technical (http://www.rsjtechnical.com/) provided an overview of the expanding environmental compliance mandates including RoHS & WEEE in terms of the different regional requirements, ELV (End of Life Vehicle), REACh (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals), EuP (Energy using Product), IPP (Integrated Product Policy). Participants discussed in depth the current Aras Innovator environmental compliance solution and further expansions as new regulations emerge… obviously, they ran way over the slotted time, but they had a great discussion.
After a full day of presentations and discussions many of us went over to the reception and enjoyed a toast together, and had a great meal at thebrewery (if you like BBQ).
Overall, it was a great opportunity for members of the growing Aras Community Network to meet in person, discuss business, and look for areas to collaborate in the future.
Thanks to everyone for coming to Schaumburg, and we look forward to seeing you again in the fall… and if you couldn't make it this time we hope you can join us for the next one.
