CAD/CAM and ERP/MES Integration: Connecting Engineering With Production

A new manufacturing job can begin with something as simple as a customer drawing or CAD file.

From there, someone has to decide what material is needed, which machine should produce the part, how many pieces are required and when the job should run.

If each department works with separate information, people may end up entering the same details several times or sending files back and forth by email.

That is where CAD/CAM and ERP integration can make a difference.

These systems have different jobs, but they can work together.

CAD/CAM software is mainly concerned with designing and preparing parts for manufacturing, including nesting, toolpaths and CNC programming.

ERP software generally deals with the wider business side of manufacturing, such as orders, purchasing, inventory, costing and planning.

MES software sits closer to production, helping manufacturers manage and monitor what is happening on the shop floor.

When these systems are connected properly, information can move between engineering, planning and production without requiring every team to work from a separate version of the job.

Entering information manually once is not a big issue.

Doing it hundreds of times across different departments is another matter.

A part number entered differently in two systems, an outdated drawing sent to production or an incorrect material quantity can create unnecessary delays.

This is one reason manufacturers are looking at digital manufacturing integration rather than treating each software system as a separate island.

Consider a typical production order.

The customer order enters the business. The ERP system contains the order and planning information. Engineering prepares the CAD data. The CAM system uses that information to prepare the manufacturing process, create the nest and generate the CNC program.

That program then reaches the appropriate machine on the shop floor.

When these steps are connected, the journey from CAD to CNC becomes easier to track.

Knowing that a CNC program has been created is useful.

Knowing whether the machine has actually started the job is even more useful.

This is where MES software can add another layer of visibility.

Depending on the system and integration, production teams can use MES to track jobs, monitor production progress and connect shop-floor activity with the information coming from planning and engineering

It is tempting to think that integration simply means making two programs exchange files.

In practice, it is about making sure the information being exchanged actually makes sense.

A part number, revision, material specification or production quantity needs to remain consistent as the job moves through different stages.

That is why CAD/CAM ERP integration needs to be planned around the manufacturer's actual workflow.