Product lifecycle management - a top-down perspective

There is much press given these days to product lifecycle management (PLM) systems, due to the successes being achieved in the automotive, aerospace, electronics, defence and general manufacturing industries.

Implementing a successful product lifecycle management platform is a key strategic initiative for the design/manufacturing enterprise. The PLM platform encompasses all product-related data and information, from the concept phase through to the final operations, production, support and disposal.

The diversity of the data, processes and applications involved, make this a very challenging task, given the breadth and complexity of engineering design and analysis activities today.

There are many definitions of a product lifecycle management system. A PLM system can be defined as the collection of enterprise applications which overarch all product data with all their diverse information and discipline-specific processes.

The goal of such systems is to:

• Accelerate the design process;
• Accelerate the response to customer demands and support issues;
• Effectively manage quality, performance and cost of the product;
• Effectively support the product once in fabrication.

To be able to achieve these tasks, the PLM must link together all data sources, provide the switchboard for data exchange, provide process control functionality and the ability to 'roll-up' all the diverse data into information and knowledge.

This will enable enterprises to perform faster, make better decisions and dramatically increase the level of innovation applied to the creation of new products.

A key benefit of a PLM initiative is the ability to determine and expose critical design and performance information as early as possible in the product lifecycle, as most key parameters for quality, performance and costs are determined very early in the development process. As the development process evolves, the product parameters become more and more constrained, making late changes costly. Once the product is fabricated, changes such as recall-action are extremely expensive. Therefore the earlier information about the product is obtained the better, as actions can be taken at a much lower cost.

Over the past 5-10 years, product lifecycle management components have moved from emphasis on workgroup tools (such as CAD, CAM, CAE) to emphasis on best practice methodologies spanning the four major subgroups of the design/manufacturing scenario.

A product lifecycle management solution comprises three key enterprise systems, being:

• Product data management (PDM)
  PDM systems capture product-related information (geometrical data, configurations, ECR processes, program management, bills-of-materials), and are tightly coupled to the design processes that lead to product form. In a standard PDM deployment, the product structure is controlled by close integration of 2D/3D CAD processes and data to the generic product structure, which is often referenced by a number of other systems and processes.

• Enterprise resource management (ERP)
  An ERP (or the manufacturing resource planning (MRP) system) controls the logistic information required for manufacturing and support, including cost and operational complexity. Modern MRP and PDM systems include open connectivity support, so that changes in one system will spawn corresponding processes elsewhere so that integrity is maintained.

• Simulation data management (SDM)
  SDM systems manage the processes that simulate functional performance of a product. These simulation processes (often referred to as virtual product development or VPD) extract data out of the PDM environment, create information about a product's performance in various scenarios, and result in the validation or optimisation of a design early in the design cycle. This performance evaluation, often referred to as a bill of analysis (BOA), is typically a result of many iterations and optimisations, which span across several disciplines including stress, fatigue, motion, fluid dynamics and acoustics.

To achieve a complete PLM strategy, it is imperative that the design (PDM), simulation (SDM) and logistical (ERP) processes be tightly coupled to ensure that the key metrics from each system (form, fit and function) are visible to the enterprise, and often to key members of the extended enterprise or supply chain.

For further information contact MSC Software Australia Pty Ltd
Level 13, 309 Pitt St, Sydney 2000