Collaboration
The capacity to connect disparate teams using a single, unified system is a fundamental element of cloud-native enterprise PLM software. Web browsers allow internal product teams and supply chain partners to collaborate in real time from anywhere. This breaks down barriers and ensures that everyone is on the same page. Formal communications, such as engineering change order (ECO) approvals with gated user access, and informal discussions, like connected chats among product team members, are examples of collaboration.
Bill of Materials Management
The ability to efficiently manage your BOM guarantees that all members of the product team, including supply chain partners, have access to the most recent product changes. It also ensures that expenses are properly allocated throughout the manufacturing process and that product teams are aware of any changes that may influence production later.
Engineering Change Management
Controlled design change processes are provided by engineering change management, which helps to accelerate product development. With automated approval routings, product team members may handle formal engineering change requests (ECRs) and engineering change orders (ECOs) more quickly. Team members can also track the status of change orders throughout the product lifecycle and document modifications when they are released.
Document Management
Companies must be able to keep, maintain, and manage all documentation linked with product and quality records to satisfy the expectations of today’s highly regulated environment. Product specifications, assembly instructions, standard operating procedures (SOPs), quality policies, and training records are all included in this category. Document management enables centralized storage of documents, as well as the creation of audit trails and more efficient retrieval.
Regulatory Compliance Management
Export restrictions, environmental standards, quality requirements, and/or safety regulations necessitate a PLM software solution that ensures process, policy, and system conformance. PLM software should assist regulated companies in adhering to FDA, ISO, RoHS, REACH, ITAR, EAR, CMMC, and other key industry regulations to help them mitigate compliance risks.
Project Management
To guarantee that all product development milestones are fulfilled, project management capabilities help the product team keep track of tasks, assignments, and resources throughout the full product lifecycle.
Business Insights
The capacity to measure and analyze metrics gives companies more insight into their products and quality procedures, allowing them to make continual improvements. Access to key performance indicators (KPIs) also enables firms to adopt a more proactive approach to managing risks that could hinder new product development and introduction (NPDI).
Taking PLM Integration a Step Further
Many firms use upstream and downstream software solutions in conjunction with PLM to manage the design through the production phases of the product lifecycle. PLM serves as the central source to share information between design and manufacturing. Companies can further streamline their product development process and reduce time to market (TTM) by integrating PLM software into these other platforms.
