What does Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) mean - product lifecycle management?
- What does Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) mean?
- What is Product Lifecycle Management?
- History of Product Lifecycle Management software
- How does a PLM software system work?
- Features of product lifecycle management software
- Benefits of the PLM software system – Product Lifecycle Management
- PLM software integration with resource management and production management systems
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software is a software application designed for organizations whose activity includes product development, with the purpose of supporting the innovation process and managing the entire product lifecycle. A PLM software system – Product Lifecycle Management – helps create high-quality products and services at lower costs and enables their rapid launch to market.
What does Product Lifecycle Management mean? How exactly does product lifecycle management software work? How important is the use of a high-performance PLM software system in today’s business environment? These are some of the questions answered in the following article.
What does Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) mean?
Acronym
The acronym for the English term “Product Lifecycle Management”, translated into Romanian, means product lifecycle management.
Definition
Product Lifecycle Management software is an information system that manages all information and processes in each stage of a product’s lifecycle, from its concept to its withdrawal from the market. The software solution includes data on products, components, raw materials, spare parts, product documentation, production orders, product quality, work processes, and more.
What is Product Lifecycle Management?
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software
Product Lifecycle Management refers to the management of the data and processes used in the design, engineering, manufacturing, sale, and servicing of a product throughout its entire lifecycle. The main purpose of such software is to improve the innovation process and the way products are designed, manufactured, maintained, and repaired, so that they reach the market faster and with higher quality, while reducing losses and additional costs.
In other words, product lifecycle management software allows companies involved in product development to centralize, share, and secure information, automate processes, and improve product development methods.
History of Product Lifecycle Management software
The concept of product lifecycle management began with early product development solutions and computer-aided design (CAD) systems. Although CAD systems became increasingly popular, electronic files consumed a considerable amount of computer memory, because computers were not designed to store large volumes of data, let alone distribute them.
The product lifecycle management system originated in the 1980s and was initially used by engineers and architects in the automotive and aerospace industries.
kpi-key-performance-indicators
American Motors Corporation was among the first companies to use a PLM software system – Product Lifecycle Management – with the goal of accelerating the product development process for the Jeep Grand Cherokee
Evolution of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software solutions toward Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)
With advances in technology, Computer-Aided Design solutions evolved into Product Lifecycle Management through continuous adaptation to market requirements, and today they are capable of managing the entire lifecycle of a product, from concept to market delivery. In addition, this software system has opened up new opportunities for broader markets such as consumer electronics, energy industries, medical devices, apparel, and packaged goods.
Today, companies involved in product development rely on PLM software – Product Lifecycle Management – to adapt to new design methods while improving the quality of the products they create.
How does a PLM software system work?
It integrates the data and processes related to product creation, from concept, design, and development to the manufacturing and delivery of the product to market. The reason why Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) has become such a useful tool in recent years is that it stores all information in one place, making it easy to access and use from that point onward. Product lifecycle management software streamlines project management by connecting CAD (Computer-Aided Design) data with bills of materials and other product-related information.
Moreover, the PLM software system gives users visibility into external sources of information, such as customer and analyst feedback on current products, and accelerates the product development process.
Product lifecycle management software features
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems offer companies the following advantages:
-
Centralized data repository
Every person involved in the project can access relevant information from a single location. The data in the central repository is continuously updated and organized in a logical way for all team members. Encourages collaboration
-
Encourages collaboration
The product lifecycle management software solution improves communication and collaboration within a company by providing various capabilities (e.g., chat functionality) designed to facilitate the flow of information and the connection between people, departments, and processes. Staff involved in a project have the ability to quickly access relevant information and view any changes in real time. In addition, multiple users can edit documents simultaneously, thereby encouraging teamwork.
-
Enable product data design and visualization
PLM software solutions for product lifecycle management provide CAD (Computer-Aided Design) tools to help manufacturers create graphical representations of products in two and three dimensions. Computer-aided design is used to increase designer productivity by offering functionalities for product sharing and review. As a result, users can track all changes made during the design process.
-
Facilitates content creation and sharing
Throughout the entire product development process, the company will compile various user guides, assembly instructions, and more. PLM software – Product Lifecycle Management – includes tools for content creation, with all documents and files stored in the database to ensure complete traceability throughout the product development process. Such product lifecycle management tools significantly improve collaboration and productivity while also ensuring that no file, image, or document is lost.
Benefits of the PLM software system – Product Lifecycle Management
Companies that use the Product Lifecycle Management software solution gain numerous benefits, among the most important being:
- Increased productivity – the PLM product lifecycle management software system helps companies monitor each stage of a product’s lifecycle, allowing changes to be introduced quickly and data to be updated in real time, which increases productivity and reduces bottlenecks
- Ensuring a high level of product quality – PLM software stores all historical product data in order to provide a complete view throughout the entire product lifecycle. By allowing company-wide access to the Product Lifecycle Management platform, design and development teams can obtain useful information about existing products from the sales, marketing, and customer service departments. All of this enables the continuous improvement of product quality
- Faster product launch to market – if changes occur within the supply chain, whether they involve defective components or delivery delays, the information in the PLM product lifecycle management software platform can be quickly adjusted and applied to the products. This allows teams to anticipate delays and challenges and, therefore, make changes where necessary to ensure that products are launched on time
- Imbunatatirea colaborarii dintre furnizori si companii – in cazul in care un produs este retras de pe piata sau daca compania este nevoita sa faca revizuiri suplimentare, poate lua legatura imediat cu furnizorii si producatorii, astfel incat sa aplice intr-un timp cat mai scurt modificarile necesare
- Improved collaboration between suppliers and companies – if a product is withdrawn from the market or the company is required to make additional revisions, it can immediately contact suppliers and manufacturers so that the necessary changes can be implemented as quickly as possible
- Cost reduction – real-time visibility into design decisions is essential for providing timely feedback to other employees responsible for design, as well as to staff in procurement, production, quality, and service. This information is available within a single PLM – Product Lifecycle Management – platform, which allows specialists to intervene quickly whenever needed, thereby reducing design time and, implicitly, the costs associated with this process
PLM software integration with resource management and production management systems
Production recipes, production steps, production processes
PLM – Product Lifecycle Management, ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning and MES – Manufacturing Execution System are flexible, interconnected software solutions that support the Industry 4.0 concept and enable the transformation of production facilities into a Smart Factory, where the right product can be made easily, at the right time, and at the right cost.
The integration between these systems ensures a continuous flow of up-to-date information needed to create a product, so that the entire process runs without interruptions or waste of materials or other resources.