The machinery market is facing significant challenges, mainly focused on the integration between the industrial processes that contribute to the development of very complex finished products.
Companies that produce industrial machinery and plants typically operate in engineering-to-order (ETO), or at least configure-to-order (CTO) and assembly-to-order (ATO), modes. Therefore, the design phase plays an important role in the planning process, which must be integrated with the machining and then the commissioning phases.
Another hot topic for companies in the industry is the management of incoming materials, which must be integrated with the various stages of the assembly process. For this reason, the concept of “bill of process” is very important, as it allows companies to arrange material pickups at the correct time. With the current relevance of material shortage, this integration process is even more important, and reporting anomalies in arrival of these components and/or semi-finished products (missing, delayed, etc.) must allow effective rescheduling.
Many companies have focused only on design, assembly, testing and commissioning activities, assigning all component-related processing to third parties. Others have concentrated these activities on a pool of interconnected companies, while others handle many processing activities independently.
