Definition and reasons

Do I need a PDM/PLM?

The amount of information in a company today is almost impossible to quantify. Many new procedures and regulations make it difficult to review all the data managed by all systems involved in the product life cycle. At the same time, different data and information are found in different departments of a company. Designers and project participants lose significant time when searching and collating the data. Accessing incorrect or outdated information also costs money and lengthens the development time unnecessarily. PDM(PLM solutions enable simple and clear management of product data and the integration of processes, organizations, and software applications over the entire product life cycle.

 

PDM is a concept that enables the management of pre-defined product data on the basis of its compilation. PDM is defined as:

“Management of the product and process model with the objective of creating unique and reproducible product configurations.”

In every life stage of a product, users can obtain information about product configurations for the current stage of construction. With PDM software, the updated data and information about products and their development processes are available at the sites in the company where access to this data is required

The reason for the popularity of PDM solutions lies in the complexity of data generated during a product's life cycle. Those who can control the data can engage in the various stages of product development and optimize processes. With this knowledge, it is important to meet the challenge of shortening development times despite increasingly variable figures. This objective is the crucial factor for increasing a company’s own competitiveness in the global marketplace.

Product Data Management (PDM) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) are concept-based management measures using a software solution with the goal of increasing productivity and reducing costs: both in product development as well as in all areas along the supply chain.

 

Compared to traditional PDM solutions, PDM Studio is also oriented to the requirements of your day-to-day work with CAD data. With the increase of product data from CAD models, the complexity of data associated with a product has greatly increased. At the same time, corrections to the design must be continuously applied and the resulting change of product data must be incorporated. Therefore PDM Studio is an integrated PDM solution in terms of continuous data flow integrated with CAD systems.