CAD & ERP in ETO Manufacturing
Traditional ERP systems were developed for the repetitive, make-to-stock manufacturer, where there is a clear demarcation between design and production. In that environment the engineer designs the product in a CAD application. After testing and prototyping, the product is released to production, which is managed by the ERP system.
The design engineer has little or no interaction with the ERP system and works quite happily in a CAD environment. Following the work of the design engineer, a production engineer then creates a bill of material (BOM), based not on how the product is designed but how it will be manufactured.
In the Engineer-to-Order (ETO) world the role of the design engineer is very different. By...
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