A PLM-Driven BI Solution Is a Powerful Investment Tool

No matter how many thousand highly skilled and well-paid designers, scientists and engineers a company employs, their new product introduction (NPI) processes will fail without the proper central coordination and integration of processes, systems and product data. Specifically, without a modern bill of materials (BOM) solution, the best laid plans of engineers and operation managers often go awry. And beyond the treacherous sea of Excel spreadsheets is a lonely island of misfit high tech products that no one wants.

A BOM management solution should always be at the center of any company’s PLM strategy. A cloud-based BOM solution enable engineering, manufacturing and their extended supply chains to speed prototyping, reduce scrap, streamline their supply chain, improve margins, and collapse time to market. The best practices to maximize a PLM solution is to first examine processes, applications, organizations and data involved in the NPI process. Successful businesses leverage PLM capabilities to impact process that transcend departments and expand across a globally disseminated supply chain team.

Now, if you really want to take it up a level add an integrated PLM-driven business intelligence (BI) solution to your PLM solution. The result is visual clarity into critical business data and key product performance indicators (KPIs). A PLM-driven BI/analytics solution ensures critical new product introduction processes and all product processes are continuously improving for optimal business results.

BAM, with an integrated BI solution you just took your PLM strategy up a notch.

Now when you combine a cloud-based BOM management solution with a PLM-driven BI tool you now have a solution that streamlines NPI processes, gives you deeper insights into process performance but can also act as a powerful investment planning tool.

What I mean by “powerful investment planning tool”  is companies can discover where they should be best investing money and resources (products, people, parts, partners) in the future to ensure business success. In short, the combination of PLM and BI can be an investment-planning tool that helps team leaders to easily analyze trade-offs, guide investments in product development improvement projects, and measure the impact of those projects over time.

A few best practices to maximize your PLM-driven BI investment include choosing a few key metrics that track the efficiency of innovation and product development processes. These metrics may relate to engineering or components costs or bottleneck delays.

Without a centralized system to manage NPI design documents and bill of materials, companies will be plagued with inefficient processes, increased risk of product error, and escalating costs. When BOM Management and BI solutions work together, your PLM solution becomes a powerful strategic asset.

Click here to learn more about Arena’s BI tool, Arena Analytics.