PLM in manufacturing

Research overview

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PLM in Manufacturing - an overview

"It has been estimated that about 90% of all scientific knowledge has been generated over just the last 30 years, by about 90% of all scientists and engineers who have ever lived...and now are living and working." So says Bruce P. Mehlman of the United States Department of Commerce. "Both the rate of generation of new technology, and the number of workers globally engaged in science and technology may double again over the next 15 years…"

With this as the backdrop it's no wonder that many companies are challenged to deliver continuously improving product and business performance in an environment of accelerating change and complexity.

Low wages and business overheads and availability of skilled labour, specifically in former Eastern Block countries, Asia and South America allow companies to offer cost-effective product and manufacturing alternatives. In reality though, this differential will deteriorate as wages and living standards in those countries improve. It's only by improving their innovation, development and business processes that companies in these geographies can they hope to compete effectively for the long term.

The truth of the matter is that there's a rapidly increasing volume and complexity of digital data that is created and used in operations, both internally and externally. Most often this is created from internal sources including design, analysis, test and production, or from external sources including customers and suppliers. Harnessing this information efficiently allows companies to improve their performance and competitive situation.

Applying technology to benefit the business inside AND outside of engineering.

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems have been developed to address these evolutionary challenges. They support the management of a portfolio of products, processes and services from initial concept, through design, launch, production and use to final disposal. They co-ordinate products, project and process information throughout new product introduction, production, service and retirement among the various players, internal and external to the OEM, who must collaborate to bring the concept to fruition.

Probably the greatest challenge that many manufacturers face is how to apply this technology to efficiently deliver both long and short term value and, of course, increased business performance. Given the ever present pressure on product pricing, reducing times to deliver profit, escalating technology complexity, global competition and increasing regulatory requirements companies find it difficult to rationalise further disruption from implementing new IT solutions.

In fact we've been approached many times by potential users with the question: "Isn't PLM just too complex for my company, and if we try to implement it, won't it just add overhead to our business and in particular our innovation and development process?"

Albeit there's never an answer that covers all eventualities, the simple answer to the question is that it's all down to developing an understanding how particular aspects of PLM can benefit a company in both the short and long term. Remember that as with other IT solutions including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) there are varying elements of PLM, often from multiple vendors, which will benefit companies in different ways. In no way does one size fit all.

The big bang installation approach that we've seen in other enterprise areas in the past may not be suitable for many companies. Often, specifically with smaller businesses, the costs and disruption would make this approach unviable. For these companies the answer is often to apply technologies in key areas, growing the capacity and capability of their environment as needs, budget and resource allow.

There is also somewhat of a misconception that PLM is only applicable to the mechanical aspects of a companies products. This is based, to a large extent, on the historic focus of many of the vendors in the market. In real life many products have varying degrees of synergistic elements of mechanical, electrical, electronic and embedded software. Indeed the intellectual property content in many high-tech products such as mobile phones or personal digital assistants (PDA's) is principally silicon and software. As stated before, PLM encompasses all areas of a product's lifecycle and it's important to ensure that the environment acts in support of the business workflow. Individual productivity tools and legacy applications must be accommodated within the managed environment to support the overall product process. Selection in this instance becomes more heavily dependant on the interface capabilities of products and the service and integration competence of suppliers.

Also of importance is the positive role that vendors and their partners can play in the business development process. Not only do they play a significant role in the sale, implementation and support of PLM solutions, they can also add value through insight into both product and process, providing feedback and observation from their knowledge of successes within other companies.

The key to derive benefit is in understanding the opportunity

In general companies assimilate information from a variety of sources to define the products they create. These may include, for instance, data from sales and marketing, internal innovators, competitors and customers. At this point the ability to share and discuss portfolios and product form and function is critical. By allowing the various stakeholders to interact in this process encourages organisations to more rapidly understand and define needs and of course reduce errors due to misunderstanding. In this instance the collection, management and sharing of information can prove essential. The definition of form and function would in this instance be augmented in the PLM process with constituents such as viewers, requirements capture and product definition tools, not to mention the ability to easily re-use past work to help define new capabilities.

As products enter the design and development phase, companies strive to ensure that product developments run to schedule, to budget with the output being, of course, the perfect product. In the real world this is an ongoing challenge in most companies. PLM solutions help to provide an infrastructure and tools to automate many of the time-consuming processes that add little or no value to the engineering community. Examples of these include information search, re-use, standard part selection and, of course situation reporting. Also at this stage they help the design teams to validate performance and manufacturability, encouraging early feedback before moving designs into the costly manufacturing process.

In our experience, the most sensitive area encompassed by many PLM solutions is that of engaging with external stakeholders such as subcontract manufacturers and outside design houses. Historically communication with the outside world has relied on transfer of paper drawings or email. Whilst this provides results, it's neither efficient or to any great extent significantly secure. Creating a more traceable and concurrent environment using PLM technologies enables improved responsiveness, reduced costs and improved product quality. Vendors have invested heavily in security. Coupled with secure network environments customers will find the capabilities offered by many vendors aid in the retention of key intellectual property whilst enabling a more open and productive extended working environment.

Within manufacturing and test, PLM also adds value by integrating downstream operations with design and engineering teams. Purchasing may at this stage already have had early notification of bought-in items and subcontract requirements. Engineering change orders and test results can be integrated closely with design to reduce turnaround times and improve quality. The automated transfer of valid bills of materials improves the velocity to manufacturing. Sharing something as simple as an annotated 3D model, perhaps with assembly instructions, aids in the understanding of the task in hand and encourages improved manufacturing productivity.

As the product moves out into use, PLM solutions can add value by augmenting areas such as implementation, in-use instruction, and support. By re-using design and assembly information created at the early stages of the products' lifecycle companies can more efficiently create manuals and assembly guides. Many companies may indeed benefit by developing closer links between their service and development functions. By encouraging early service feedback, design teams can develop pre-emptive solutions or improve future product designs.

The ever increasing requirement from regulatory bodies such as those found in the vehicle, electronic, food and medical industries creates increased overhead forcing companies to manage and report information on both product and process. Whilst many manufacturers consider this to be pure overhead, compliance is not optional. Many PLM vendors provide solutions that help to manage these requirements. Often defined to address specific regulation requirements these capitalise on the information management and traceability aspects of their software to assist companies to more efficiently manage regulatory demands.

Where can companies benefit?

To derive optimum benefit from the PLM opportunity companies need to understand the information needs and processes flows within their organisation and determine where the various technologies on offer can deliver best value. As an example, the opportunity may lie within the following suggested areas:

• Managing and automating workflows.

• Creating secure, auditable user, workgroup and corporate environments.

• Providing management visibility of product processes.

• Improving the efficiency of engineers by enabling them to find and re-use historical information.

• Retaining and sharing intellectual property and making better use of less experienced staff to augment costly engineers.

• Decreasing the time taken to respond to invitations to tender and reduce risk/improve quotation costs.

• Automating, or semi-automating the quotation process.

•Reducing inventory through reduced duplicate part design.

• Minimising errors and overheads in the transfer of designs to procurement and manufacturing.

• Decreasing costs, supplier overheads and design times through standardisation of parts use.

• Sharing information through the organisation to improve the fit, form, function manufacturability, testability and supportability of products.

• Making information more available to subcontractors to enable them to respond to quotation and improve outsource design and manufacturing efficiency.

• Decreasing turnaround times for engineering change requests and change orders.

• Facilitating information sharing with customers to validated product performance, and increase service satisfaction.

• Providing requirements traceability to increase product quality and customer satisfaction.

• Automating product, process and materials traceability to ensure product and regulatory compliance.

It's more than just a pretty user interface

The answer in most cases requires the application of technology in conjunction with a change in established business processes. This requires the support and involvement of management to drive forward change to the benefit of the business. More importantly as the success or failure is dependant on the attitudes and acceptance of individuals and teams, their support and involvement in product selection and implementation will define its ultimate success or failure.

It's all too easy to say that technology such as those found from many PLM vendors is the solution to all problems. In reality benefit may be derived from many areas. PLM as one of the emerging IT areas offers significant opportunity for businesses to redefine their innovation and product processes to help them derive differentiation and profit in an increasingly complex and competitive business environment.

Allan Behrens

First appeared in the AT&P Journal, Issue 12, 2005