Apriso, a leading provider of software solutions for sustained manufacturing operational excellence, today announced improved paperless manufacturing and reporting capabilities, ideally suited for the Aerospace & Defense manufacturing industry. Aerospace & Defense manufacturers are under an increasing burden to better manage the complexity inherent in their design and manufacturing processes – a complexity that can be effectively reduced by removing inefficient paper systems. These capabilities are an embedded component of FlexNet 9.5.

Apriso's Aerospace & Defense industry solution leverages FlexNet's adaptive manufacturing platform to provide a unified solution supporting all manufacturing operations, including production, quality, maintenance, time and labor, and warehouse functions. This solution makes it possible for Aerospace & Defense manufacturers to:

- Cost effectively enhance paperless reporting for manufacturing, nonconformances and Engineering Change Management

- Improve operational excellence while adhering to regulatory compliance requirements

- Maintain comprehensive paperless traceability while effectively supporting emerging manufacturing and supply chain models

As this industry embarks on a transformation into new, manufacturing processes and supply chain requirements to support new design and build cycles, A&D manufactures have chosen Apriso's FlexNet to meet their needs. FlexNet provides the necessary flexibility to rapidly adjust manufacturing workflows while providing the "as-built" and "as-maintained" records that product life cycle management demands.

Earlier this year, it was announced that Apriso joined PTC's PartnerAdvantage Program at the Gold Tier, as a result of an extensive review of Apriso's FlexNet. In addition to enabling customers to reduce time and avoid errors when transferring "as-designed" and "as-planned" Bills of Materials (BOMs) to production, the integration of PTC and FlexNet bridges the gap between product and process design and product execution. By working with firms like PTC, Dassault Systèmes and industry analysts, Apriso is helping customers to achieve the goal of closing the loop between PLM and manufacturing operations.

"Quality and efficiency in production comes from scrupulous execution of manufacturing and quality-related work instructions. Manufacturers often apply operational excellence and continuous or step-change improvement methodologies to distill best practices from different sites and enforce these globally. Apriso's FlexNet operations management solution has the capabilities to configure and manage optimal work and logistics processes and enforce these processes smoothly in global organizations," explains Valentijn de Leeuw and Dick Slansky of ARC Advisory Group, in their paper "Apriso and Dassault Systèmes to Synchronize Design, Engineering and Manufacturing," published August 13, 2010.

A strategic approach for Aerospace & Defense manufacturers to navigate their industry transformation is to embrace a three platform strategy, comprising enterprise wide ERP, PLM and MES systems. Apriso supports this strategy with a platform-based enterprise Manufacturing Execution System that ensures products are made with the right version of the Bill of Materials and work instructions while enforcing the steps for manufacturing and rework. By synchronizing and executing to third party PLM and ERP systems, Apriso effectively manages the collaboration of technical, functional and business dynamics within heterogeneous systems environments, capturing necessary materials, processes and histories of production output for reporting and compliance.

"Apriso's FlexNet solution effectively captures, standardizes and deploys industry best practices through FlexNet's unique business process management capabilities (BPM), helping to efficiently manage collaboration and change control for virtually continuous design and process improvement," states Rick Gallisa, Industry Director of Aerospace & Defense at Apriso. "As a result, our A&D customers can enhance collaboration internally and externally between production processes and their suppliers while eliminating inefficient paper systems that encumber this industry's extended product life cycle."