Explore aPriori’s New Manufacturing Collaboration Software

Key Takeaways:

• Disconnected teams and siloed manufacturing insights can cause delays and add expenses
• aP Workspace is a new co-working app that accelerates collaboration and decision-making
• Two features coming to aP Workspace: Sustainable Collaboration and Projects

The Full Article:

Today’s discrete manufacturers understand that seamless collaboration among internal stakeholders is crucial in streamlining product development workflows and gaining a competitive advantage.

Siloed product data and a lack of collaboration often cause product launch delays, additional expenses, and costly end-stage engineering change orders (ECOs) for manufacturing companies. According to a recent IndustryWeek-aPriori survey, more than 50% of respondents said that quoting complex parts took at least six weeks without internal data standardization.

Forward-thinking companies use automation-driven manufacturing collaboration software to unite project stakeholders early, make data-driven decisions, and create a launchpad to accelerate product development. All this and much more is possible with the new, real-time collaboration and task management capabilities within aPriori’s Manufacturing Insights Platform.

Challenges of Unifying Far-Flung Teams and Critical Data

Manufacturers must address the following challenges to juggle multiple product development projects better, achieve faster time to market, and increase profitability.

Disconnected Manufacturing Collaboration Tools and Several Sources of Truth

Many organizations use disparate, disconnected systems without a single source of truth to collaborate on and manage multiple product development projects. The overreliance on fragmented, siloed technologies makes it nearly impossible to access current/updated data, track task activities, gain visibility into product/sourcing information, and refrain from doing redundant work.

Without a single source of truth, project stakeholders are forced to navigate among outdated emails, spreadsheets, and tools to find crucial data. This manual, time-consuming process negatively impacts the efficiency and productivity of an organization’s cross-functional engineering, manufacturing, and procurement teams.

Additionally, traditional collaboration tools make distributing tasks across the product development team difficult. The ability to tag team members, manage to-dos, and add comments directly on 3D models are typically unavailable in generic collaboration tools.

Inability to Access Real-Time Manufacturing Data

It is a challenge for project stakeholders to make quick, data-driven decisions without the meaningful, up-to-date reports and visualizations of automation-driven manufacturing collaboration software. Teams needing a collaboration platform must depend on the expertise of seasoned professionals to obtain useful but typically outdated manufacturing data.

Generic collaboration tools do not provide an end-to-end digital twin solution that unlocks actionable, real-time product cost, manufacturability (design, process routing, and materials), and sustainability insights. As a result, colleagues cannot quickly identify and collaborate on new opportunities for innovation, cost savings, carbon footprint reduction, and supply chain optimization.

Manufacturing Collaboration at Scale With aP Workspace

aPriori’s new co-working and project management application, aP Workspace, enables teams to create and manage scenario tasks and collaborate seamlessly with internal stakeholders. The cloud-based solution provides real-time collaboration and centralizes actionable product design and manufacturing data in a single environment for effective decision-making. By having the right insights readily available, teams can make informed, fact-based product cost, manufacturability, and sustainability decisions quickly and confidently.

Unlike generic collaboration tools, aPriori combines the power of three digital twins—product, process, and factory twins—to unlock insights for:

• Product Cost Management. Internal cost specialists gain the estimates they need for should cost analysis and negotiation. aPriori’s granular cost insights enable teams to make informed make-or-buy decisions.
• Sustainability. Teams can use aPriori’s real-time sustainability insights to view the product carbon impact of alternative designs, raw materials, processes, and suppliers/locations.
• Design Guidance. Design engineers gain visibility into their products’ current cost and manufacturing feasibility. Early design-stage iterations can be made to ensure product cost, performance, and quality objectives are met.
• Manufacturing Optimization. Product teams can quickly run simulations to explore various machines and process routings’ real-time cost, carbon, and manufacturability impacts.

Watch this webinar to learn how aP Workspace brings disconnected data and teams together.

aP Workspace Manufacturing Collaboration Software Application Features

The aP Workspace manufacturing collaboration solution has five distinctive features enabling cross-functional teams to streamline product development processes.

aP Workspace’s five main and powerful features include:

1. 3D Modeling and Data Field Commenting. Colleagues can directly leave comments, ask questions, and start discussions on specific data fields and geometric cost drivers (GCDs) in 3D models. Adding context to data insights enables teams to validate manufacturability and cost assumptions quickly.
2. Secure, Real-Time Collaboration. Project stakeholders must only connect in one virtual co-working space to communicate and collaborate on the same data for faster, effective decision-making. The aPriori Cloud is SOC 2 Type 2 certified to ensure the security and confidentiality of organizational user data.
3. Messaging and Task Management. Cross-functional product teams can increase their productivity by prioritizing tasks based on importance and relevance. Users assigned to tasks will receive automatic, timely notifications and updates about the action items they are responsible for. Team members can even filter items they have been given or that need their attention across all the scenarios they participate in.
4. Configurable Data Views and Consumable Insights. Users can choose, customize, and organize the data they see in the detailed view of a given product component or assembly. Digestible and detailed data insights enable teams to drive faster decision-making.
5. Traceability and Decision History. Changes to aPriori design scenarios are automatically updated in aP Workspace, ensuring that teams always have access to the latest data for analysis and discussion. aPriori’s manufacturing collaboration software maintains conversation and product design decision history, including previous and deleted views of CAD designs when scenarios are updated.

Watch this webinar to see the power of aPriori’s new manufacturing collaboration software.

Upcoming aP Workspace Feature Highlights

Two advanced features are coming to the aP Workspace co-working and task management software solution, including Sustainable Collaboration and Projects. Here is how each feature can help teams interact more effectively to accelerate product development business processes:

• Sustainable Collaboration. Colleagues can use aPriori’s cradle-to-gate, carbon-based insights and bring in sustainability experts to understand how to best meet profitability and environmental targets. Additionally, teams can assess material carbon, process carbon, logistics carbon, and total carbon, all of which can be viewed and commented on within aP Workspace.
• Projects in aP Workspace. With Projects, teams can seamlessly collaborate on a group of parts or assemblies while streamlining communication for several project initiatives. This includes new product introduction (NPI) projects, selecting VA/VE candidates, and evaluating components up for cost reduction and supplier renegotiation.

Turn Insights Into Action With aPriori’s Manufacturing Collaboration Application

Today’s discrete manufacturers require an automated and streamlined digital co-working and communication tool to remain competitive. With aPriori’s new manufacturing collaboration capabilities, teams only need a single environment to navigate and assess extensive data for faster and more informed decision-making. Watch the webinar below to learn more about improving internal project stakeholder collaboration with aPriori.