ProShop ERP donates its digital ecosystem to Purdue’s Industrial Engineering School

ProShop ERP has entered into a partnership with the Industrial Engineering School at Purdue University, donating seats of its ProShop Digital Ecosystem to help the school create a 10,000-sq.-ft. automated “factory floor” in the school’s manufacturing lab space to teach and perform lights-out manufacturing operations.

Students will eventually be taught how to implement a lights-out process from beginning to end, creating an overarching control system to manage production planning, scheduling, inventory, PM planning, and finished goods, tracking every aspect of the manufacturing process. The ProShop Ecosystem will be used as the shop’s inventory management and ERP system to help control the entire shop floor, helping faculty and students to store and access quality documents for fixturing, setup, and tool setups and images of equipment. They will be able to track raw goods, raw materials, and tool inventory.

It was Aaron Ramsey, IE’s director of industrial relations, who first connected with Adrian Sansonetti, ProShop ERP’s director of global project management office and ProShop Oceania while Sansonetti was networking within the manufacturing community in the state of Indiana. After learning of the school’s needs, Sansonetti traveled to West Lafayette and demonstrated the different system functions that could meet those needs.

“ProShop’s ERP software perfectly aligns with our operational requirements, providing comprehensive tracking and management capabilities vital for our activities," said Craig Zehrung, PhD, the principal laboratory operations specialist in the Industrial Engineering School. "Our goal is to extend its application to fully leverage its extensive functionalities towards achieving a fully automated, or lights-out, manufacturing environment. We are committed to evolving into a facility that operates autonomously, leveraging advanced AI and computer control systems. This initiative also offers practical learning opportunities for students, connecting academic knowledge with real-world experience.”