Customer Story

A Pioneer in Energy Transition Revamped its PLM Platform in Six Months

“With agile methodologies, if something didn’t work the first time, you can do it better on the next release and rework it the way you want. Aras offers the flexibility for this.”

PLM PRODUCT OWNER
Customer Story – Energy Transition
Size
10,000+ employees
Industry
Energy

Challenges

  • Traceability challenges with legacy PLM: The team’s legacy PLM system was not user-friendly, making it difficult for many team members to trace parts, geometries, and specifications—many avoided it altogether.
  • Productivity delays due to PLM and ERP incompatibility: The company had recently updated its ERP, but it was incompatible with the existing PLM system, creating delayed productivity and a risk of halting business operations if a new PLM integration lasted over 12 months.
  • Poor data visibility: Incompatibility between the legacy PLM and the updated ERP resulted in poor data visibility and traceability across the company’s manufacturing lifecycle.

Outcomes

  • Improved digital traceability: Migrating existing PLM functionality into an easy-to-use, modern, customizable PLM system has enabled end-to-end traceability of all manufacturing data.
  • Quick, flexible PLM deployment: The team quickly implemented and updated their essential PLM functionality (within six months) and spent the next year customizing PLM features to meet their unique needs while maintaining business continuity.
  • Increased lifecycle visibility: The newly integrated PLM and ERP setup provides a single source of truth, with fewer points for valuable data to get lost via emails or spreadsheets, improving the consistency of manufacturing processes across the company.

Explore This Story

    After switching to a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that was incompatible with its legacy product lifecycle management (PLM) tool, an engineering and technology company turned to Aras Innovator® to replace key PLM functionality in just six months.

    To tackle today’s energy challenges, a leading engineering and technology company specializing in energy transition offers sustainable solutions, including liquefaction, sustainable chemistry, and decarbonization. The company’s business unit primarily focuses on manufacturing and is integral to the organization. With over 60 years in business and nearly 50 filed patents, this company has installed sustainable solutions around the globe, including over 15,000 loading arms—essential equipment for liquefaction.

    Pain Points

    Around 2021, the company’s business unit updated its enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. However, the team also needed to migrate to a modernized PLM solution. Its original legacy PLM system could not interface with the new ERP system.

    Up to this point, the organization’s unit had relied on a legacy product lifecycle management (PLM) system to handle the traceability of parts, geometries, and specifications. However, this system was not user-friendly, making it difficult for many team members to use.

    In addition, the company’s team couldn’t afford to spend the typical 12+ months it takes to implement a new PLM system. Their ERP and PLM systems would remain incompatible until they successfully switched — slowing down business processes in the meantime.

    “This was a very big opportunity to review everything we did with the PLM and to see if all the processes were up to date with our requirements. It was also an opportunity to get feedback from users who were scared of using the legacy PLM and take their feedback into account within the new solution.”

    PLM PRODUCT OWNER

    PLM Requirements

    The engineering and technology company needed a PLM platform that provided:

    • Quick setup (less than the typical 12-month timeframe for a PLM system implementation)
    • One-to-one replacement of key functionality such as configuration and documentation management
    • Compatibility with the company’s new ERP solution
    • A user-friendly interface that any team member could learn

    It was also vital for the company’s business unit to have a PLM platform with robust customization options. This way, they could speak with staff and identify PLM use cases in day-to-day operations, then tailor the new solution to align with these needs.

    Success with Aras Innovator

    The leading engineering & technology company for the energy transition began its PLM migration journey in 2021, using agile methodology to drive a strategic but rapid implementation. The team chose Aras Innovator to replace their legacy PLM system due to its flexibility, modular design, and straightforward deployment.

    Within six months of the project kickoff, the company’s team released a minimum viable project (MVP) that included all essential PLM features, merging an external engineering search system into Aras Innovator, migrating all legacy data, and an ERP connector. By starting with an MVP, the team got the most essential PLM functions up and running more quickly than if they aimed to implement all planned features simultaneously.

    After this initial release, the company spent the next year focusing on additional customization, UI enhancements, systems engineering, and business process integration. As part of their agile approach, the team was also able to establish a “user story” feedback loop: identifying users’ specific business needs, creating custom features within Aras Innovator to address them, testing and validating the effectiveness of the features, and then monitoring Aras usage to identify more needs.

    Thanks to Aras Innovator’s flexibility, the team didn’t have to build their processes around out-of-the-box modules. Instead, they could create custom features that worked alongside existing business processes.

    Results: Unified manufacturing processes and improved product lifecycle traceability

    Now that they have successfully implemented Aras Innovator, the engineering and technology organization’s team can continue improving their PLM approach. The most significant opportunity they see with Aras Innovator is the ability to bring all aspects of their manufacturing process into a single source of truth. Because they are leveraging a PLM platform that is easy to use and tailored to meet company-specific use cases, the team can realize true, end-to-end traceability of all manufacturing data. With this complete product lifecycle visibility, they can foster process consistency and ensure that no valuable data gets lost in isolated resources such as emails or spreadsheets.

    The team plans to keep building out this digital traceability with the following next steps — all empowered by Aras Innovator’s adaptability and connectivity:

    • Establish a data model to address product lifecycle and create architecture for systems engineering
    • Embed workflows to foster a data-centric engineering approach
    • Digitize the management of requirements
    • Create a digital thread from products and parts to quality records, field inspections, and operational data