EMRS | alumni

The electronics manufacturing industry is undergoing significant changes in its manufacturing structure. These changes include the 'outsourcing' of production to Electronics Manufacturing Service (EMS) providers by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). The increasing use of EMS providers has placed new constraints on supply chain management for OEMs and EMS providers. This is a market that is characterized by high consumer expectations and demands, globalization, and tough competition. OEMs require EMS providers to be responsive and efficient. A parameter that is often used to benchmark the responsiveness of an EMS provider is the efficiency with which this organization manages the Engineering Change Order (ECO) process. The effective and efficient implementation of an ECO request requires the participation of many different parties that are both internal and external to an organization. These characteristics of the ECO process mandate the need for excellent information systems. Information systems determine the success of the ECO management process, and directly affect the satisfaction of the customer. The ECO management process was studied at an EMS provider's facility. Based on this study, an intelligent agent-based system, 'SUNY_ECO', was designed to manage the ECO process while concurrently reducing the lead-time and the human-errors associated with this process. The system was designed using object-oriented programming language techniques. Software systems such as the IBM Aglets Software Development Kit 1.0.3 and the Java Developer's Kit 1.1.7 were used to design, develop, and test the system. By using the 'SUNY_ECO' system, a user at an OEM would be able to identify the scope and the requirements of an ECO request and send them to an EMS provider's facility. Based upon the customer's request, the database at the EMS provider's facility will be updated. By using the 'SUNY_ECO' framework, the user at an EMS provider's facility would be able to calculate the cost of a new assembly order as well as the cost implications of an ECO request. The cost of the 'bill of materials' and the assembly cost would be updated automatically, if appropriate. By using the agent based 'SUNY_ECO' framework, information is exchanged automatically between the OEMs and EMS providers. This helps to reduce the lead-time needed for ECO implementation as well as the human errors associated with manual data entry. Security, data transfer, and data encryption are some of the issues that need to be studied further with respect to the 'SUNY_ECO' framework .


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