Sourcing & Supplier Integration

Integrating supplier management software into your product lifecycle management (PLM) strategy is critical for success in today’s market. Increased complexity and compressed production cycles are driving products that are designed and validated by globally dispersed teams, including suppliers. As your suppliers assume more responsibility for greater portions of your products, you need them to interact with people across your business — such as purchasing, engineering, compliance, quality, and manufacturing — to increase productivity and reduce the risk of recalls and non-compliance.

Teamcenter® PLM software provides a comprehensive approach to managing interactions with suppliers. You can coordinate processes and manage information, both internal and external, across all stages of your product lifecycle. You can drive early supplier involvement in product development and provide visibility into accurate supplier information across departments. Supplier information can be managed in context with the product structure to provide holistic views of your product.

With Teamcenter Design Data Exchange, you can exchange controlled packages of design data with suppliers outside of your Teamcenter environment, using efficient, secure, and scalable supplier integration capabilities. Traceability, audit, and version control of your design exchange packages enable efficient, effective, and transparent process execution. Suppliers use a secure web portal to receive requests and data packages from you, and they can use the same portal to upload and submit responses back to you

With Direct Materials Sourcing, you can understand cost drivers early in the product lifecycle and understand supply chain impact before changes are approved. Some of the capabilities of this solution include efficient early bidding processes featuring RFx (request for information, proposal or quotation) template authoring, a database of potential suppliers qualified by categories, controlled processes for managing events including multiple round processing, automatic tracking and communication, detailed cost breakdowns, bid analysis, and award nominations.

With Teamcenter Supplier Collaboration, you can extend your product lifecycle management (PLM) processes and data to your non-Teamcenter suppliers efficiently through real process integration. You can collaborate with your suppliers through interactions including Design Data Exchange, Direct Materials Sourcing and Supplier Program Management, all using the same PLM Supplier Collaboration Foundation.

Teamcenter can help you collaborate with suppliers who have authorized access to your Teamcenter environment. Trusted suppliers can securely participate in your PLM processes, and only work with data that you grant them access to. Teamcenter multi-site collaboration enables you to selectively share and synchronize supplier data, all within a secure, controlled PLM environment. Teamcenter visualization capabilities allow suppliers to participate in design reviews, without the requirement of co-location or CAD tool standardization.

With supplier program management, you can plan and execute supplier projects within the context of an overall program. This provides visibility into and traceability of supplier deliverables to reduce cycle times and shorten time-to-market.

Collecting and managing supplier information can be a tedious manual task. With Teamcenter vendor management, enterprise stakeholders (such as design, engineering, compliance and purchasing) have access to suppliers, supplier data, and supplier parts in a single, secure PLM framework. Suppliers can be organized by the categories of goods they provide, making it easy to search for the right supplier. Supplier parts and quotes are connected to the product BOM for ease of access and analysis.