Dow Corning blends ERP, EDMS
Using Documentum's EDMS document management system and SAP R/3 enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, thousands of Dow Corning's workers now have greater access to information contained in documents, drawings and other unstructured information.
Dow Corning is the world's leading manufacturer of silicon-based products. They make everything from nipples for baby bottles, sealants used in construction, capsules for drugs, needle lubricants for medical uses, and silicon for semiconductors. "Our order mix changes frequently," said Robert Sandford, manager of the electronic workplace delivery group in Dow Corning's Corporate Information Systems division. Dow needed a tightly integrated ERP and EDMS system to "[ensure] that all of the production order information is ready and accurate when it hits the manufacturing floor."
Documents ranging from flow diagrams, manufacturing process standard operating procedures, and plant and facility drawings are captured directly from Microsoft Office, computer-aided design (CAD) packages or from scanned images of paper documents. Documents are then made accessible to SAP and other users over the corporate intranet. The system connects plants in Europe with those in the United States; each plant has electronic access to its own documents, as well as those shared by the others.
"Linking critical documents to R/3 transactions and master records improves both our operational efficiency and the quality of our decision-making," said Sandford, who expects the system "to improve our cycle time, as well as our quality."