PLM solutions reach beyond engineering department

An IBM Product Lifecycle Management Solutions product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Nov 7, 2003

IBM has extended its PLM Express offerings to expand its benefits beyond the engineering department to solve key business challenges facing small- and medium-size manufacturers.

IBM has extended its PLM Express offerings to expand its benefits beyond the engineering department to solve key business challenges facing small- and medium-size manufacturers.

This latest PLM Express offering includes bundled solutions based on Smarteam, for collaborative lifecycle management from Dassault Systemes, which address collaborative design, shipping and bidding management and after-sales maintenance support.

Product lifecycle management (PLM) is a strategic approach to creating and managing a company's product-related intellectual capital, from its initial conception to retirement.

PLM Express solutions from IBM, initially announced on 30th July, are industry-specific offerings ideally suited to the needs of small and medium business manufacturers.

These new PLM Express solutions from IBM are again focused on the specific needs of manufacturers who make the following types of products: industrial components, tooling suppliers, industrial machinery, mobile equipment, plastic products and consumer goods.

Today's medium-sized manufacturers are challenged with increasing delays and high costs due to a lack of co-ordination between internal teams located remotely as well as a global supply chain.

While these dynamics become increasingly complex, customer needs require careful management as products become more intricate in design.

To solve this, PLM Express offers four packaged solutions focused on optimising these business processes.

Using Smarteam's open, standards-based connectivity, the Collaborative Design package allows design engineers across the extended enterprise to share 3D product information.

With over 70% of overall product costs committed at the early stages of design it is crucial to design right the first time to minimise change costs.

The Engineering Data and Document Management package provides integrated management of design data and documents in a multi-CAD authoring environment, including secure vaulting, version control and link management.

In addition to proactive knowledge reuse, this solution enables streamlined engineering changes and integrated bill of materials management.

The third is the Bidding and Request for Quote Management package.

Companies that streamline their business using Smarteam's predefined standard processes can more quickly and more accurately calculate product costing, enabling them to handle a greater volume of bid requests and improve their win ratio.

Finally, using the Retail Aftermarket package, companies can benefit from Smarteam's accurate version-controlled product data and web-based, on-site field support to improve after-sales maintenance support and open new revenue streams with regular maintenance plans, replacement parts and asset management to their existing customers, for increased loyalty and repeat business.

Hans Wickstrom, IT Director, Peltor, a mid-sized manufacturer of hearing protection and communication products for noisy environments based in Varnamo, Sweden, said: "Now we don't have to develop things twice and are able to search on existing work done.

This helps us in having shorter response times to customers and also saves us time because we do not have to redo things.

Another benefit for us is that we now have a clear product development process and everyone knows where to find information, so we don't have to spend time looking for it".