Engineer to order
There is help for ETO companies who seek automation
Companies that manufacture Engineer to Order (ETO) products don’t have to be forced to decide on the trade-off between customization and operational efficiency
Are you Engineer to Order (ETO)?
Is the custom and engineering-heavy nature of your configuration process putting increasing strain on your engineering and manufacturing teams?
Do these ETO challenges sound familiar?
- Is your product manufactured and assembled in low quantities?
- Do you have limited or individual customer specifications?
- Are outputs subject to large cost penalties for lateness?
You are not alone
- 25% of North American manufacturing companies are ETO.
- ETO companies are growing at a rate of 20% annually.
- For Engineer to Order, engineering is the largest controllable consumer of lead time taking up to 50% of the total time.
The engineer to order solution
Reduce complexity with engineer to order automation
ETO companies think that it is impossible to automate the entire end-to-end process surrounding product configuration, design, engineering, and production. However, KBMax can act as your “Virtual Engineer” to reduce errors and speed up the sales and manufacturing process.
Introduce rules-driven product configuration
Quickly and accurately configure your products based on pre-built components and rules. Minimize the back-and-forth between the buyer, the sales team, and engineering.
Advanced configuration rules
Gain better control over any repeatable engineering processes with rules that enforce proper configuration and design. KBMax allows you to build complex product logic, workflows, and integrations that allow you to establish a “single source of truth” for your product design, configuration, sales, and manufacturing.
A controlled, bottoms-up experience
No matter the level of customization in your products, there is likely repeatability somewhere in your ETO process; in product components, or sub-components. Your engineering rules drive nested configurators that allow sales people to easily assemble complex ETO product estimates without the aid of the engineering team.
“We have a simple product with numerous and sometimes complex and unlimited option catalog. KBMax [Epicor CPQ] allows us to handle 95% of the custom requests without needing to use outside drawing programs to meet the customer’s needs. ”
Streamline product design and CAD automation
Reach customers like you never could before, with visual, dynamic selling that you can cater to each of your distinct buying audiences.
Let sales take control of their drawings
Don’t force sales to wait on engineering for multiple design cycles in order to get to work generating revenue. KBMax’s CAD design automation accurately generates CAD drawings for sales team quotes from the product configuration, with confidence that the rules of downstream manufacturing processes are followed on the order.
Dynamic CAD inputs and outputs
Ingest CAD files from popular platforms to drive KBMax configuration rules and interactive display.
We integrate with the most popular CAD platforms like Solidworks, Autodesk, and PTC to auto-generate engineering drawings and file outputs ready for customization by engineering.
“Our product configurator, powered by KBMax [Epicor CPQ], allowed us to systematize our engineering experience to generate customer specific products within minutes, not weeks.”
Extend engineer to order with manufacturing and back-office integration
Accelerate production schedules and on-time product deliveries while reducing job costs and improving profitability.
Connect people, processes, and systems
KBMax Connector seamlessly integrates with your existing architecture to read/write from databases, make web service calls, send emails, and has a full REST API to integrate with virtually any business system.
Full order records with parts lists and line-item details can be passed into ERP, CRM, and CPQ systems like Salesforce, Oracle, SAP, NetSuite, and Infor – aiding customer, inventory, and invoicing processes.
Auto-generate manufacturing outputs
Provide detailed and dynamic sales drawings, cut sheets, parts lists, and assembly instructions so your manufacturing team knows exactly how to deal with final assembly.
KBMax can generate highly detailed Manufacturing Bill of Materials (BOMs) for your manufacturing team to ensure a seamless transition from ordering to parts picking and the build and assembly phase.
“The key parts that KBMax [Epicor CPQ] has helped us solve was taking what the customer configured in their shopping cart directly to the shop floor to be built. For us, that automation was key to improving the customer experience.”
Featured Resource
Bridging the Gap between Sales and Manufacturing with CPQ
This buyer’s guide was put together to help manufacturers define the base set of requirements to succeed with their digital transformation project, and identify the ‘features to look for’ in best-in-class CPQ solutions.
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