Linking the Plant Floor to the Enterprise: The Benefits & Pitfalls

Connecting the ERP system to the plant has high value in today's market where manufacturing enterprises are moving from an era of mass production toward " mass customization. " Business systems and plant systems must be tightly coupled to reduce decision cycle times and increase plant productivity. This coupling is an integration effort that is often overlooked in implementing the ERP system. It is common for enterprises to expect the business processes between plant and ERP systems to be straightforward. This is rarely the case because plant systems serve dramatically different needs and address very different issues from ERP systems. Effective integration means plant systems must be developed and deployed to address the full spectrum of business processes and equip ERP systems to drive the enterprise. This paper draws on real-world integration experience from AspenTech and others to identify significant benefit areas, points out common misconceptions about integration and recommends action to those considering plant-to-ERP integration efforts.