PRODUCT DATA MANAGEMENT:

PDM is an important, if not the most important PLM enabling technology. Some
may think of PLM as the new and more encompassing PDM. CAD/CAM vendors
recognize the importance of PDM systems with extensive capabilities. Existing PDM
systems include ENOVIA and SmartTeam from Dassault (maker of CATIA Software),
iMAN from EDS (maker of Unigraphics), Metaphase from EDS and others.
DEFINITION OF PDM:
PDM manages, organizes and controls engineering design information through
the transformation from prototype design to a product in full production and then to
protect obsolescence. Good PDM systems provide flexible product assembly structures,
supporting complex relationships between parts, drawings, supporting documents,
metadata and teams.
MOTIVATION:
PDM is here out of necessity. There is a lot of engineering data with more being
created each day by different groups and teams for a given product. We need PDM
because product data
Is subject to different interpretations by different people;
Exists in many different version;
Is stored on different types of media;
Has multiple relationships;
Has to be maintained for years.
EVOLUTION OF PDM SYSTEMS:
The concept of PDM started when CAD/CAM companies began to see their
customers data management problems. In the late 1980s, they introduced the firstgeneration commercial PDM systems. Typically, they focused on selling their PDM
systems to their existing customers and often used them to leverage sales of
CAD/CAM/CAE.
The basis for these PDM systems is the database engine typically a
commercially available relational database management system (RDBMS). The database
is used to keep record of parts and related files. The PDM systems then provide the
security, file storage, revision control, classification, notification, and application
integration, in addition to facilitating the engineering process.
A common theme among first generation PDM systems is the focus on
downstream engineering process. These systems have two key capabilities: release
management and change management. They manage the initial release of design data to
manufacturing and the engineering change order process.

SCOPE OF PDM SYSTEMS:

A PDM system works at every level and across all divisions within a company,
even in facilities located around the globe. It integrates data from different types of
hardware and software applications to enable members of a multiperson design team to
locate and access project data quickly.
A PDM system also permits project leaders to oversee data better throughout the
entire design effort, to ensure that team members are working on the most current
versions of the design, making only permissible modifications to the design, and are not
given access to designs that are outdated or unapproved.
A PDM system provides the project team or work groups with a flexible data
management tool for meeting the engineering requirements for productivity and quality.
At the same time, management of the entire design effort is improved by providing an
advanced query capability for accessing data via common attributes and increasing data
security.
By overseeing application level tasks such as checking and tracking design
revisions, authorizations, and drawings, a PDM system provides procedural control over
the design methodology by facilitating approvals and notifying team members of a
projects status. As a result, it provides the improved internal co-ordination required to
allow companies to implement concurrent engineering and compress the overall product
development cycle. It also facilitates a team-oriented approach to product development,
therefore compressing the time required to bring new products to market.
BENEFITS OF PDM SYSTEMS:
PDM allows team members to work collaboratively and to have access to current
documents at any time, anywhere. PDM systems help companies to achieve
Improved Design Productivity
Improved Design and Manufacturing Accuracy
Fewer Design Changes
Better Management of Engineering Change
Reduced Development time
Better Audit Trails
Improved communications between team members
Faster Customer response
Reduced Overheads
A major step towards TQM
Better Use of creative team skills
IMPLEMENTING A PDM SYSTEM:
The implementations of a PDM system by companies require careful planning to
ensure the success of their use in the engineering process. We offer the following
implementation guidelines:
Expectations: Identify the needs and requirements. Be realistic about them, as
well as being practical about the plans for how to meet them.
Analysis: Do not over analyze the PDM problem before starting the project.

Team Building: Get the right people together who understand how the
information flows throughout the company and know where the biggest
bottleneck areas exist.
Requirements: Determine requirements in a few meetings.
Business comes first: Focus on business requirements first, not technology.
Who offers what: Develop a list of vendors that offer potential solutions.
Evaluate: Choose an evaluation methodology that fits the company style, needs
and timeframe.
Decide: Evaluate how a vendor and its products match up with the company
business and technology requirements.
Acquire: Execute the decision. Ask for references, move on and buy the PDM
system.
Use: When implementing, focus on the incremental projects that scale up.

SOFTWARE CAPABILITIES:
PDM systems range from simple, off the shelf packages to complex and tailor
able systems that can be further developed to fit a companys requirements exactly. Most
PDM systems are custom-built to user specifications.
PDM software integrates with, and partially substitutes for, other software used by
engineering organizations such as CAD, document management, engineering document
management (EDM), free text database, ERP, manufacturing resource planning (MRP),
and workflow/groupware.
Some of the feature that the software must provide are flexibility, ease of use,
powerful access and viewing tools, strong data vaulting technologies, open architecture,
full scalability, rules based and even driven nature, availability on a wide variety of
platforms and functionality across heterogeneous networks and client/server
configurations.
SOFTWARE FUNCTIONS:
PDM Software can be viewed from three perspectives. From a manufacturers
perspective, it permits management and control of the engineering process information.
From a product perspective, it can help organize design revisions, track versions of an
evolving design concept, and retrieve archived data and other product-specific
information. From a process perspective, PDM software can orchestrate procedural
events such as design reviews, approvals, product releases and so forth.
To satisfy these three perspectives, PDM software must provide the following
functions:
1. User Functions: This comprises of the Design Release Management, Change
Management, Product Structure Management, Classification and Program
Management.
2. Utility Functions: This consists of features like Communications and
Notifications Functions, Data Transport, Data Translation, Image services and
Administration.

CASE STUDY:
NEC Mobile Communications Division (NEC MCD) is a supplier of cellular
telephones, pagers and other infrastructure equipment, such as base stations and
terminals. To improve its ability to track and share product data with its subsidiaries,
NEC MCD implemented the Obbligato PDM system, with the goals of creating a more
effective design process, better management of engineering information, and enabling
work within a distributed environment.
The Obbligato design environment allows for concurrent engineering. It allows, at
the same time, NEC MCDs mechanical and electrical engineering to refer to each others
designs and documents, manufacturing engineers to test for DFM and purchasing to
readily identify available parts and suppliers.
Some of the outcomes and benefits that NEC MCD has enjoyed from
implementing Obbligato include automated functionality, easy access to older files for
reference, document management facility that allows data reuse, easy document change
by only one person at a time etc.
COLLABORATIVE DESIGN:
Collaborative design is an interactive process of real-time communication
between members of a design team who are physically in different locations. During this
process, several engineers or a team of designers are simultaneously involved to agree or
disagree on design issues and address them during the early phases of product design.
Collaborative design systems and software tools utilize various concepts of
distributed computing such as the internet, intranet, extranet, the client/server model of
communication, instant messaging and virtual reality.
A Collaborative Design Environment provides a decision support and resourcemanagement system that interconnects computational resources (CAD Tools, design
tools, resource planning, project management tools, etc.) and users.
COLLABORATION PRINCIPLES:
The central issue in collaborative design is centralization and damage control.
There exist collaboration principles that help guide the development of collaborative
design systems. They all relate to design knowledge and information and how to deal
with it. Here is a list of some principles.
1. Ownership Control: Each group that generates design information should own and
control it. This implies that the group is responsible for the updates and
maintenance of the information. After a collaborative design session is over, the
group should organize and store the information and stand by ready for any other
changes that are deemed necessary by future collaboration.
2. Distribution Control: Only the required information should be provided by group
owners and only when needed. This helps prevent choking other designers by
overwhelming them with too much design knowledge when they do not need it.
3. Damage Control: This relates to information defects (wrong information). These
defects should not be propagated through future sessions. These defects should
not be propagated through future sessions.

4. Access Control: Information should be provided only to those who need it.
Information that does not concern a design group should not be given to it to
avoid confusing it. Distribution and Access control complement each other.
5. Guidelines Control: Designers should not feel constrained during collaborative
design sessions. It is imperative to the success of collaboration that designers feel
free, within reasonable limits, to share and exchange information with other
designers, especially those from other organizations. Soft guidelines should be
used, where Hard design guidelines should be avoided. An example of hard
control is when a company requires a designer to seek approval or permission
before releasing design information during a collaboration session.
COLLABORATION APPROACHES:
Engineering Design approaches directly affect collaborative design tools and
software systems. Different aspects of the engineering design process are dealt with
differently in collaborative design. Collaborative design can be classified into three
categories. The three approaches are:
1. Collaboration based on design methodologies: This approach focuses on
generating formalized design methodologies by investigating how the technical
design decisions are made. These models include the systematic design model,
axiomatic design model, Quality Function Deployment (QFD), general design
theory and so forth. Collaborative design tools that belong to this approach would
implement some of the design models in tools and software systems.
2. Collaboration based on design workflow: This approach views the design process
as a workflow with the task dependencies and information exchange. The
methodologies and techniques of this approach come mainly form research in
business operations and project management. The design organization is viewed
as a stochastic processing network in which engineering resources are
workstations that perform different tasks. With workstations and tasks in mind, a
set of techniques to manipulate the design activities are developed to aid during
collaborative design sessions. Such techniques include signal-flow diagrams,
design structure matrices and design process networks.
3. Collaboration based on CAD/CAM/CAE: Several methodologies from CAD,
CAM, and CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) areas view collaborative design
as individuals and groups accessing data and sharing design information. The
design process is specified accordingly as the management of the product data at
different abstraction levels. During this management, the technological, scientific,
and interdisciplinary dependencies of the design information could be established,
handled, and maintained by a product model The CAD Model. Information
systems are built around these models to support the storage and processing of
various types of interest to the designers. These systems use IT (Information
Technology) and CAD/CAM/CAE techniques.

COLLABORATION TOOLS:
Until recently, only a small set of tools that somehow support collaborative design
activities have been developed. Some tools for collaborative model annotation and
visualizations via the internet have been available. They utilize shared cameras,
telepointers that allow designers, at different geographical locations, to annotate and
visualize models on computer screens during collaborative sessions.
The two main obstacles to developing modeling-based collaborative design tools
and systems are concurrency and synchronization. The real challenge is developing a
collaborative modeling system that offers all facilities of CAD/CAM/CAE modeling
system to its users, while at the same time providing them with the necessary
coordination mechanisms that guarantee an effective collaboration.
Solutions must be provided to the critical problems of concurrency and
synchronization that characterize collaborative design environments. Concurrency
involves the management of different processes while trying to access and manipulate the
same data simultaneously. Synchronization involves propagating evolving data among
users of a distributed application, in order to keep their data consistent.
One of the popular schemes for building and developing suites of collaborative
design tools and system is to add them to existing CAD/CAM/CAE systems as add-ons.
These add-on systems are usually third-party modules integrated into an application suite
or a system. For example, I-DEAS Web Access is an add-on for EDS I-DEAS Master
Series CAD/CAM system that allows data interaction.
COLLABORATIVE DESIGN SYSTEMS:
Some commercial collaborative design systems are available and can be used as
add-ons to CAD/CAM/CAE systems. Companies that offer collaborative design software
include Adaptive Media, Centric Software, CoCreate, RealityWave, and EDS.
These collaborative design systems and others attempt to address the same issues:
how to support collaborative design sessions and activities, and how to solve the two
problems of concurrency and synchronization. Therefore, it is not surprising that these
systems share similar characteristics.
EVALUATION CRITERIA:
The points below portray the evaluation criteria for collaborative design systems
and the engineers use this for evaluation purposes of their collaborative design systems.
Operating Systems (OSs) and platforms
Supported File Formats
Available collaboration tools
Supported CAD/CAM/CAE Systems
Data Transfer Methods
Pricing

SOURCING FACTOR:
Sourcing is nothing but selling or marketing your products across waters in
another land where there is no manufacturing that is going on. When there is a sourcing
decision that is to be made, there are 10 factors that need to be analyzed before the
sourcing can be implemented. The 10 factors are:
1. Total landed cost.
It is easy to focus on the lowest unit cost and assume thats the best way to go. But unit
cost is just one piece of the total cost equation. Other factors include transportation,
customs and duties, brokerage services (both at origin and destination), banking fees,
financing and insurance, to name a few. Further, there could be additional, unexpected
costs. If customs decides to examine the freight, you should add in charges for the
examination and local coordination charges. What if fumigation is required? More
charges. Any delays in the supply chain could result in expedited freight charges in order
to meet the target delivery date. While these may not occur, it is best to plan for the worst,
and hope for the best.
2. Product quality.
The quality of the product has ramifications over and above the unit cost on the balance
sheet. Quality needs to be defined so that the supplier and buyer understand and are in
agreement. If there are issues with the quality of the product, it is much harder to address
with a vendor through cultures, time zones and geographies, than if you are meeting with
a local supplier. Poor quality affects everything downstream, most obviously the rate of
returns by dissatisfied customers. Returns drain the business, taking up resources that are
more typically focused on getting good product out to the market, not receiving bad
product back in. Defective product may need to be sold at a discount or written off as a
loss, each of which affects the bottom line. A key part of an efficient supply chain is
having quality product all the way through it. In some cases, it may involve trial and
error, but as relationships grow over the years, some suppliers stand out as offering a
consistently superior product. These are the relationships to nurture.
3. Logistics capability.
All the great products and quality will mean nothing if you are unable to get the goods to
market. What type of transportation is available, domestically and internationally? After
all, you have to get the goods to an airport or seaport for transport; is there a reliable
transportation infrastructure in the country? Are you relying on a well-fed yak to
negotiate a tricky mountain pass to get to a major port, or is there a sound transportation
infrastructure from the sourcing/manufacturing origin point to the port? Once the freight
is ready for international transport, is there space or lift available? Seasonal fluctuations
and weather should be taken into consideration. Recent hurricanes along the Gulf Coast
are a great example: Katrina has affected the logistics of industry and business far beyond
the immediate region. It is important to have the flexibility with service providers to

implement alternate plans quickly in case the primary plan or transportation lane becomes
unavailable.
4. Location.
At the risk of sounding like a real-estate agent, consider location, location, location. The
proximity of a country may make it a more attractive source case in point, Canada.
Canada is the United States largest trading partner. In the same vein, Mexico is the
second-largest importer of U.S. goods, and third as a source of imports to the U.S. behind
only Canada and China. The proximity leads to benefits such as doing business in the
same, or close, time zones. In addition, common cultural differences and similarities,
including language, are known, as many of the populations in the three North American
countries have their origins or families in the neighboring countries. The North American
Free Trade Agreement also has done a lot to ease restrictions on trade between the
countries.
5. Trade regulations.
Governmental regulations can enhance or detract from the ease of doing business with a
given origin. For years. there were quota restrictions with importing textile goods from
China. This restriction was removed in January 2005, leaving China trending toward
sourcing up to 50 percent of the world market share of textiles. Before any sourcing
decision is made, it is imperative that all trade incentives or restrictions are evaluated
carefully. It is also essential to be familiar with documentation requirements for U.S.
customs clearance. There are many government-sponsored publications, brokers or
consulting organizations available to help educate an importer in the legal requirements
of international trade.
6. Finances.
Any discussion of buying and selling would be incomplete without evaluating the
financial aspect, in addition to looking at the actual cost of goods. What terms can be
negotiated? What is the risk with a given manufacturer? Is more insurance required to
source from a supplier in Vietnam versus Hong Kong? Can your excellent credit terms
with your domestic bank be leveraged to benefit the suppliers financial picture, resulting
in less risk and cost to the buyer? How will the increased transport time resulting in
tied-up inventory affect your cash-to-cash cycle?
7. Time to market/responsiveness of supplier.
Time to market is becoming an increasingly critical factor in sourcing decisions. If ones
competitor has product available more quickly, the result could be lost market share and
more important, lost revenue. It is important that your supplier be receptive to, and able
to accommodate, change. Perhaps the product needs to be tweaked slightly, or sales are
exceeding expectations and production needs to be ramped up. Is the supplier in a
position to do this? If the industry is subject to whims (think fashions for teenage girls,

for example), sourcing in Latin America may make sense with its proximity to the end
market and quicker transport time.
8. Value-added services.
Are there additional services available at origin to add value to the product? Is it less
expensive and more efficient to have garment hang-tags attached at the factory or
consolidation site prior to shipping? This can expedite the delivery in the U.S. by
bypassing a facility to do the same work, most likely at a higher labor cost than if it was
done at origin. Does the supplier guarantee that it will pack the freight to ensure it arrives
intact at destination? A new importer might make the mistake of cutting corners on the
packaging and dunnage when importing honey from China. The result could be steel
drums bouncing around an ocean container for 12 days on a vessel then five more days
on the rail, only to have honey oozing out of the container from leaky drums when it is
opened at its Chicago destination. Such a situation, sadly not fictitious, has the
consequence of lost product, lost sales and significant cleanup all more costly than
investing in the original dunnage at origin.
9. Communication/IT capabilities.
How will you know what has shipped? Is your supplier a real-time, Internet-savvy,
information-sharing partner? Or will you be waiting for documents typed on an IBM
Selectric to be pouched over in a DHL envelope? Open dialogue and communication is
imperative between the supplier and buyer. Late, missing or inaccurate documents can
cause delays of customs clearance and, ultimately, delivery to destination. Inaccurate
product information may result in swimsuits to Seattle in September and umbrellas to
Phoenix, requiring additional freight and time to correct such an error. E-mail and the
Internet, and good-old phone calls, can go a long way to ensuring supply-chain
efficiency.
10. Human toll.
This one is often overlooked, but can nevertheless be a critical part of the decision; there
is a real human effort to visit and work with suppliers overseas. In excess of the obvious
costs of airfare, hotel and food each substantial in its own right is the cost of time
away from the office and family. If someone is spending a day or more traveling, that is
time away from the office and presumably the work that would be done there. Fatigue
comes into play as the traveler works to get over jet lag and be prepared for meeting. In
addition, cultural differences need to be considered ahead of time to avoid inadvertently
nsulting the hosts.

MANUFACTURING PLANNING FACTOR:

The choice of the manufacturing planning is the one that decides which
manufacturing process does the operation. There is no best manufacturing system for any
product. The choice of the system depends on various circumstances but it must meet two
basic objectives, namely:

It must be able to meet the specifications of the final product, and

It must be cost effective

The product specifications can be met by choosing the right technology but that is not
always an easy task. Since stricter specifications add to the cost of the product, there is
always a trade off between the desired specifications and the cost to achieve such
specifications. For example, sophisticated injection moulding machines and high quality
plastics can produce excellent dolls cheaply provided they are produced in volume.
However, if their demand is limited, they may not be able to compete with home made
dolls produced in small quantities and sold at a fraction of the price of the moulded
version. Various factors which determine the choice of the manufacturing process are as
follows:

Effect of volume/variety: One of the major considerations in the process

selection is the volume/variety of the products. High product variety require
highly skilled labour, general purpose machines, detailed production planning and
control system. On the other hand low product variety (i.e. one or few products
produced in large volumes) enables the use of low skilled labor, highly automated
mass production processes using special purpose machines and simple production
planning and control systems.
Capacity of the plant: The projected sales volume is a major influencing factor
in determining whether the firm should go in for intermittent or continuous
process. Fixed costs are high for continuous process and low for intermittent
process while variable costs are more for the intermittent process and less for
continuous process. Intermittent process therefore will be cheaper to install and
operate at low volumes and continuous process will be economical to use at high
volume.
Flexibility: Flexibility implies the ability of the company to satisfy varied
customers requirements. Flexibility and product variety are inter-related. If more
variety is to be manufactured, the manufacturing facilities will have to be
commonised and depending upon the volume, the extent of commonalities will
require to be justified. Greater commonalities demands intermittent
manufacturing which is associated with higher inventories, large manufacturing
lead times and elaborate planning and control.
Lead time: Lead times more appropriately called delivery lead times expected by
the customers (i.e. how soon the demand has to be met without losing on sales) is
another major influencing factor in a competitive market. As a general rule, faster
deliveries are expected in a competitive market. The product, therefore, may
require to be produced to stock using principles of batch production/mass product

Efficiency: Efficiency measures the speed and the cost of the transformation
process. Efficiency is the greatest when the product is mass producted. But to
mass produce a product, greater sales volumes are required. Therefore, depending
upon the sales volume, product variety will have to be considered and the process
which will give the best efficiency in terms of machine and manpower utilization
will have to be selected.
Environment: Environment brings in new technologies and forces the adoption
of new process of manufacturing. For example, wooden furniture is gradually
being replaced by metals and plastic. A furniture manufacturing unit will have to
change its technology (i.e. change from one off production to batch production) to
fall in line with changing times. Similarly, as market preferences change due
fashions or other reasons, the manufacturing process has to be changed
accordingly.

PRODUCT LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT (PLM):

PRODUCT INFORMATION:
A product is a complex entity that unifies an organization and its operations. It
also generates a wealth of information at different phases of its lifecycle. The
organizations handle and manage product information efficiently. At an abstract level, we
identify three types of product information: product definition, product production and
operations support.
PRODUCT DEFINITION:
This is primarily concerned with managing knowledge as an intellectual asset that
is comprised of the products total definition, including product specifications, conceptual
design, part geometries, analysis results, engineering drawings, assembly drawings, and
so forth.
Activities related to product definition information include:
Product Configuration Management
Change Management
Product Design and Design optimization
Material Selection
PRODUCT PRODUCTION:
This is primarily concerned with the physical operations that are performed to
produce the product itself.
Activities related to product production information include:
Material Purchasing
Production Planning and Scheduling
Equipment Design
Equipment Ordering
Facilities Planning
Equipment installation and operations
Maintenance
Manufacturing and Quality Assurance (QA)

Delivery
Support and Customer Service

OPERATIONS SUPPORT:
This includes activities directed at managing finances, human resources, and
organizational structure design and management.
The conclusion that we can make now is that a product is synonymous with
generating information and managing information. Without information, organizations
cannot innovate or create new products; they cannot grow. Therefore, their demise and
collapse becomes a matter of time. Without information management, organizations
cannot compete as their time-to-market lead time becomes excessive.
PLM FRAMEWORK:
PLM is a framework that attempts to manage product information electronically
in a timely manner. It is a vision and philosophy that is built around a digital form of
product information.
The main goal of PLM is the creation of a timely communication among all
entities and personnel of an organization who are responsible for a product, regardless of
their geographical location.
Thus, PLM allows a company to design, analyze, and manage its products form
initial conception to retirement. The focus is on the product and its delivery and
management from conception to whatever the end of its life is; all done electronically and
in a digital format.
PLM systems are geared to give enterprises a 360-degree view of all phases of a
products lifecycle, from cradle to grave. From the very first iteration of an idea through
its design and development to the manufacturing floor and beyond, PLM systems attempt
to incorporate all aspects of a products costs, features, and functionality into a unified
view by combining all manner of data from across the enterprise into the development
process as early as possible.
BENEFITS:
PLM fundamentally changes the nature of product development. All parties work
collaboratively, particularly while the products design is still in a position to be
influenced. PLM helps companies achieve:
Repeatability: by leveraging intellectual property assets and enforcing
standardized, repeatable, and dependable work methods.
Lower and Steeper learning curves: through access to the right information for a
multitude of enterprise-wide participants, not just engineering.
Concurrent work efforts: on different product components, by synchronizing
development around object configuration and ongoing changes and updates,
something that is impossible to do at any scale without technology enablement.
Improved Product Quality: by adhering to standards and improving collaboration
with customers.
Reduced Time-to-market: by reducing the number of engineering change orders,
increasing product modularity and fundamentally altering the method and speed

with which information is shared and accessed by employers, from

serial/sequential mode to a concurrent one.
Reduced Total Product Cost: by enabling customer product configurations
through design-to-order, and by utilizing an integrated approach to product
development.

IMPLEMENTATION:
Although many companies are using PLM systems, few companies outside of the
auto and aerospace industries have adopted it across the enterprise. More often than not
in todays tight budgetary climate, companies start with one aspect or module of PLM,
like a document collaboration suite, on the way to a broader, more comprehensive
solution.
While PLM is aimed at hard-product manufacturers, like automakers, other
industries, such as petrochemical and major pharmaceuticals, also are adopting
specialized PLM solutions from niche providers. For the most part though, PLM is aimed
at organizations that produce hard products.
The four particular areas in which PLM can help resolve long standing hurdles to
innovation, productivity and profitability are
1. Knowing which product to pursue: Companies often expend resources on deadend ideas before they get the tight product completed. By aggregating key insight
and capturing known facts, dramatic new approaches to what to do and when to
do it are possible.
2. Long Product cycle times: Margin erosion, excessive discounting, and erratic
materials management and inventory profiles are common signs that product
delivery performance is too far behind a market window. To do it right the first
time and get it done faster requires an unprecedented degree of enterprise-wide
synchronization.
3. High Product Development and launch costs: High recurring and non-recurring
product costs often indicate an over-reliance on internal solutions, a squandering
of resources on developmental dead ends, and a failure to manage evolving
insights in a way that allows the true enterprise costs of certain decisions to be
determined. Appropriate resources include earlier and more effective
collaboration with third parties, integration with enterprise resource information,
and the enhanced integration of product-engineering tools. PLM provides a
foundation for these links.
4. Substandard Product Quality: Excessive failure rates often point to a breakdown
in requirements definition at the front end and weak engineering change order
mechanisms after the problem has surfaced. PLM provides access to key insights
early, facilitates bringing the right parties to the table at the right time, and
accelerates the ability to process a change when it is required.

ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES:
PLM is a framework, vision and philosophy that encompasses and integrates
existing design, manufacturing, and communication technologies. These technologies
include CAD, CAM, CAE, PDM and web tools. Four generations are identified over the
past four decades.
The first generation is 2D CAD and drafting. These early systems were slow,
limited by both hardware and software issues at the time.
The second generation is 3D wire frame and surface modeling with limited CAD
and CAM applications. These systems were proprietary and closed architecture.
The third generation is what is currently available. Currently, we have standalone
systems that support CAD/CAM/CAE, parametric design, associative drafting, and
digital prototyping.
The fourth generation has been evolving. Its goal is to develop a suite of
integrated applications and systems that allow the development and support of a digital
product value chain. Fourth generation systems are based on the PLM framework.