LONG BEACH, CA – Apriso, a leading provider of manufacturing software solutions, today announced that one of its customers, Cummins Inc., won the Manufacturing IT Award at the Strategic Manufacturing Awards 2011, held in Dusseldorf, Germany, on October 18, 2011. Cummins, a global power leader, earned this award for demonstrating unrivalled progress and success in designing and deploying Apriso’s FlexNet, as a common, global manufacturing Information Technology (IT) infrastructure covering the manufacturer’
Working with Apriso, Cummins has deployed a centralized manufacturing IT platform across the globe, including plants in Brazil and the United Kingdom as well as a Joint Venture in China and India. Production information and best practice processes can now be easily shared between and among plants. Initial results include a 25 percent improvement in throughput as well as months of uninterrupted perfect quality (0 PPM) products delivered to one of their largest European customers.
Cummins was selected for this prestigious award based on their proven ability to effectively embrace IT as a tool to maximize productivity and quality, resulting in higher capacity utilization and customer satisfaction. The company is now standardizing disparate manufacturing systems among 85 plants around the globe, from the U.S. and U.K. to China, Brazil and India.
“We are delighted to be recognized for our efforts streamlining and standardizing our manufacturing processes around the globe,” said Dr. Robert D. Borchelt, PhD., Director, Manufacturing IT Systems & Industrial Controls at Cummins Inc. “By partnering with Apriso, we were able to take a global perspective on manufacturing operations and continuous improvement to achieve higher quality, greater efficiency and lower costs by delivering better real-time visibility and control over our operations.”
Historically, Cummins supported a plant-centric approach to manufacturing IT – each plant ran its own software to manage operations. This created decentralized, non-standardized IT operations. All process improvements were independently designed, tested and implemented across their manufacturing enterprise. Today Cummins uses a Change Control Board process (also referred to as a Center of Excellence) whereby plant-level processes are reviewed and implemented with Apriso’s FlexNet to multiple locations, based on what improvements can add the most value to the entire organization.
“We’re excited that Cummins was recognized for their accomplishments in standardizing best practices on a global basis,” said Fred Thomas, industry director at Apriso. “As new sites go live and the Cummins manufacturing platform is extended across other business units, Cummins will be well-positioned to achieve and sustain long-term operational excellence and cost efficiency, regardless of location, as they continue to deliver high quality products to customers around the globe.”
# # #
Apriso Corporation is a manufacturing software company dedicated to providing competitive advantage for its customers. It does so by enabling organizations to adapt quickly and easily to market changes and unexpected events.
