A Technical Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Definition:
Every commercial enterprise must successfully manage its products, customers,
personnel, supply chain, and finances. While MRP/ERP and CRM are
well-established solutions to manage people, production and profits, in the past
10 years there has been a concerted effort to centralize and control product
data.
Product lifecycle management (PLM) represents an all-encompassing vision for
managing historical data, current configurations and planned changes relating to
the definition, design, validation, production, support and ultimate disposal of
manufactured goods.
PLM can be thought of as both (a) a repository for all information that affects
a product, and (b) a formal communication channel between product stakeholders:
principally marketing, engineering, manufacturing and field service. The PLM
system is the first place where all product information from marketing and
design comes together, and where it leaves in a form suitable for production and
support.
Current PLM approaches have been driven by solutions to a series of increasingly
complex problems. Some challenges were primarily procedural or cultural, and
their solutions were conceptual, such as the development of a product
configuration management (CM) discipline. Other issues were purely practical
(e.g., how to manage design files) and their resolutions were equally pragmatic
(electronic data management systems [EDMS]).
Current PLM solutions typically represent the convergence of capabilities from
earlier CM, EDMS, product data management (PDM) and CAD file management systems.
At a minimum, a PLM system will address:
- Revision management for requirement, design and
process documentation Part identification and description
- Identification and management of vendor sources and
their approved parts
- Product structure (bill of material) construction
and control
- Electronic file repository (“data library” or
“vault”)
- Materials content identification for regulatory
compliance (WEEE/RoHS/ELV) and economic control Definition of custom part and
document metadata ("attributes")
- Workflow for formally approving data changes
Multi-user secured access, including "electronic signature"
- Data export to downstream ERP/SCM/CRM systems.
Definition provided by
Active Sensing Inc
Product Lifecycle Management
Resource Outlets:
View PLMIC's Legacy Edition PDM & PLM
Website
Although we are launching a new PLMIC, the Legacy Product Lifecycle Management
Information Center will still be available for research.
