Apriso Reinvents Maintenance Management

Dec. 2, 2010 - PRLog -- LONG BEACH, CA – Apriso, a leading provider of software solutions for sustained manufacturing operational excellence, today announced general availability of FlexNet Maintenance 2.0, an innovative maintenance management solution built on a native Business Process Management (BPM) architecture, in order to achieve and sustain manufacturing excellence.

Best in class manufacturers are now implementing FlexNet Maintenance 2.0 to enable real-time visibility, control and synchronization of maintenance operations with global production, quality, warehouse and labor processes. Improving coordination and collaboration between maintenance and manufacturing operations improves flexibility and responsiveness, resulting in increased equipment uptime and lower manufacturing costs.

“Everyone here at Hitachi is very glad we made the change to Apriso’s FlexNet. To sum it up, FlexNet offers much more flexibility than our previous system (it's living up to its name!) in changing PM schedules, due dates and assignments while at the same time is much more user-friendly,” stated Kristi Dean, Production Engineering at Hitachi Computer Products (America), Inc. “FlexNet gives us the ability to record both the preventive and reactive maintenance history on equipment. This is important, because it gives us a more complete look at what has happened to a piece of equipment, contributing to increased efficiency and improved uptime.”

According to a recent AMR Research study*, manufacturers seek greater agility, real-time visibility and centralized IT services to respond faster to changing market conditions. Applied to maintenance management, the study affirms the need for greater global collaboration across of manufacturing operations management – including a way to standardize and centrally manage maintenance processes.

In alignment with this research, FlexNet Maintenance 2.0 offers expanded capabilities of what maintenance management should comprise, which starts with a unified, platform-based solution that can synchronize maintenance activities with both manufacturing operations (ex: manufacturing execution systems) and other enterprise systems. FlexNet Maintenance 2.0 with its native BPM architecture simplifies end-to-end process creation, standardization and integration to existing enterprise applications, resulting in greater real-time visibility and control to the shop floor.

Download a free white paper “It’s Time for Maintenance 2.0” to learn more on how a collaborative, maintenance management solution built on a global manufacturing platform can simultaneously reduce costs while improving manufacturing excellence. White paper is available at http://www.apriso.com/email/regis/pr_maintenance_2_regis.php.

Apriso has redefined maintenance management by:
* Going beyond a “stove-pipe” view of maintenance by unifying maintenance to enable greater coordination and collaboration across all manufacturing operations
* Breaking a plant centric focus by enabling a global approach to maintenance management
* More effectively integrating Maintenance Management with what has traditionally been overlapping ERP-based asset management
* Delivering a Business Process Management (BPM) architecture which enables significantly greater flexibility in defining, improving and distributing Maintenance Best Practices

Coordinating maintenance with production, quality and warehouse activities reduces disruptions to operations, increasing equipment uptime and improving productivity. FlexNet’s BPM architecture  supports Lean and TPM initiatives by enabling maintenance value streams to be visually prototyped and then implemented as standardized business processes. By reducing non-value add activities such as gathering spare parts and tools or filling out requisitions, engineers get more “wrench” enabling more preventive maintenance without increasing staff, reducing time spent on only break-fix operations.

"It is essential that manufacturers have an enterprise system to maximize operational efficiency while protecting manufacturing assets and meeting important safety and compliance regulations,” said John Fishell, vice president product management at Apriso. “With FlexNet Maintenance 2.0, workflows can be established to include safety instructions, checklists and machine events that ensure standardization and compliance, so best practices can be implemented across the whole organization.”

* AMR Research, 2010 Manufacturing Trends in the US and European Markets: A Market Opportunity Assessment for Manufacturing Technologies, Simon Jacobson and Phanney Kim, May 2010.


About Apriso
Apriso Corporation is a software company dedicated to providing competitive advantage for its customers. It does so by enabling manufacturers to achieve and sustain manufacturing excellence while adapting quickly and easily to market changes. Apriso's FlexNet is a BPM platform-based software solution for global manufacturing operations management. Apriso supports global continuous improvement by delivering visibility into, control over and synchronization across manufacturing and the product supply network. Apriso serves 180+ customers in 40+ countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia. Customers include General Motors, Lear, Honeywell, L'Oréal, Trixell, Lockheed Martin, Saint-Gobain, Novelis and Essilor. Learn more at: http://www.apriso.com.

Apriso and FlexNet are registered trademarks of Apriso Corporation. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Media Contacts:

Gordon Benzie
Apriso Corporation
(562) 951-8054
gordon.benzie@apriso.com

Michael Gallo
Gutenberg Communications
(212) 239-8594
mgallo@gutenbergpr.com

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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.