PLM

Whatever your definition of ‘product’, every commodity needs to be defined, developed, produced, supplied and at some point retired. Whether you are selling plastic toys, aero engines, medical devices or telecoms services the process from concept to disposal requires careful management in order to balance the cost-quality-time trinity. For some, “PLM” is a technology, for others it is a series of business processes which are supported by information technology.  

Over the years PLM has emerged from the enclaves of engineering teams managing design definitions to provide broad support for many business critical processes across multiple industry sectors. The ability to control, monitor and refine product-related processes is key to applying strategies such as Lean and Six Sigma. Maintaining a single source of information, traceable over the lifetime of a product, has a central role in enabling regulatory compliance and is equally applicable in healthcare (21CFR) as it is in automotive (ELV) and electronics (WEEE, RoHS). Managing distributed product teams is essential in supporting outsourcing and right-shoring supply and cost strategies.

The broad spectrum of PLM continues to expand both in its breadth and depth of coverage. From simultaneous, virtual design environments to factory integration and after-market support. It is finding applications in retail and service industries where products exist only as online transactions.

Cambashi’s combined industry knowledge and many years of experience in the PLM market help provide a measured insight into the application and opportunities for PLM.

Our evaluation of PLM began when it was young.  We engaged providers in a discussion about PLM in 2001, through a debate about how PLM would cope with the restructuring of supply chains to include outsourced design in a globalized world. The resulting discussion is presented in a series of articles:

• The main article, Outsourcing upsets the IT Integration Pillars in the Temple of Discrete Manufacturing outlines the challenges to solution providers. 
• A related article, Is PLM applicable to AEC? suggests that discrete manufacturing and AEC have a lot to learn from each other when it comes to PLM. 
• A supplemental article, What are supply chain management and product lifecycle management systems? introduces and explains SCM and PLM systems. 
• IT Vendors' responses to these ideas can be read in The PLM Debate - Vendors Respond.  Responders include Agile, Arena, Baan, IBM, IFS, LMS, Manugistics, MatrixOne, Peoplesoft, PTC, SAP, SolidWorks, and Tecnomatix.