Harris Corporation Streamlines Manufacturing Assembly Operations for Hundreds of Workers
 
 

Harris Corporation Streamlines Manufacturing Assembly Operations for Hundreds of Workers

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Harris Corporation, an international communications and information technology company, serves government, defense, and commercial markets. With its three segments, Harris serves markets for radio frequency communications, integrated network solutions, and government communications systems, providing customers with assured communications and information technology wherever and whenever they need it, with the highest levels of performance and reliability.

Like many companies in the high technology industry, Harris Corporation is focused on cutting expenses and improving efficiency. By reducing the number of software deployments across the enterprise, the company can optimize its technology budget. Oracle’s AutoVue Electro-Mechanical Professional 20.1.1 has played a significant role, as Harris has been able to eliminate several viewing tools in favor of the easy-to-use, robust AutoVue solution. With the solution, hundreds of employees have instant Web-based access to product information and data, and with the integration to Oracle’s Agile product lifecycle management applications, Harris Corporation has a single record of authority for all product development, procurement, and design information.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from Harris Corporation

  • “There is a huge ‘wow’ factor with Oracle’s AutoVue solution. Our manufacturing assembly team can now easily view the board file, highlight the components corresponding to a specific part number, and know right away where the parts should be placed on the board, saving hours in the process. We look back and think, how did we ever do this work before? AutoVue is a critical component to our business process; we can’t live without it.” – Charlie Davies, Principal ECAE Applications Engineer, Harris Corporation

  • Provide product design, implementation, and testing teams with instant access to product data to build communications and information technology products for government customers
  • Communicate change requests and assembly instructions more quickly and easily
  • Unlock highly technical information to nonCAD users
  • Eliminate disparate viewing tools in favor of one solution to reduce technology costs and improve efficiency

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Deployed AutoVue Electro-Mechanical across the government communications division for viewing and reviewing native-printed circuit board (PCB) schematics and layouts, as well as manufacturing documents
  • Provided hundreds of employees with instant, Web-based access to product information and data
  • Replaced at least three other viewing tools, reducing IT complexity and costs
  • Used AutoVue to support library development flow—enabling users across manufacturing, component engineering, reliability, and design to examine potential product components and ensure they meet all requirements before adding them to the company’s component library
  • Eliminated the need to deploy an expensive CAD system that would cost 10 times as much as the AutoVue solution, enabling employees without significant design expertise to easily review product components
  • Completed necessary component reviews up to four times faster than the company would be able to with a manual, paper-based review process
  • Enabled Harris’ manufacturing engineers to view an end product before it hits the factory floor
  • Cut software training costs by 35% with AutoVue’s ability to view hundreds of native electronic design automation (EDA), mechanical computer aided design (MCAD), MS Office and graphic formats with a single user interface and without requiring licenses of the original authoring applications
  • Empowered engineering teams with ready access to the intelligence of components stored in Harris’ design element libraries, without disrupting other team members, and saving precious minutes in this daily process
  • Enhanced design reviews and improved communication of engineering changes during work-in-process design phase and assembly instructions  
  • Reduced time spent on creating PCB assembly instructions from hours to minutes by enabling users to find specific components more quickly without needing to conduct a long litany of visual searches
  • Streamlined the manufacturing assembly process
  • Helped engineers identify design flaws and verify product manufacturability earlier in the process
  • Delivered integrated visualization of product information within Oracle’s Agile Product Collaboration, as well as outside the scope of Agile PLM throughout Harris Corporation

Why Oracle

“We have a really strong relationship with the Oracle engineering team,” said Charlie Davies, principal ECAE applications engineer, Harris Corporation. “When we see a need that’s not being met by the AutoVue product, we work with Oracle to see what we can do, and they listen. Oracle is a truly collaborative partner, and our relationship is very important to us.”

Implementation Process

Harris Corporation first implemented Oracle’s AutoVue Electro-Mechanical Professional in 2006. It has completed all implementations and upgrades in house, including the most recent upgrade to AutoVue Electro-Mechanical Professional 20.1.1. Harris is currently evaluating AutoVue 20.2 and planning a future upgrade to this version.