Making room for PLM
It may be a tough sell, but a disciplined strategy can aid users.
By Dennis van Bodegom
PLM helps advance short-term and long-term business goals. To be effectively implemented, PLM does require the discipline of long-term planning. If it is an important strategic consideration for your company to innovate faster than your competitors; if shortening product life cycles is putting pressure on your manufacturing, design, and engineering processes; if shortened time to market means increased sales; if you find that you are incurring hidden costs because of lack of coordination and communication among departments; or even if you simply want to keep better track of various product design iterations throughout the design, development, manufacturing, and maintenance process, pursuing a PLM strategy should help streamline operations, reduce risk, and save a significant amount of money.
Companies used to be able to contract with an army of consultants to integrate systems as needed and desired. Now, with budgets stretched thin, companies want to know that the software solutions they invest in will easily integrate with their existing applications without requiring massive amounts of customization. Therefore, often for companies to have the incentive to install a PLM system it has to provide a universal platform to integrate various existing and legacy software the companies already have and demonstrate clear payback opportunity on investment.
Pros of a PLM
A PLM system should do the following:
- Provide a classification system so you can rationalize inventory
- Facilitate the possibility component reuse
- Compare product configurations throughout product life cycle to encourage traceability/warranty and prevent repeat mistakes in new designs
- Monitor compliance with quality regulations/standards such as Food and Drug Administration, International Organization for Standardization, etc.
Read the entire ISA article “Making room for PLM".
