Product Lifecycle Management

The process of managing the complete product lifecycle – from its concept, to design and production to sales, after-sales services and recovery. PLM provides opportunities for enterprises to efficiently renew their products and relevant services throughout the complete business cycle. PLM – is one of the four cornerstones of the IT-structure at any manufacturing enterprise. All companies must know how to work with their customers (see CRM) and suppliers (see SCM), as well as manage enterprise resources (see ERP). In addition, machine-building companies must be able to develop, describe, manage and distribute information about their products, which requires PLM. The key PLM components include product data management (see PDM), collective product design (see CPD, CAD, CAE), and manufacturing process management (see MPM, CAPP, CAM).

Implementing PLM enables:

• Reduce time-to-market (or product modification period);
• Improve product quality;
• Decrease prototyping cost (see Rapid Prototyping);
• Reuse the original product data;
• Ensure product optimization;
• Reduce waste and environmental damage;
• Achieve savings due to full integration of engineering processes.