According to a study by the Fraunhofer Institute, industrial firms in the SME sector face serious difficulties when it comes to meeting future market demands. A lack of planning reliability and unclear customer requirements are just part of the picture. Even worse, says the study, inflexible IT systems, poor quality data and inadequate or even a complete absence of interfaces are, "Slowing reaction times and making the entire system sluggish."

These sluggish, inflexible systems are found across the industry in data and document management. Information is managed decentrally in a variety of different applications and systems (CAD, PDM, ERP, CRM and Microsoft Office to name a few). If a technical component is installed across ten different parts of a plant, it's often the case that the relevant specifications and data sheets are also stored in ten different locations. Any changes to these documents must be made ten times in ten locations, even though the product itself is one and the same. The effort involved increases ten-fold while transparency at the company suffers, as does its ability to provide information and respond rapidly.

In particular simultaneous and multilevel development and change processes place new requirements on cross-location document and task management. With the Doxis enterprise content management system (ECM), processes can be mapped across multiple levels and in relation to one another. Individual process steps, releases and decision-making are transparent and traceable at all times. By verifiably complying with legal documentation requirements, you can avoid impending sales bans, harm to your brand image, payment delays, damage claims and liability risks.

Doxis joins together the mounds of documents and data from electronics, mechanics and IT and uses standardized interfaces to link them with further information such as production log files or inspection reports from Microsoft Office, ERP, M‑CAD and E‑CAD systems. Employees can access electronic machinery and product life cycle files containing all relevant data, documents and information seamlessly documented over the entire product life cycle – available at any time and from anywhere.

Doxis uses electronic machinery and product life cycle files to safeguard the constant flow of information between all links in the value chain. The result: companies become agile and responsive.

To find out more about how you can converge documents and data from ERP, CRM, M‑CAD, E‑CAD and Microsoft Office systems into a single source of truth to enable access to customer, contract, construction and production documents in real time from anywhere, register for our webinar on machinery and product life cycle records. Register now!