Engineer to Order

Developing a good design takes times—a scarce commodity in most projects, large or small, because the delivery date always seems to be right around the corner. That means you need to get your design off to the right start and make efficient use of your time. IFS/Engineer to Order (IFS/ETO) offers the perfect platform to create a readily accessible product structure, integrate various design tools and, above all, foster communication among all participants. All of that translates into risk mitigation and return on investment.

Stay tuned to the voice of the customer

Your customers have two objectives: get the exact product they’re paying for and get it on time. What better way to ensure these goals than having your customer involved every step of the way. Using proven customer relationship management (CRM) tools such as project portals, you can put your customer in the review loop and get instant feedback—comments on drawing changes, for example, or approval for parts lists. In that way, you can avoid unnecessary delays and reduce your lead times.

Build on your experience and knowledge base

One of the strengths of IFS/ETO is that it keeps historical data within easy reach—whether it is a specification you want to look at again or an outline drawing. Design reuse, in other words, is a real option. You can even go a step further and pull up manufacturing data from IFS Manufacturing to check the reliability of parts you have used before or look for alternates. The possibilities are many, the results the same: design maturity plus cost savings. Not to mention customer satisfaction.

Promote concurrent engineering

The design phase of a project has the tendency to generate far too many workflows. Separate systems may be one reason; poor coordination among various engineering functions another. With IFS/ETO, you can clean up your processes. Working within one and the same system, your electrical, mechanical, or structural engineers will be able to easily share information without being restricted in the design tools they use. That encourages collaboration and communication, and it ensures progress. Working together with IFS/PDM Configuration and IFS/Document Management, IFS/ETO also puts all relevant product information at your fingertips and streamlines your document review and approval cycles—removing what could be another two potential bottlenecks.

Build project delivery into the process

Adding IFS/Project Delivery to your engineering activities can improve your performance even more. It gives you a unique project-oriented solution that brings together a project and its product structures to help you manage customer-specific designs. Any product structure can combine standard parts and project-specific parts. A project, moreover, can be created from a template or an existing project including documentation packages, shop orders, or purchase orders. Such flexibility means control plus cost effectiveness.