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As the landscape of software tools evolves for product engineering teams, connecting datasets becomes a necessity for traceability and maintaining data integrity across systems. Most teams rely on out-of-the-box (OOTB) integrations as a starting point to connect databases, however many teams may have homegrown systems or more niche products across their tech stack that might not be supported by these OOTB integrations.
APIs play a large role in creating a universal bridge between systems (ERP, PLM, MES, product management tools, etc) - especially those on the cloud. Bild’s bi-directional API is offered to customers for that exact reason, along with automating workflows even within the platform. In this post, we’ll dive into the benefits and examples of utilizing REST APIs to interconnect systems and automate workflows.
There are many examples of how hardware engineering organizations would utilize Bild’s APIs to automate or create workflows. Below are some examples we’ve pulled together of common uses of Bild’s API.
Scenario A: Typically when engineering teams do a release, they eventually have to do a manual handover to manufacturing/operations/purchasing. Generally, they hand over drawings (either digitally or physically) to the other teams, however creating the package and handing over information is time consuming, requires an understanding of receiving systems, and is error-prone. With large-scale design and release processes, this manual process exponentially introduces risk.
Implementation: Using Bild’s APIs, a system can programmatically obtain all the design, and design related information, that have been released. From there, the system can then download all these designs (even their respective universal file format) and forward those over to an ERP, MES, or even a homegrown system. This automation reduces engineering efforts in two particular ways. First, engineers do not need to manually create packages and coordinate with their counterparts to transfer the information across systems. Second, review and validation of the data is instantaneous and error-proof, as the digital thread creates an automated hand-off and human error is removed from the process. This results in not only time savings, but also ensures a more accurate and consistent release process.
Scenario B: Companies nowadays want to analyze internal data to understand employee productivity and product velocity. Generally, companies build out KPIs and other engineering dashboards to extract insights as part of their core decision making process. However, with traditional systems, exporting data in a structured format in a convenient and repeatable way becomes nearly impossible.
Implementation: Utilizing APIs in Bild, you can get all product metadata for any file. You can use Bild’s APIs to fetch information about individual files, their feedback history, and their approval history. Once all this metadata is obtained, you can run a variety of queries on the metadata of your files.
Scenario C: When engineers construct and release BOMs they typically go through a manual effort to organize and send the BOMs over to purchasing. Many current PLM systems do not even have APIs that return convenient information when it comes to hierarchical information (which part is the child of what, etc.) and rollup quantities. This can lead to engineers and purchasing spending lots of time trying to gather and organize this data.
Implementation: Using Bild’s APIs, users can automate the process from release of the BOM in Bild, to the delivery of this BOM to purchasing/manufacturing. This way manufacturing/purchasing does not have to wait for engineering to manually send the BOMs to them. Users can use information from the API to derive the rollup quantity, instead of having to manually derive it themselves. Also, the hierarchical information allows users to better organize their purchases, so that parts are delivered and associated with their proper assembly.
As you can see, there are many possible workflows that can be automated with Bild’s APIs. Here is the link to our API Documentation.