Expanded PLM Definition
Product Lifecycle Management or PLM is a term used for the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its conception - through design and manufacture to service and disposal. PLM is a set of capabilities that enable an enterprise to effectively and efficiently innovate and manage its products and related services throughout the entire business lifecycle. It is one of the four cornerstones of a corporation's IT digital structure. All companies need to manage communications and information with its customers (CRM-Customer Relationship Management) and its suppliers (SCM-Supply Chain Management) and the resources within the enterprise (ERP-Enterprise resource planning). In addition, manufacturing engineering companies must also develop, describe, manage and communicate information about their products (PLM).
Benefits of PLM
- Reduced time to market
- Improved product quality
- Reduced prototyping costs
- Savings through the re-use of original data
- A framework for product optimization
- Reduced waste
- Savings through the complete integration of engineering workflows
The product lifecycle goes though many phases and involves many professional disciplines as well as many skills, tools and processes. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) has to do with managing descriptions and properties of a product through its development and useful life, mainly from a business/engineering point of view. Product life cycle management (PLC) has to do with the life of a product in the market with respect to business/commercial costs and sales measures.
PLM Concepts
- Universal, secure, managed access and use of product definition information
- Maintaining the integrity of that product definition and related information throughout the life of the product or plant
- Managing and maintaining business processes used to create, manage, disseminate, share and use the information.
Enterprise PLM
A PLM is the core data conduit through which companies manage product data from engineering through Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) integration. When the PLM Core is combined with Intelligent Component Content, valuable component content can be reviewed, selected, and entered into the PLM core to support clean data entering the enterprise environment. When Product Visualization/Collaboration is included, it allows global collaboration and visualization of how products fit together before designs are committed to manufacturing.
Enterprise PLM adds the following to the core PLM Concepts:
- Access to and use of unbiased component content including lifecycle, standard descriptions, and RoHS status that are integrated into the design phase.
- Use of applications that enable global collaboration/visualization to simulate product fit before designs are committed to manufacturing and data is transferred to the PLM.
The value of an Enterprise PLM lies in the infrastructure, process, and accessibility of clean product selecting during the design phase, before transfer to the enterprise environment.
Note: Definitions are provided by CIM Data, to read the full
CIMData article “Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Definition".
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Product Lifecycle Management".
