InfinityQS SAP Utility Extends Visibility from ERP to Shop Floor

InfinityQS International, a provider of real-time Statistical Process Control (SPC) software, has released its SAP Integration Tool. This tool is part of InfinityQS' development strategy to bridge the gap between SAP and InfinityQS' real-time production floor data collection and analysis software. This new utility makes SAP data available to InfinityQS' ProFicient(TM) software for real-time quality control on the production floor.

"SAP is able to be brought down to the shop floor within the four walls but not terribly well developed for particular industries and are to be complimented by partner solutions," said Steven Cloughley, SAP's senior director of manufacturing solutions management, during a recent IndustryWeek Web conference. "Partner solutions provide [quality control] functions to a level of detail greater than what we achieve at an ERP level."

InfinityQS' SAP Import Utility allows not only part and test data to be imported, but also the upper and lower engineering limits and plausibility limits, from SAP inspection characteristics and stored in ProFicient as enhanced specification limits. The utility also allows users to filter the specific data values it acquires from SAP R/3.

"ERP doesn't answer all of manufacturers' needs," said Simon Jacobson, senior research analyst for AMR Research. "ERP has a very complex interface for manufacturing staff-it takes too long to customize and implement in a manufacturing environment, especially when there's a high turnover. We encourage businesses to explore an enterprise architecture that has an ERP system augmented with a manufacturing specific capability."