Product Lifecycle Mangement

Storage and management of product related data throughout the life cycle is one of the key functions of Product Lifecycle Management.

Company-wide management of product data throughout the lifecycle

In the mechanical industry managing product data usually begins on the engineering department. Design decisions have a significant impact on the entire organization. The engineering data (drawings, calculations, etc.) are therefore – in addition to the essential input for the production – the basis for efficient maintenance and service. Explicit use of PLM methodology improves the processes of all departments (R & D, Engineering, Manufacturing, Sales and Service, etc.).

Product Data Management puts a (final) product in the middle

Product Data Management (PDM) method keeps the; to design, manufacture and maintenance during the product life cycle central. Other methods (Project Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, etc.) are primarily focused on managing operational resources in a project or phase of a product.

A PDM system supports the configuration of end products and is equipped with a number of information structures. These describe the composition of the product in its relation to the associated process information. On the main level includes this information: projects, products, requirements, customers and documents. At a detailed level there are roles and notions such as  project management, verification methods, budgets, baselines, Form, fit & function, and Bill of Materials (BOM). Based on these information structures reports can be automatically generated  at any time. This makes it possible to create  a clear overview on the state of affairs quikly.

Added value of PDM on key issues

The value of PDM for the process can be found in:

• a central archive with all essential information of the products;
• insight of detailed management information (time, scope, money) for the primary process for every stage (definition, R & D, engineering, manufacturing and service);
• reuse of designs and solutions;
• standardization;
• automatic progress reports.

Workflow Management make workflows explicit

Workflow Management provides functionality for managing processes and product structures. The process of a product or document will be arranged  by agreed (Quality) procedures. Different persons have to review, release, and/or approve  a document in a adjusted way. Access rights to documents depends on the stage of process and the status of the document. Using the document structure changes are monitored and tracked by the system.

Applying Workflow Management leads to:

• reducing time-to-market;
• increase the quality of the products by explicit process control;
• improving the internal communication.

Document Management

Structured management of design documents is an important part in activity within a PDM system, but also as an independent target to improve significantly the business processes.

Consultants of infostrait have already defined and implemented automated  document management systems by dozens of organisations. Characteristics of these projects are: status and version management, baselines, tight integration with 2D/3D-CAD, X-ref management, interrelationships between drawings, parts and assemblies, organizational and cultural aspects (among onthers, explicit method), and the crucial import of existing drawings with different or old formats and / or title blocks.

Integration with 2D and 3D CAD product stimulates

Perfect integration with Computer Aided Design (CAD) is a fundamental part of PLM, therefore, recommends and implements infostrait preferably the 3D PLM SmarTeam platform. SmarTeam has standard integrations available for the most common 2D and 3D CAD applications (Catia, SolidWorks, Pro / Engineer, MicroStation, AutoDesk Inventor, Solid Edge, Mechanical Desktop and AutoCAD). Consultants of infostrait are highly experienced in configuration of SmarTeam to support 2D and 3D CAD.

Integration with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) makes company-wide information management complete

Linking PLM with an ERP system (Oracle 11i, SAP R / 3, JD Edwards, Navision, etc.) is an integral part of enterprise-wide product information management. Within ERP systems, operational resources and equipment needs related to product numbers. PLM provides in turn manage the entire product configuration (including CAD design, requirements, revision management, workflow, etc.). The coupling is therefore to minimize exchange of product data between two systems, So that creates an entirely deployment of operational resources and choices during the design of product integral relations.