Dhinesh Kumar Muruganandam

Harshavardhan Gajanan Naik

Laufey Benediktsdóttir
Rupchanda Barman
Machteld Bögels
Ismet Omerovic
Sara Nilsson
Sarem Qazi
Anders Elf
Axel Bjurs

MG2135
May 28, 2018
 Abstract
Data management has become a challenge as industries move into a more digitalized world.
The basis for this is an increase in detailed products and a higher demand in both customized
and customer centered products. This increases the demand for variety and information flow.
To manage this complexity in inter-department data management and to provide a common
platform for communication, a well established PLM system is necessary.

For an efficient PLM system to be established, a detailed understanding of the industry’s

needs and the different features of information flow have been designed and discussed. The
different departments have different responsibility areas and objectives as well as informa-
tion flows and functions. Once, the information and work flows have been established, the
essential communication and data flow have been symbolized in terms of ER models (for
each department and for the whole company), with primary and foreign keys to link the
communication has been established. Once this base has been set, an implementation in
ARAS has been created. Based on the ER-model, different item types, relationships, life
cycles, etc., have been a part of the implementation in ARAS. With the use of different cases
based on real life scenarios, has it been possible to develop and prepare a system for what is
needed and demanded of a reliable PLM system.

The implementation of an efficient PLM system implies that the different needs of the in-
dustry have been met with an efficient communication system, and a common platform for
various information flow. This requires the basic understanding of what a PLM system is.
The main purpose of PLM is to help information move easier and connect easily. The real
world simulation of how a PLM system is designed, implemented, tested and put to use is
learned.
Contents

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 The company’s and revised problem formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.3 Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.4 Main questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.5 Theoretical inspirations and delimitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.6 Research method and source criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2 The Bikers Heaven case 4

2.1 Research and Development department . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1 Item Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.1.2 The part number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1.3 The assembly number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.1.4 ER-Model for the Research and Development department . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2 Assembly department . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2.1 The manufacturing BOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.2 ER-Model for the Assembly department . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3 Sales and Marketing Department . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3.1 ER-model for the sales and marketing department . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.4 After sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.4.1 ER Model for the after sales department . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.5 Aras implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.5.1 Basic implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.5.2 Lifecycles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.5.3 Extra implementations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.6 Managing special cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.6.1 The first special case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.6.2 The second special case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

3 Conclusion 30

A First Appendix i

B Second Appendix ii

C Third Appendix v

D Fourth Appendix vi
List of Figures
1 Different variations of different components for the bicycles . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2 Overview of the information flow for Bikers Heaven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3 The production flow when Bikers Heaven is pushing to sell a product . . . . . . . 6
4 The perspective of the customer with corresponding cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5 The work-flow for the department of research and development . . . . . . . . . . 8
6 The structure of the part number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
7 The structure of the assembly number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
8 Drawing of the crank set, which is a sub-assembly in the BOM . . . . . . . . . . 11
9 The ER-Model for the Research and Development department . . . . . . . . . . 12
10 Flow chart for the operations within the assembly department . . . . . . . . . . . 13
11 Product Bill of Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
12 The ER - Model for the assembly department . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
13 The work-flow within the sales and marketing department . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
14 The ER-Model for the sales and marketing department . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
15 The work-flow within the after sales department . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
16 ER Model of the After sales department diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
17 Lifecycle for the part itemtype . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
18 Lifecycle for the customer order itemtype . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
19 The five parts in the product BOM that need new versions . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
20 Information flow for the first special case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
21 Design of bicycle fork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
22 Information flow for the second special case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1 Introduction
With an increased demand for information management within the engineering sector, compa-
nies are forced to move into a more digitalized world. The increase in demand for variety and
information flow is based on an increase in detailed products and a higher demand in both cus-
tomized and customer centered products. A PLM system is essential to create an information
flow platform to handle this complexity in inter-department data management.

The research contains an establishing of a functional PLM system for the fictional company
Bikers Heaven AS with the use of the PLM software ARAS. Product Lifecycle Management
(PLM) system is a file management software used to manage information flows, relationship
between each entity, the various stages of a product life cycle, etc. The project requires that
there’s knowledge of how a PLM system works, what the functions are and how it’s implemented
in an ARAS system.

The project emphasis on understanding the information flows between different departments
within a company, but also the knowledge of implementation of a PLM system by investigating
and simulating real life scenarios. To accomplish this, the research contains an understanding
of different departments and their functionalities. The units are connected to each other and
together they make for a whole entity. The whole project group has been divided into sub-
groups containing of 2-3 students per department where each department consists of different
information flow that needs to be shared or stored. The final phase of the project consist of
a presentation following the results. With this investigation, simulation and presentation the
group expects to have learned the different needs of the bicycle industry but also the criteria
that are needed for what makes a valuable and efficient PLM system. The project simulates real
life situations which emphasizes on a greater understanding of Product Lifecycle Management.

1.1 Background
Bikers Heaven AS is an established bicycle manufacturer based in Sweden which was founded
in 1990. The company currently employs 500 people and is currently the local market leader.
Bikers Heaven AS has developed a reputation of offering customized bicycles of high quality
at an affordable price while also being easily accessible. In later years, management have been
pushing to increase the assortment while still keeping the manufacturing as lean as possible.
The increased need for customization pushes the data management to improve and establish a
common platform for communication. The customers varies from private individuals to compa-
nies (retail stores). The company sells new products majority through their own web-page, and
also handles maintenance and servicing through their service centers. The company is divided
into 4 departments: Research and Development(RnD), Assembly (OtD), Sales and Marketing
(StO), and After Sales (DtR).

1.2 The company’s and revised problem formulation

Customized bikes are the company’s brand factor. The quality assurance and customer relations
have put pressure on improving the information flow and expansion of the industry to meet the
customer’s needs. The increasing demands from the market for customizable products, as well
as management’s vision to increase the assortment puts pressure on the company to refine and
upgrade their PLM-system.

1.3 Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how an increased demand of information is managed by
a producing company with the use of a PLM system, in relation with customization requirements
from the customers.

1
1.4 Main questions
The company is famous for its customization options for customers to select the bike of their
choice. This obviously increases the amount of combinations of the products possible, and that
refers that there’s a lot of information flowing inside. To manage this magnanimity of infor-
mation flow between different departments within the company, a new PLM system is created
which offers a platform to communicate easily.

The main question is how Bikers Heaven AS should manage the increasing amount of data
within the industry, and to answer that the following sub-questions will be asked:

• How is information managed internally by different departments?

• How is data and information shared and transferred within the company?

• How can an implementation in ARAS facilitate the information sharing process?

• Can our PLM system handle different scenarios and cases?

1.5 Theoretical inspirations and delimitation

The analysis in this report is based mostly on theoretical academical lectures given in the
course Product Lifecycle Management (MG2135) given by Per Johansson during the spring year
2018, but also on a practical implementation in the software Aras which also have served as a
delimitation for the project. A web-page has also been created in order to simulate a purchasing
order1 . The lectures has provided with an understanding a PLM system with file and information
flow practices, and the implementation in Aras have been practiced in laboratory sessions.

1.6 Research method and source criticism

The theories and the sources were studied in parallel with implementations of the different
scenarios in the software Aras. Studying the theories parallel to the practical implementation
helped in grasping the whole idea of product lifecycle systems and their management.

The entire project is based on creating an information management system, to link all data
flowing within an industry. This project restricts its scope to a bicycle manufacturing company,
having 4 departments: Research and Development, Assembly, Sales and Marketing, and After-
sales. When multiple departments are involved, the understanding of what information flows
and the interrelation needs to be understood. The first step is to have a pre-study of the whole
project, to analyse the work flow, information flow, and to understand the basic functioning of
each department. Once, the functionality is understood, flow models of the company are to be
created. ER models are needed to analyze the important components for the departments and
the relationship between them. Once entities are created, the implementation in Aras needs to
be done to create a system linking the different item types, linking them with the relationships.
Webhooks connecting Aras and communication platform (Slack) are established for easier access
and connectivity between different departments.

Once the PLM system is implemented, it needs be tested with different real life case scenar-
ios. The project is presented with 2 different real life cases and the efficiency of the system is
analyzed based on the cases. The results of the scenarios were presented. This project is lim-
ited to a research level, as real life industry has a lot of complex information flow and detailed
ER components. An overall functioning and basic implementation is executed in this project,
and it isn’t 100 percent accurate for a real industry. This project is a platform for students to
1
https://bikersheavenas.wixsite.com/bikersheaven

2
understand and create the functioning of a PLM system and to understand the necessity and
methodology behind it.

3
2 The Bikers Heaven case
Bikers Heaven AS is an online bicycle company. The customer, whether it is an individual or a
company, can order bikes online from https://bikersheavenas.wixsite.com/bikersheaven. Would
the customer want to see the physical bike before making a purchase, the company has show-
rooms with some of the assembly prototypes. Sales personnel are also in the showroom, helping
the customer to make an order. The company produces their products according to the assem-
bly to order principle, which means that they wait for a customer to place before starting to
produce the bike. However, some of the assemblies do not consist of a variant part and are
the same for every single bicycle. Those assemblies would be useful to create beforehand to be
able to assemble the bike quicker. Therefore, the company is leaning little bit more towards
the assembly to order principle than make to order. For more customized products the system
becomes more make to order. Similarly, less customization can be produced more towards as-
sembly to order. The advantage using assembly to order is that it follows a lean approach which
minimizes the amount of standstill products within the warehouse, but also gives the company
the opportunity to make more product variants with the option for customers to almost design
their own product. The restrictions lays within the design. for example the wheels must be of
the same size. When Bikers Heaven has designed a couple of variations of a part, the customer
can choose what suits his/her bike best. The customer cannot select a part that research and
development team has not designed yet, because the components is not officially established
within the product assortment. However, if the customer wants a bike that the company has
not yet designed, he can write specifications in the order which Bikers Heaven will then put into
consideration for production.When the Research & Development team designs a new part, they
also decide the restrictions for that particular component.

Every year, the company designs and puts a new set of models on the market. Usually, not
all the parts changes every year, but a couple of selected parts, for example the gear, the brakes
and the color might change one year, and the seat and the handlebar the next year. The
components with different variations are visually explained in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Different variations of different components for the bicycles

The other parts comes, for now, only as one variant. The company has therefore 17642 different
variants to manage. In the coming year, if a different seat is added to the collection then the
type bikes combinations will increase to 35283 variants One can see that adding new types of a
components will increase the number of types immensely and will affect the assembly structure.
A problem is that old variants might become unavailable due to old design or defects, where the
system still must be able to recognize which parts can be assembled together and which cannot.

Bikers Heaven has different departments which have different responsibility areas and objec-
tives, and therefore contributes with different value to the company. The departments, their
main purpose and connection to each other is visually explained in Figure 2. The departments
2
Bike variations: 2 frames * 3 gears * 3 wheel size * 2 tires * 7 frame colors * 7 fork colors = 1764 variations
3
Bike variations: 2 frames * 3 gears * 3 wheel size * 2 tires * 7 frame colors* 7 fork colors * 2 seats = 3528
variations

4
within are: Research and Development, Assembly, Sales and Marketing and After Sales. The

Figure 2: Overview of the information flow for Bikers Heaven

Research and Development, also known as R&D, designs the bikes according to customer de-
mand, market information and new inventions. The information from R&D spreads to other
departments. The assembly unit collects assembly drawings needed for the assembly process
while the sales and marketing department uses the information in relevant marketing campaigns
on the market. In return both the assembly and sales unit send feedback to the R&D department
with additional feedback from after sales. The main responsibility area of the assembly depart-
ment is the assembly processes which use relevant Bill of Materials (BOM) structures to create
a bicycle which satisfy the customers need. Sales manages the market campaigns and maintains
the website, but is also responsible for the showroom used to show the products to the customer.
Sales also sends information about the customer to the aftermarket unit for retaining customer
relations. The department of after sales is responsible for all kinds of customer relations and
storing spare parts, together with maintenance. The department also collect information from
the customer which is sent to R&D in case of new ideas might appear on the table. Detailed
internal information flows are described for each department in section 2.

When designing the PLM system, it is interesting to look at the model from different per-
spectives to get a better understanding about how the company is functioning. In the following
two figures, Figure 3 and Figure 4, two different point of views are presented. The first per-
spective is the flow presented from the company’s point of view as the company is pushing to
sell a product, while the second perspective is the customer’s point of view. Figure 3 explains
the structure inside the company and how the departments communicate. Each department
has managers that communicates during regular management meetings with managers from
other departments in order to make decisions for the company. The management team also has
overview over the finances, the employees and the future outlook for the company. From the
customer’s perspective, once the consumer has put together the bike he wants from the list of
offered products, the customer continues towards a payment on the web-page. Meanwhile, the
algorithms behind the web-page calculate the bike number, which is the same for this combina-
tion of bicycles, and an order number, which is different for every order, and will be described in
details in section 2.1.2. The bike number continues to the assembly department which will break

5
 Figure 3: The production flow when Bikers Heaven is pushing to sell a product

the bike number down into different assembly numbers. The assembly department collects the
parts it needs from supplier or vendor and finds the right assembly drawings from the collec-
tion from R&D. Once the bike is assembled the assembly department ships it to the customer.
When the customer has paid, the order goes into the aftersales register to keep the customer
information in case of further interaction with the customer. If the customer decides to cancel
the order and get a refund, he will contact customer service, via a portal on the website, which
is a part of the after sales department. Furthermore, if the customer contacts customer service
because of a failed product or any critics the customer might have, the after sales department
handles the case and decides how to solve the case.

Regarding finances, the aftersales handles all the finances. Though the order may come from the
sales department and the customer pays via a web page which is a part of the sales department,
the payment will immediately go to the after sales department. The after sales handles the
payment to the customer as well as payment to other departments.

6
 Figure 4: The perspective of the customer with corresponding cases

2.1 Research and Development department

The research and development (R&D) department designs and develops the product for the
company but also supplies the assembly department with part and assembly drawings so they
can easily assemble the bicycle. The flow within the department is illustrated in Figure 5 with
related relationships to relevant departments within the company, but also to external actors.
New information from Aftersales and Sales together with R&D’s own research triggers the re-
search team to start a new research which includes for example both new models of the tire,
finding a more convenient way for the customer to lock the bicycle or more homogeneous seat
that fits everyone. The research team creates a report with all necessary data and states if the
part assembled has any limitations, for example the wheels must be of the same size. After the
product specifications the research team has to decide if they will by the part from a supplier
or send the design to a vendor. No part is produced by Bikers Heaven, they only assemble the
bike. If R&D choose to use a supplier4 , the department selects the right part from the supplier
catalog. The supplier will send the part along with the CAD model and the CAD Drawing. If
the R&D choose to use a vendor5 , the department designs and creates CAD model and CAD
drawing for that part and sends the drawing to the vendor for production. The vendor sends
the parts back to the company. Both the vendor and the supplier are responsible for the parts
they are selling to the company and the parts received by the company are quality checked by
the supplier or vendor. Only the frame, the wheels (spoke, rim and tire) and the handlebars
are sent to a vendor, everything else is bought from a supplier. However, in the future this may
change.

4
Such as gears, breaks and lights
5
Such as frames, wheels and handlebars

7
 Figure 5: The work-flow for the department of research and development

The research team has to put all the CAD models into one model and create assembly drawings
out of them to be able to assemble the parts from the Vendor and the Supplier together. In
the Assembly Testing station the parts are put together and tested in various ways to prevent
any failure. If a failure occurs, information is sent back to the research team, who will then
try to find solution to that problem. If the prototype passes the inspection two things will
happen. Firstly, the assembly drawings are sent to the assembly unit where they are ready to
be used and secondly, product specifications and the prototype is sent to Sales for promotion
and marketing. In return the Manufacturing and Sales department send feedback to the R&D
department through their managers if anything is unclear or could be optimized more.

2.1.1 Item Number

An item number is the number an item is given. An item can either be a part or an assembly
but because an assembly can also be considered a part in the database and to avoid confusion,
the word item is used for both parts and assemblies. The R&D unit decides both the part and
assembly number. Upon receiving the order, the assembly department search in the internal
warehouse if there is a fork which same same specification as the old one. The assembly depart-
ment sends then the fork that should be used to the after sales unit.

In this report, a part is defined as a component of the bike that does not consist of an as-

8
sembly of any other parts. An example of parts are the seat clamp, the fender front and the
steer horn. An assembly is an item that consists of more than one part. An example of an
assembly is the seat assembly which consist of different parts such as the saddle and the post.
Both parts and assemblies have numbers that distinguish them from each other. The format for
the part numbers are different than the format for the assembly numbers. The number of all
of the parts and a few examples of the assembly numbers can be found in Appendix A. In the
following two sub-chapters, the numbers for the parts and assemblies are be described in detail.

2.1.2 The part number

The part number corresponds to the Part ID in the ER model. For clearance, the assembly
number also corresponds to the Part ID in the ER model. The part and the assembly number
can be known as item numbers. When the research team launches ideas about new parts, they
also create a number for the part in the part number system. As mentioned in section 2.1.1, the
parts will either be manufactured by a vendor or supplier. Figure 6 explains how the number
contains the attributes for each part. According to the system, the same type of part can have

Figure 6: The structure of the part number

four different properties. For the tire, three of those attributes are already known but for the
others, either zero, one or two attributes are already known. The restrictions the company has
made for the part is that it has limit the types of a part to 9999 parts, 26 colors, 99 types of
attribute 3, 26 types of attribute 4 and 99 types of attribute 5. Each part can therefore have
6.625.4766 different types and in total, the company can create 66.248.134.5247 different part
numbers. To clarify, the following examples shows how different types of parts are numbered.
For further knowledge, the Appendix A consists of all the parts number. The following examples
explains the parts numbers in practice:

Example 1: The frame has 0001 as type number (which is the first attribute), it comes in 7
different colors (which is the second attribute), and it can come as open or closed (which is the
third attribute). This creates a total part number for the frame, which can be 0001A01A01 if
the color is color A (Black), the frame is opened. The last two attributes are left untouched for
now because the frame has no other properties. Would the R&D department develop a black
opened frame made of carbon fiber instead of the usual material the new part would get the
number 0001A01B01 where the letter B indicates the material.

Example 2: The pedal has the type number 0003 (which is the first attribute), it comes in
color black (which is the second attribute), but the pedal can come as a right or a left pedal
which the third attribute define. The right pedal would get the part number 0003A01YZZ, while
the left pedal would get the part number 0003A02YZZ.

Example 3: The tire has the type number 0028 (which is the first attribute), it comes in the
color black (which is the second attribute), the tire can be of different sizes (which is the third
attribute and it can be a standard or a heavy tire (which is the fourth attribute. (standard and
6
26 colors * 99 types of attribute 3 * 26 types of attribute 4 * 99 types of attribute 5 = 6.625.476
7
9999 parts * 26 colors * 99 types of attribute 3 * 26 types of attribute 4 * 99 types of attribute 5 =
66.248.134.524

9
heavy). This creates a total number for the tire, which can be 0028A02S01 if the color is black,
the size if of 24 inch, the tire is a standards one. The last attribute is left untouched for further
possible variations of a the tire with another additional attribute.

Example 4: Would the company add a basket to the bicycle, the baskets part number would
start with 0031 as the first attribute because it is a totally new component within the assort-
ment. The rest of the number follows the same structure as the previous examples, with four
different attributes of the component.

From the example one can see that every part number has equal amount of symbols, 9 symbols.
When an employee wants to find a certain part in the database this number system can help
him find the part needed. Typing *0001* into the database gives all the different frame parts
available and typing *0001A* gives all the black frames available. Would the operator want to
find all the black items the operator would simply need to find all the parts that have the letter
A in the fourth place of the number. The Excel sheet, which can be found in Appendix A, will
serve as a reference list of all part with corresponding part numbers.

2.1.3 The assembly number

The assembly numbers are connected to the drawing which the assembly department receives
from R&D. The bike consists of 5 main sub-assemblies. These are frame, seat, head, front wheel
and back wheel assemblies. Letters are used to identify which sub-assembly is managed and
the digit corresponds to one of the 99999 possible combinations of each sub-assembly. Figure 7
shows how the total assembly numbers are put together. To understand the assembly structure
better, the BOM in chapter 2.21 shows the entire structure.

The five main sub-assemblies and their corresponding sub-assemblies all have the respective
main assembly’s letter in front of the number which helps to identify which part is managed.
The frame assembly has the letter F, the head assembly the letter H, etc. Every main assem-
bly can be of 99999 different type. The main sub-assemblies can include other sub-assemblies.
Because these sub-assemblies could change in the future and possibly transfer to other main
subassembly, the number for these sub-assemblies is with the same system, the letter X in the
beginning and then 99999 possible random generated numbers.

10
 Figure 7: The structure of the assembly number

The assembly drawing comes as an explosion and has a table with all the parts or assembly
number. Figure 8 shows an example of a assembly drawing.

Figure 8: Drawing of the crank set, which is a sub-assembly in the BOM

11
2.1.4 ER-Model for the Research and Development department
The research and development department manages the creation of new as well as development
of new revisions from old products. To create a part both a CAD-model and a CAD-drawing
is needed, these have their own unique document ID as the primary key, and the part ID as
the foreign key. As can be seen in Figure 9, an assembly is also considered a part in the ER-
model. When an assembly is created an assembly process is connected, once again with a unique
document ID and the part ID as the foreign key. Production of the part leads to an internal order
being created to get the needed parts from the supplier. Every supplier has its own supplier ID.
The supplier type is also specified for every single supplier, the supplier types were introduced
and discussed more in depth in 2.1. To be able to develop products and create new revisions,
complaints are sent to the R&D department to help create better products for the customer.
Every complaint needs a customer ID, part ID and a solution.

Figure 9: The ER-Model for the Research and Development department

2.2 Assembly department

The assembly department is mainly responsible for the assembly of the bicycles sold by the com-
pany but also for maintaining relationships with suppliers and providing customers with finished
goods. The flow within the department is illustrated in Figure 10 with related relationships to
relevant departments within the company, and external actors. There are mainly two different

12
 Figure 10: Flow chart for the operations within the assembly department

cases which the department has to be able to manage:

1. Manage to assemble a complete new order from the customer

2. Manage to supply with components necessary for correction of a failed product or main-
tenance

Due to the fact that the department has two different cases to manage, the starting point for
a request becomes different. In the first case is the specific order information received from
the sales department while in the second one is the information received for the department
responsible for the after sales. When an order comes from the sales department an assembly
process of a completely new product is induced, while the request from the after sales includes
only a request for one or a few components which has to be delivered to the same department
for correction.

Firstly, the order central checks the availability of components in the warehouse needed for
the assembly process of a specific product. To minimize lead-time for the most common bicy-
cle models are all parts for those models available and stored in the warehouse, and if parts
are missing then different suppliers are contacted for deliverance of components or whole sub-
assemblies. When a specific part is collected from the warehouse a request for a refill is sent back
to the order central in order to always have a sufficient inventory. The components arrive at the
warehouse of the department and are distributed to either the aftermarket unit for correction of
a failed product or to the main assembly process which assembles the bicycle the customer has
requested for. In order to assure the quality of the assembled bicycles are all products inspected
for errors. If products are wrongly assembled they are sent back to the assembly process for
correction. If components are of bad quality, then availability of components is checked at the
warehouse. If components cannot be found in inventory then information is sent to the order
central about which parts are needed so suppliers can be contacted for a refill. Everytime a part
is collected from the warehouse the order central is always contacted for a refill of the inventory
through suppliers. When a product is finished it is sent directly to the customer, and informa-
tion about the status of the process is sent to the order central for continuous improvements for
the future processing of products but also for statistics. The order central sends information
to the aftermarket department about the status for financial transactions to be made by the
aftermarket unit.

13
2.2.1 The manufacturing BOM
The Bill of Material (BOM) is a simpli-
fied model of the product the company is
assembling and both a functional and a
product structure are used by the com-
pany for an optimal process to be man-
aged. The structure helps the company
to manage the different variants, which
are similar parts that can be simulta-
neously used, but also different revisions
which are similar parts where only the
latest is used. The BOM used within
the company use an open structure in
order to signal which part is connected
to which assembly, but leave out specif-
ically which variant is used. In order
to manage the open structure a prod-
uct is documented with an ”open” parts
list, where the part number is specified
as an order document resulting in spe-
cific parts being decided on in the order
stage.

The hierarchal BOM structures, for all the

bicycles produced by the company, are di-
vided into five different main assembly struc-
tures, as previously discussed in section 2.1.3.
These are: frame assembly, head assembly,
seat assembly, front wheel assembly and rear
wheel assembly, and are all visibly presented
together via parts connected to the assem-
bly in Figure 11. Within the frame assem-
bly there are further two sub-assemblies but
also one additional sub-assembly within the
rear wheel assembly, which are both used as
clarifications. Due to the fact that the par-
ent entity consist of one or more sub-diary
entities and a sub-diary entity is a part of
exactly one parent creates a clear and com-
prehensive structure is created, which also is
the purpose of the manufacturing BOM. The
sub-assemblies should be possible to be assem-
bled by the company but also by suppliers, to
be later on be directly bought by the com- Figure 11: Product Bill of Material
pany.

Within Aras, one way relationships have been created between different parts which build up
different variants of the bicycles the company is offering. The one way relationships help the
software to avoid redundancy but at the same time help communicate which part is connected
to which assembly. When a part has been updated it is regarded as a new revision, which does
not affect the assembly structure but do replace the specific part which has been updated. In
this way, only the latest revision is used within the assembly and interference and confusion

14
is reduced within the production process. Interchangeability is also required in order for the
company to manage to supply reserve parts to the aftermarket department old revisions and
versions will always be kept to manage compatibility issues, but the latest revision is always
used when it is compatible with the rest of the parts. Due to the fact that multiple revisions
are in use at the same time they have been regarded as two different variants.

Lastly, the BOM structure is an important tools which helps to communicate the assembly
sequence within the assembly process in a logical manner. Additional information about the
parts within the assembly are attached as an Excel sheet in Appendix A. A full hierarchal figure
of the manufacturing BOM is attached in Appendix B.

2.2.2 ER-Model for the Assembly department

As mentioned in section 2.2.1, orders can both come from the sales and the after sales depart-
ment. The different scenarios contribute with different information flows from different direction
within the department. The ER-model is visually explained in Figure 12. Each order created by

Figure 12: The ER - Model for the assembly department

the sales department comes with a unique order ID which specifies each unique order from the
customers. Information about who the customer is and which product the consumer requests is
within the request together with placement and deliver date. The order is basically a document
which signals which specific several parts are needed for the assembly. Notable, each parts can
act both as an individual part but also as an assembly which enables the company to both order
parts, but also finished assembly from external unique suppliers if needed. Each supplier is iden-
tified through a unique supplier ID, with the ID of the parts or assemblies working as the main
data carrier for the request of the ordered component. All products, independent if they arrive

15
as individual components or assemblies, are stored in the internal warehouse of the department
with quantity and position of each component as important information for the personnel to
use. The repair order is an order placed by the after sales when requesting specific parts needed
for their replacement process due to failure or maintenance of a product. The assembly process
use the BOM structure from section 2.2.1, but with specific versions of different parts which
the customer has requested for, with the purpose to create an absolute assembly of them. Note
that the assembly process is only included when a new part is created because the after sales
department assembles failed products. The different finished goods are directly delivered to the
customers from the assembly department. Finally, the department of research and development
has the ability to change the parts used within the assembly process both as new revisions of
existing parts but by adding new parts to the assortment. With their ability to change the parts
they are also responsible for updating the assembly structure in order for the assembly process
to be feasible.

2.3 Sales and Marketing Department

Firstly, the purpose of the Sales department is to provide a platform that enables customers
to either place an order or just to browse for what is available. There are 2 kinds of cus-
tomers, an individual or a company. An individual places an order for a single or less number
of bikes as compared to a company (retailer stores), which place 100s of orders at the same
time. The platform for which the customer will do so comes in the form of a web-page named
https://bikersheavenas.wixsite.com/bikersheaven, which is the company’s web-page. Though,
an order can be placed through a web-page, if the customer wants to physically see the bike,
they need to go a retailer who sells our products and place an order to them, who in turn places
an order to the Sales dept. Within the web-page a customer has the possibilities of customizing
their specific type of bike depending on customers needs and desires. This is all because the
bikes that are available are built in the form of an assembly, which provides the customer with
the sense of a ”build-it-yourself” feeling when using the web service, which creates a greater
bond between the customer and the end product. Secondly, the sales and marketing unit are
also in charge of the marketing, this entails all the information that is related to marketing
of all our products and services. Collaboration with the assembly department is in the sense
that when a customer places an order this order is then sent to the assembly department for
assembling and supplying purposes. Apart from collaborating with the the assembly department
the sales department has a close collaboration with the R&D department due to marketing and
development purposes. There are mainly two cases that are managed by the department, which
have outcomes connected to the customers. As an order is always started with the customer it
is also important to view all aspects of the flow within the department. The following two cases
explains different cases related to the customer and how they are managed by the department:

1. Starting with the customer placing an order through a web-page, or at a retailer, which is
then sent to the manufacturing department for production

2. This part of the flow shows the information that comes from the marketing department.
It shows that it is related to the ‘R&D’ department, this comes in the type of market
analysis & customer reviews. The R&D department gives information to the marketing
in terms of new updates of products and overall product information.The customer leaves
feedback through likes, ideas for improvement and shares to the marketing department.
This information is then sent to the R&D department which evaluates the feedback for
future improvements and development

The marketing within ‘Bikers Heaven’ comes in different forms and is affected with different
departments. As the flow in Figure 13 displays, the marketing is within sales but it has a collab-
oration with the R&D. The marketing gets the product information from R&D and campaigns
to the customer. They also take care of the feedback and reviews from the customer and pass

16
 Figure 13: The work-flow within the sales and marketing department

the information as a Marketing Report to R&D for market analysis. The marketing of the
company’s products & services are done not only on the company web-page but also in other
areas, which are:

• Retail stores – The focus here is to have different showrooms of the bikes but also give
the customer an idea of how to purchase them. As we are selling the service of ”build it
yourself” where we give the customer the freedom to choose whichever customization or
model that they themselves seem fitting for them

• Event affairs – Just like the showrooms, we will here show the products & services of our
company but also the idea is to engage with other companies

• Commercials – Marketing our products through media (TV, web-pages, posters and other
online platforms)

• Trial Days - Like a Demo session, where the customer tries riding new bikes and gives
feedback and can order if interested

2.3.1 ER-model for the sales and marketing department

The sales department manages an order from a new customer which has a unique customer ID.
Customer information includes order ID, address, name, email, contact number. Each customer
places one or multiple orders. Every order has a unique order ID and has a customer ID
linked to identify which customer placed the order. The order also contains the price, quantity,
specifications and a unique bike ID which refers to the specific combination that is requested by
the customer. Figure 14 illustrates sales and marketing departments ER-model.

17
 Figure 14: The ER-Model for the sales and marketing department

2.4 After sales

The after sales unit has the main objective to meet customers which have had faults with their
bicycles or are in for maintenance. This makes the department a important actor within the
customer retention and satisfaction. The unit post sale services to the customers which includes
registering customer complaints, providing customers with spare parts and suggesting upgrades,
generating refund against a refund request and providing necessary feedback to the department
of R&D to incorporate necessary changes in the bicycles. The work-flow within the department
and relationships to other departments and external actors are presented in Figure 15. The
Dtr Centre is the main point of contact for all the flow within the department. When the
customer approaches the company after the delivery, after sales department receives the case
at the Dtr Centre and is further inspected by the inspection team, within the inspection centre
which can have two outcomes. First, If the customer is not satisfied with the product and
requests for a refund (after complete check of the product, if it qualifies for refund) which is
then forwarded to the finance Sub-Department which deals with the returns. Within the finance
sub-department, the finance team deals with the customer payments for the initial delivery
of the new products from OtD Department. Second, the customer’s request for maintenance,
rectifying manufacturing faults or voluntary upgrades is managed by the workshop. It also
has its own warehouse with most frequently used spare parts, but also has direct contact with
the assembly department for sourcing of all the required spare parts required for the service of
the bikes.Repaired and upgraded products are sent back to the centre and delivered back to the
customer. The centre is constantly updating the feedbacks from the service team which provides
the R&D with necessary information for continuous improvements of the products.

18
 Figure 15: The work-flow within the after sales department

2.4.1 ER Model for the after sales department

While registering a complaint, the After sales department asks for customer’s order details
including order ID and the related bike ID. With the help of the bike ID, it is easily identified in
which parts repair or maintenance is needed. The department generates an internal order, which
in this case is of type repair order and sends it to the assembly unit. Since the internal order has
information about the Part ID, the assembly department knows specifically which parts needs
repair to be sufficient. In the case of a return request, after sales department generates a unique
return ID along with details like refund status and amount to be refunded for the corresponding
complaint. For every complaint received, the department drafts a report which is a document
of type complaint report and is sent to the R&D department, and is used for improvements.
After sales also suggests upgrades for the old spare parts and provide the revised the part to
the customer. In case the new upgrade do not fit with the old bike, the old revision of the part
is traced with the help of the attribute order date of the item type order. Spare parts is related
to the warehouse with a relationship type quantity, which helps to know the quantity of every
specific spare part stored in the warehouse. The ER model for the department is presented in
Figure 16.

19
 Figure 16: ER Model of the After sales department diagram

2.5 Aras implementation

Aras is a PLM software that helps the user to connect the databases of the company. Bikers
Heaven is using Aras to collect information about the company’s production. The system helps
to keep track of all the customer orders, the parts of the bike, the assemblies of the bike, the
payments, suppliers and the warehouses. Additionally, the system helps the information flow
between departments as web-hooks can be connected from Aras to a communication system
(e.g. Slack) which notifies different departments whenever a task is needed to be performed.
This PLM system should also be connected to an CRM and ERP system to coordinate customer
information and customer relations as well as payments as this can’t be done in Aras easily or
at all. A logistics system integration could also be added but it is not of the same importance
as the earlier systems mentioned.

2.5.1 Basic implementation

All the department’s ER models have been combined in a single total ER model, which can be
seen in Appendix C. The total ER model is used for the Aras implementation. The entities in the
ER-model are created as ItemTypes in Aras with the properties as attributes. The connections
between the entities in the ER-model are created as RelationshipTypes. All the itemtypes, their
attributes and relationships can be seen in Appendix D, with the addition of the correct lifecycle
and web-hooks to Slack. Each lifecycle is connected to an itemtype. Some of the attributes in
the ER model, are similar but carry different relations. For example, all the part document,
the marketing report and the complaint are all documents but have different relations, as the

20
part document is connected to the part, the marketing report connected to the customer and
the complaint connected to the customer order. Instead of making three different itemtypes,
only one poly item is created with all the three itemtypes mapped to it as poly sources. The
itemtypes work as independent itemtypes but when creating the itemtype the user can create
one document and select which kind of document (itemtype) the user needs. The same applies
to the payments and internal orders. When it comes to adding properties to the poly item type,
it is important to have the attributes the same for the poly item type and the item types mapped
to it. Creating attributes is not challenging but the challenge lies in creating all the attributes
before the item type can be created multiple times. When a property is added afterwards, the
item types already created will not update.

The relationships between the database create the flow in the system. Relationships do have
one item type as a source and one item type as related, which can be mapped to the source.
When the source item type is created, the related item type can be mapped to it. One source
can be related to only one item type (1 to 1), one source can be related to many item types
(1 to many) or many sources can be related to many item types (many to many). In the last
case, it can also be optional to have a related item type while in the first two cases, an item
type cannot be created without mapping the related item type to the source. Properties can be
added to a relation and will then appear next to the items that are mapped to an item. In the
case of Bikers Heaven, it is useful to create a quantity attribute for the parts in the warehouse,
the supplier, other parts and the orders to avoid mapping the same part twice. When creating
the warehouse to part relation, which has a many to many relation with the warehouse as a
source and the part as the related item. With that relation, all the parts could be seen in the
warehouse, which was considered necessary. However, it would perhaps also be necessary to see
in which warehouse a specific part is. This cannot be done with the many to many relation and
is a limitation that could be improved in future.

2.5.2 Lifecycles
The flow of the system lies in the lifecycles. Each item type has different lifecycle that explains
what role the item type has in the system. An example of a lifecycle that is created for the part
itemtype is given in Figure 17. The bold comments that are shown next to the lifecycle-steps
represent the User who has permission to promote the part to this particular state, whereas
the other comments show whether a particular department or the customer is notified about
a certain event through Slack. When a new part is created by the R&D department, it starts

Figure 17: Lifecycle for the part itemtype

in the ‘Design’ state. In this phase, the product specifications, CAD models and drawings are

21
created for the parts that are designed by the R&D department and produced by a vendor.
When the part has been designed, it will be promoted to ‘Review’ in order to analyze whether
the design meets all requirements. When the design has been approved, it is sent to the vendor
for prototyping. The developed prototype is sent back to the R&D department such that the
part itself can be tested as well as the assembly it would become a part of. If testing shows
that the part is not sufficient (yet), it will be promoted back to the ‘Design’ state such that
alterations can be made. Otherwise, the part will become ‘Released’.

As was stated before, the parts which are not designed by the R&D department will be se-
lected from the suppliers’ assortment. Since these parts do not go through the design, review
and prototyping phases, they will be directly promoted from ‘Design’ to ‘Released’. Assemblies
will, even though they are not designed by the R&D department as such, go through the testing
phase to ensure that they meet the product specifications and are safe to use. The final state
for all parts and assemblies is the ‘Obsolete’ state, which implies that these parts are no longer
being ordered.

Figure 18 shows the lifecycle for the customer order itemtype. When an order is created by the
StO department, it is reviewed by employees from the OtD department. If they decide that the
order cannot be completed for any particular reason, the order will be promoted to ‘Denied’,
also notifying the DtR department and the customer. Otherwise, the order will go into ‘Assem-
bly’. When the order is assembled it will be promoted to ‘Finished’ by the OtD department.
The order will then be sent to the customer which makes it ‘In Delivery’ before it is delivered
and promoted to ‘Order Completed’. If something goes wrong during delivery, the order will
be promoted to ‘Order Failed’ which is defined as the ‘Released’ state in Aras, implying that a
promotion back to the ‘Place Order’ state will consequently generate the next Revision of the
order, i.e. the order will be assembled again. If a customer wants to order spare part(s) for

Figure 18: Lifecycle for the customer order itemtype

a bicycle after the warranty period has passed, a customer order will be created including the
necessary part(s). Therefore, the customer order will be promoted to ‘In Repair’ after the order

22
is placed since there will be no assembly required by the OtD department. The order is created
since there is a customer payment necessary which requires a related customer order. The life
cycles for the other itemtypes are presented in Appendix D.

2.5.3 Extra implementations

As was stated before, there are restrictions added to the promotions, generating different access
for employees at different departments. That can be created in Identities. The identities were
done as roles i.e. what a manager can only do and what the department can do. The identities
ware made up of users. In the current Aras implementation there are three employees per de-
partment added and one manager. These users are all create in Users. Furthermore restrictions
are added under Permissions and then linked to each itemtype. These restrict what identities
can view or do with the different itemtypes meaning users will only see what is necessary for
them.

The web-hooks are Slack links that can be put into a code in Methods and will display a
message in Slack once a lifecycle has been promoted to a new stage. The message is linked to a
property in an itemtype, so the message can be as accurate as possible. Forms can be used to
change the look of the item type structure to make it more user friendly. For cleaning up the
database, useless attributes are hidden and old test parts are removed.

When implementation of item types, relationships and lifecycles was done, the testing of the
system could start. The testing of the system included creation of different scenarios that could
be filled in the system and check if the relations worked properly. Some minor modifications
needed to be done after testing but with testing completed the database could be filled up with
real information. Further explanation on how the Aras system works can be found in chapter
2.6 where the cases demonstrate how the Aras system works.

2.6 Managing special cases

Bikers Heaven got two cases to solve, the two cases are built on different scenarios and in the
sections below will Bikers Heavens solutions be presented.

2.6.1 The first special case

”A unique order is received from a customer, the order consists of three different bicycle
models. The first one is a closed bike with wheel size of 27 “, the second one is an open bike
with wheel size of 27”. The third bicycle is a mountain-bike with 24” with 21 gears. The bikes
should be delivered to customer within 2 weeks. ”

Firstly, the priority lays within the two weeks delivery time requested by the customer in order
to retain customer satisfaction. The bikes with open and closed frames are easy to assemble
and deliver with the system the company use today which can be found in the sections 2.1 - 2.4,
while the mountain-bike requires a different approach. Internally, the open and the closed bikes
are considered to be a separate order (first customer order), while the mountain bike is treated
as another separate order (second customer order). By distinguishing the orders can a focus be
directed on the deliverance of the mountain bikes which will require a longer lead time, while
the other bikes will be ready for delivery within a couple of days. Technically, the mountain
bike distinguishes itself from the traditional bicycles within the assortment because it requires
parts which are not managed by the company today. New versions of existing parts needed for
the mountain-bike are:

1. Frame - Mountain-bike type

23
 2. Crankset - With three gear wheels, in order to meet the requirements of an 21 gears
alternative

3. Gear (front) - Used to shift gears on the front cogset (which is integrated in the crankset)
by controlling the chain

4. Shifter (front) - Used to control the movements of the front derailleur

5. Fork - Updated in order to manage the rougher environments

With the introduction of new parts, new part numbers are needed. The frame, crankset, shifter,
fork and the gear are all considered to be new versions of existing part within the assortment.
With this fact, the parts keeps their number defining their type while the third attribute number
change. For the frame, also the second attribute number changes for different color combination
chosen by the customer. The new part numbers are listed in Table 1. Secondly, with new parts

Table 1: New versions of parts needed for the assembly of the mountain bike
Type of part Type number Color - Attribute 1 Attribute 2 New part number
Frame 0001 A-G 03 0001A03YZZ
Crankset 0002 A 02 0002A02YZZ
Gear 0013 A 02 0013A02YZZ
Shifter 0018 A 02 0018A02YZZ
Fork 0007 A-G 02 0007A02YZZ

introduced, the assembly structure of the frame and the headset will change. The front gear is
directly attached to the frame and is therefore added to the frame assembly in the BOM. The
new frame, crankset, shifter and the fork replace the old versions of existing parts within the
BOM. The changes are visually shown in the BOM for the new product in Figure 19.

24
 Figure 19: The five parts in the product BOM that need new versions

With the priority to retain the customer together with the fact that the R&D department are
not able to develop an entirely new design of the new parts within two weeks, the first batch
ordered will be standardized parts chosen from the product assortment of the suppliers. Not
developing an own design can reflect in a higher cost, but long-term can this be favorable, since
errors may arise that can help R&D to develop a solution that has fewer mistakes. With the
possibilities of an increased demand of mountain bikes in the near future, the R&D department
will start developing designs and models of an own product which meets the requirements, as
soon as the sales department have received the requirements from the customers. The sales

Figure 20: Information flow for the first special case

department creates a product specification which is sent to the assembly unit, which directly
contact suppliers to check the availability of components needed to satisfy the customer. In or-

25
der to avoid confusion, only the assembly department will have contact with the suppliers while
the sales unit are the only one in direct contact with the customers. Due to the time pressure,
the assembly unit will update the process (sequence etc.) needed to assemble the products,
so a production can start as soon as components have arrived. If suppliers cannot supply the
requested parts, the department of assembly will inform sales which informs the customer. After
sales are contacted by the assembly unit for preparation of changes within the assortment which
includes new spare parts and updated processes. A visual explanation is displayed in Figure 20.

Implementation in Aras

The original customer order which includes the two bicycles that can be assembled as well
as the demand for the mountain-bike is created by the StO department. After promoting this
customer order to the ‘In Review’ state, the OtD department reviews the order and concludes
that this order can only be partially completed and therefore promotes it to the ‘Order Denied’
state. As was stated before in section 2.5.2, the involved departments are notified about each of
these promotions. After denying the original order, the OtD department creates two separate
customer orders which will have corresponding expected delivery dates which will be included
as soon as the order is in its assembly phase. One order is related to the two bicycles which can
be assembled whereas the other is not related to any parts, the ‘Specifications’-attribute merely
describes the desired features of the mountain bike.

After OtD has reviewed the first order with the two bicycles, the StO department creates a
customer payment which is related to this customer order. In order to assemble these two
bicycles, the OtD department has to order the varying parts from the suppliers and vendors.
Therefore, multiple supplier orders are created by the OtD department which are related to the
required parts with the right quantity and corresponding supplier. When the supplier order is
sent to the supplier, the order gets promoted to the ‘In Review’ state. Simultaneously, the OtD
department creates a supplier payment which includes payment details which will be sent to the
bank as soon as the supplier order is confirmed by the supplier. After receiving the parts from
the supplier, the supplier order will be promoted to ‘Received’ which means that the actual
assembly of the two bicycles can start and that the ‘Expected Delivery Date’-attribute can be
updated. The customer order is therefore promoted into its final steps: ‘Assembly’ - ‘Finished’
- ‘In Delivery’ and ‘Order Completed’. Meanwhile, the customer payment is promoted to ‘Re-
ceived’ as soon as information is received from the bank that the customer has paid for the order.

For the second order which includes the specifications of the desired mountain bike, some new
parts have to be developed by the R&D department. The new frame will be designed by the
R&D department and produced by a vendor whereas the other parts are selected from the sup-
pliers’ assortment. In both cases, the parts are created in Aras by the R&D department as
well as the related product specifications, drawings and CAD models. When the parts have gone
through the ‘Review’, ‘Prototype’ and ‘Test’-states, they can be promoted to ‘Released. The
OtD and StO departments are notified about this transition as well. The OtD department can
then add a new assembly process to the assemblies that have been created. The new parts and
assemblies result in a newly configured mountain bike which can then be added to the customer
order by the OtD department. After that, the same steps are taken as were described above,
i.e. creating customer/supplier payments, ordering parts and assembling the order.

2.6.2 The second special case

”A customer wants the fork of an old city bike with 27” wheels to be replaced. The bike is the
only vehicle that the customer has, so you get two days to replace the fork. The part is not in
stock, and needs to be produced. Can you help the customer? ”

26
This case emphasizes on spare part management with the main objective to supply customer
with a sufficient part. This specific type of management can be expensive and needs a lot of
resources, but is prioritized to increase customer satisfaction and to ensure retention. The time is
the most important factor in this case due to the fact that the customer does not have any other
vehicle to use. The specific case have three different solutions which are sorted in decreasing
order of preference with the first solution being the most preferred one.

1. In the first solution, the Assembly department makes an extensive search for a fork with
same specification in the present spare part inventory. After the After sales department
receives a request for a fork from the customer, it generates an internal order of type repair
order and send it to the Assembly department. Upon receiving the order, the assembly
department search in their internal warehouse to check if there is any version of fork
available with same specifications as the old one. The assembly department sends the new
fork to the After sales department who repair the bike and deliver it to the customer

2. In the second solution Assembly department raises an supplier order to get the fork from
the suppliers. Similar to the first solution, the After sales department raises an repair
order to the Assembly department. The difference is that the assembly department now
generates a internal order of type, supplier order. The Assembly department either get a
new fork with same specification as the old fork or gets an unfinished fork. In case the
supplier sends an unfinished fork, Assembly department modifies the fork in company’s
workshop. The main parts of a bicycle fork is shown in Figure 21. By changing the steerer
which fit with the frame and dropouts which fit the wheel, a fork can be fitted with the
old city bike

3. As a third solution, the department of after sales collaborates with the Assembly and
the R&D department to offer the customers a specialized new fork which is designed and
fabricated specifically for the old bike but this comes with additional cost and time

The solutions are visually presented in Figure 22.

27
 Figure 21: Design of bicycle fork

Figure 22: Information flow for the second special case

28
Implementation in Aras

The implementation of the first solution in Aras starts with the original complaint that was
done by the customer and filed by the DtR department. The DtR department reviews the order
by promoting it and adding a description of the intended solution. In this particular case a
suitable part that can replace the fork will be identified with the use of the product specifications
which are related to the parts. When a suitable replacement part is found, a repair order is cre-
ated by the DtR department. This order is related to the required parts including the quantity
as well as the warehouse where the spare part is ordered from. When relating the repair order to
the right OtD warehouse, it can be easily found using the drop-down list in the search window.
The OtD department will receive this order and then create a supplier order if necessary.

Since this particular case concerns a bicycle that is around 15-20 years old, the replacement
of the fork will not be within the warranty period so a customer payment is required. There is
also no record of a customer order placed 15-20 years ago so the DtR department would have
to create a new customer order which goes through different lifecycle steps such that it can be
related to the necessary customer payment. Namely, the customer order will go from ‘Review’
to ‘In Repair’ instead of assembly, since it will not be assembled by the OtD department. After
the spare parts are delivered, the repair order is promoted to ‘Received’ and the bicycle can be
repaired. When that is completed, the complaint can be promoted to ‘Resolved’ and finally the
customer payment can be promoted to received as soon as the payment is received in time.

29
3 Conclusion
As it is described in the report, the intent of implementing a PLM system for a bicycle manufac-
turing company involves several stages of work. Firstly, pre-analysis stage, where the functions
and work flows of each department is investigated, and the representative ER models are estab-
lished. Later, the relationships and flows between the ER elements are defined and the system
is implemented in ARAS. To verify the robustness of the system, the team was challenged with
2 different real life case scenarios, and the solutions were reported.

It has been a very useful project in terms of understanding the requirement for PLM sys-
tems in an industry, to link different departments and to handle the flow of information inter-
connecting them. The implementation is not bound to the department structure, but extends to
the product and the complexities involved. Understanding of the limitations of the PLM system
used(ARAS), and the application of it, within the boundaries, was a part of the learning curve.
PLM is an essential part of any industry and as far as products and industries exist, PLM is
the means to integrate and create a platform for easier accessibility of information.

30
A First Appendix
Parts list

Explanation on part number:

These numbers correspond to the parts that have been implemented in ARAS
The first numerical characters describe what type of product we have: Frame (0001), Screw
(0006), Fender (0009) etc.
The alphabetical character describe what color the specific type of product has: A = Black, B
= Blue Metallic, C = City white, D = Forest Green, E = Ocean Blue, F = Red, G= Silver
The second 2 numerical characters describe which first attribute of of the product we have :
0001A01 = Pedal Left and 0001A02 = Pedal Right
The second alphabetical character describes which second attribute of the product: 0028A01S
= Standard tires or 0028A01H = Heavy tires
The third numerical character describe the third attribute the product have: No example be-
cause we do not yet have any product with this amount of attributes

i
B Second Appendix
Product BOM

ii
iii
iv
C Third Appendix
Total ER-Model

v
D Fourth Appendix

vi
Part
Attributes:
○ Part_ID
○ Name
○ Description
○ Part type (part or assembly)
○ Price
○ Supplier_ID
○ Supplier_Reference_ID
○ Current_State [hidden]
○ Major_Rev [hidden]

Relationships:
Source Related Relationship

Part Part Documents 1 to Many

Part Part Many to Many

Market Report Part Many to Many

Complaint Part Many to Many

Supplier Part Many to 1

Supplier Order Part Many to Many

Repair Order Part Many to Many

Warehouse Part Many to Many

Customer Order Part Many to Many

Lifecycle

Webhooks in Slack

CUSTOMER
Attributes:
○ Customer_ID
 ○ Name
○ Type of customer (Individual/company)
○ Address
○ E-mail
○ Phone number
○ Company Name

Relationships:

Source Related Relationship

Customer order Customer 1 to 1

Marketing Report Customer Many to Many

Lifecycle and Webhooks in slack:

None

CUSTOMER ORDER
Attributes:
○ Customer_Order_ID
○ Customer_ID
○ Revision
○ State
○ Order date
○ Specifications
○ Total price
○ Payment due date
○ Expected delivery date

Relationships:

Source Related Relationship

Customer order Customer 1 to 1

Customer Customer order 1 to 1

Payment

Return Payment Customer Order 1 to Many

Complaint Customer Order Many to Many

Customer order Part Many to Many

Lifecycle - Customer Order

SUPPLIER
Attributes:
● Supplier_ID
● Supplier Name
● Supplier Type (Supplier or Vendor)

Relationships:
● BH_SupplierOrder_Supplier - 121
● (BH_Supplier_Part m21) - upprepning

Lifecycle - Supplier

WAREHOUSE
Attributes:
● Warehouse_ID
● Warehouse type (dtr or otd warehouse)
● Address

Relationships:
● (BH_Warehouse_Part - m2m)
 ● BH_RepairOrder_Warehouse - m2m

Lifecycle:
NONE

COMPLAINT
Attributes:
● Document ID
● Customer ID
● Short description
● Part_ID
● Date
● Solution
● Date
● Current_State [hidden]
● Major_Rev [hidden]

Relationships:
● (BH_Complaint_CustomerOrder - m2m)
● (BH_Complaint_Part - M2M)
● BH_RepairOrder_Complaint - 12M
● BH_ReturnPayment_Complaint - 12m

Lifecycle - Complaint

MARKETING REPORT
Attributes:
● Document ID
● Name
● Date
● Description
● Part ID
 ● Customer ID
● Current_State [hidden]
● Major_Rev [hidden]

Relationships:
● BH_MarketingReport_Part (optional) - M2M
● BH_MarketingReport_Customer (optional) M2M

Lifecycle - Marketing Report

PART DOCUMENTS (ASSEMBLY PROCESS / PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS / CAD MODEL /

CAD DRAWING )
Attributes:
● Document ID
● Part Document Type
● Part_ID
● Description
● Date
● Current_State [hidden]
● Major_Rev [hidden]

Relationships:
● BH_Part_PartDocument - 12M
Lifecycle - Part Documents

CUSTOMER PAYMENT
Attributes:
● Payment ID
● Customer ID
● Customer Order ID
● Date
● State

Relationships:
● BH_CustomerPayment_CustomerOrder - 121
Lifecycle - Customer Payment

RETURN PAYMENT
Attributes:
● Payment ID
● Customer ID
● Customer Order ID
● Date
● Price
● State

Relationships:Payment
● BH_ReturnPayment_Complaint - 12m
● BH_ReturnPayment_CustomerOrder - 12m
Lifecycle - Return Payment

SUPPLIER PAYMENT
Attributes:
● Payment ID
● Supplier ID
● Supplier Order ID
● Date
● Due date

Relationships:
● BH_SupplierPayment_SupplierOrder 121
Lifecycle - Supplier Payment

REPAIR ORDER
Attributes:
● Order ID
● Order Date
● Expected Delivery Date

Relationships:
● BH_RepairOrder_Complaint - 12M
● BH_RepairOrder_Warehouse - M2M
● BH_RepairOrder_Part - m2M
Lifecycle - Repair order

SUPPLIER ORDER
Attributes:
● Order ID
● Date
● Expected Delivery Date

Relationships:2
● BH_SupplierOrder_Part - m2m
● BH_SupplierOrder_Supplier - 121
● BH_SupplierPayment_SupplierOrder 121
Lifecycle - Supplier Order