Two small software vendors this week released business intelligence product upgrades that will allow manufacturers to more accurately and rapidly assess the cost and quality of their products.
SigmaQuest Inc., a provider of on-demand product quality analysis tools, released version 6.1 of its flagship SigmaSure product, which adds several new features, including support for identifying potentially costly, low-quality "maverick" products before they are shipped.
At the same time, aPriori, a provider of cost management analysis software, delivered version 5.5 of its self-named tool, which, among other things, allows manufacturers to compute the cost of a single component manufactured in multiple internal or supplier plants.
The most significant new feature in the 6.1 release of SigmaQuest's SigmaSure is support for analysis of maverick parts and products, a capability that is increasingly important to manufacturers of electronics components, SigmaQuest's largest customer base. A maverick part is defined by the JEDEC Solid State Technology Association as an "atypical product that exhibits anomalistic characteristics causing higher-than-normal levels of failure in the end-user application."
Maverick parts, for example, may fall within prescribed functional test parameters but still fail often in the field, leading to costly product returns. Many electronic equipment OEMs, said SigmaQuest CEO Nader Fathi, have begun to require component suppliers to certify that they have analyzed part lots for their potential to exhibit maverick behavior.
"Just looking at product yields is not good enough to determine if products will behave correctly," Fathi told Managing Automation today.
Version 6.1 of SigmaSure allows manufacturers to perform multi-variable analysis on lots to determine whether they have the potential to become mavericks. Manufacturers, for example, might start by looking at lots with marginal quality testing results, then look at other parametric data such as who the machine operator was on a given lot, to determine whether certain parts could become mavericks.
Manufacturers could then, for example, decide not to sell those parts to their best suppliers. Some electronics manufacturers, Fathi said, are able to charge a premium for parts that have undergone maverick analysis and certification.
Besides supporting automated maverick analysis, version 6.1 of SigmaQuest also adds:
- Support for integration with bill-of-material information typically stored in ERP and PLM systems
- An alert framework that enables managers to receive email, SMS, or dashboard notification when a specified product quality pattern is detected
- A Generic Data Mapper feature that allows users to import product data from legacy systems into SigmaSure
- Support for multiple time zones
SigmaQuest also is working on a new SigmaSure module that will support the reporting and analysis of operational quality data generated by remote diagnostic tools that have been integrated into products such as electronics or medical equipment. That capability, Fathi said, will be added some time next year.
SigmaSure is used by 40 customers in 110 data collection locations, Fathi said. [To read more about SigmaQuest,
read its profile in
MA's "2006 Companies to Watch" feature.]
Meanwhile, the new release of the aPriori Enterprise Cost Management product allows manufacturers to analyze product costs in a wider range of production environments and across multiple plants.
The aPriori tool integrates with a wide range of CAD tools using the STEP file format, pulling information about materials expected to go into new product designs. The aPriori product combines that with models that correspond to the type of manufacturing processes that would be used to make the product. With that information, the aPriori tool is able to tell manufacturers early in the product design process how much it will cost to produce a given design.
The new release of the aPriori tool adds sand casting to the range of manufacturing models available. The product also supports sheet metal, injection molding, die casting, and welding production models.
The 5.5 release of aPriori also allows organizations to compute the costs for a single component manufactured across multiple internal or supplier plants.
The aPriori Enterprise Cost Management product is currently in use by 20 manufacturers, according to Ed Thomas, vice president of marketing at aPriori.