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What is Product Lifecycle Management? – It is a process that manages product information, communication, workflows & process. It is a systematic approach to manage the activities that a product goes through, that is, from design, development, support to disposal.
As per Wikipedia,“Product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from inception, through engineering design and manufacture, to service and disposal of manufactured products.”
Product lifecycle management is usually associated with Manufacturing industry but this has been implemented in software development & service industry. It has got basically 4 stages:
- Pre-production stage
- Production stage
- Post-production stage
- Disposal or recycle stage
Digital transformation has changed the entire business strategy and made it more efficient & effective. Manufacturing companies have been adopting the digitization & implemented Product lifecycle management software.
What is PLM Software?
PLM software is a unified platform that integrates data, communication, business processes & systems. PLM enables the organization to manage & view all the information on a single platform. PLM software increases the planning productivity & optimizes the manufacturing productivity.
PLM software enables to track the entire product lifecycle including the history, this will include – bill of material, specifications, drawings, documents, communication, costs, vendor list, costs & compliance record.
Benefits of Implementing a PLM software
- Efficient & precise planning to leads to maximizing long-term return-on-investment & curtail capital investment.
- It’s critical to adapt as per customers demand. For this to happen swiftly PLM software enables the manufactures to communicate and take data-driven decisions quickly.
- Personnel on the plant floor have the real-time information hence making execution easy and updated.
- Real-time feedback during the assembly/manufacturing helps in making the changes quickly.
- Due to BOM is configured errors in the planning are reduced, hence ensuring machinery of the products is aligned.
- Global manufacturing operation benefits a lot with PLM software. They will be able to work in sync and can coordinate throughout the entire workflow and ensure that they deliver on time.
- Best practices are followed across the entire process chain. The development process can be reduced by applying best process & operation workflow.
- To stay competitive, you need to have faster product development and a short time-to-market. PLM gives you a unified control over the data, enabling the staffs to have a real-time update and can make a data-driven decision quickly.
- PLM software improves the productivity by increasing parts re-use, right data available at the right time, streamlined process & concurrent development of products.
- The shorter development cycle for products because with PLM software ideas can be exchanged easily, allowing to take design decisions. Better management insight into product-related processes throughout the value chain.
Before you start taking advantage of product lifecycle management software you will need to first take a look at the existing operation & process. Secondly, develop a completed understanding of the PLM software’s capability and how it will fit into product development value chain. Thirdly, develop a short-term & long-term strategy and deployment to optimize product development value chain.
AIMDek is pioneers in developing, integrating & implementing product lifecycle management (PLM) software – Aras PLM & Oracle PLM. For free consultation click here.