Product Lifecycle Management

Manufacturing has been and will be an always changing, always evolving industry. The appearance of Industry 4.0 in the early 2010s had a significant impact on the industry’s trends: the interconnection of devices and the transparency of the information have become the main operational goals, which also brought the need for system integration. Companies want to cut costs, while also increasing both the employee and customer satisfaction required by the globalization of markets allows the manufacturers to operate with more efficient processes by keeping the information flow continuous. It also serves the transparencyof the significantly increased amount of data, whichtransparency and availability allows interdepartmental communication.

High level of integration allows the manufacturers to operate with more efficient processes and to use less resources by keeping the information flow continuous. It also serves the transparency of the significantly increased amount of data, which transparency and availability allows interdepartmental communication.

The link between PLM and ERP

One of key drivers of the fourth industrial revolution is Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). Product Lifecycle Management allows the management of the company’s product from it being a simple idea until it is disposed, thus is a suitable approach for manufacturing companies. This lifecycle is managed and optimized through a PLM system, working together with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.

The link between the two systems depend on the given solutions: there are less and more connected systems. However, the alignment and synchronization of the systems is a more than crucial detail in this connection, as the two systems have to work with each other’s data, thus one depends on the other. Despite this connecting being so important, it is still common that a company does not implement PLM properly.

Seperate or connected ERP and PLM

Investing in a PLM software makes them think that the manufacturing processes are sufficiently managed, while the non-optimal implementation only created more possibilities for errors, as from now there are two independent systems that have to be filled up with data and managed. In the worst scenario, this can also mean that the two systems are totally separated, thus two sets of data has to be managed and updated, while the data transfer between the systems usually includes slow and unreliable manual work.

There only has to be one small issue with synchronization between the product and production data, or one single mistake with data update to create unaligned data, which if remains unnoticed for a longer time period can even result in manufacturing incorrect parts for an assembly or for the final product. It is both time consuming and costly to take corrective actions with finding and acting upon the problem’s cause. The chance for the appearance of such an issue is not unique nor unexpected as the information tends to go back and forth between the engineering and manufacturing team, thus the two independent systems, which has a high time resource need even when everything goes flawless.

Managing and coordinating these processes with the lack of overview caused by the system separation is nearly impossible and even if the revision control is properly coordinated, the vulnerability of the processes and the general presence of data unalignment can make the people not to trust the data they are working with. This absence of trust can both elongate the processes and stress the employees out.

To avoid dealing with two totally independent and separated system, that could only cause even more manual data input, thus possibilities for errors, it is advised to have a ‘bridge’ between the ERP and the PLM. However, one should not forget that the bridge’s base and pillars have to be strong enough to hold this connection.

Of course, in this case the bridge is only a metaphor: its pillars represent the two systems, while the base is the data itself. This means that without having a reliable, up-to-date database, it is unnecessary to even start building those pillars; but having that base is necessary but not sufficient for a useable system. To jump back to the IT solutions: the ERP and PLM have to support each other to allow the information flow between the two systems. Nowadays, most PLMs are built to be compatible with the most common ERPs.

In conclusion, even that a generic PLM software already fits into the approach established by Industry 4.0 and enhances the integration of the engineering and manufacturing team, it still does not provide a totally bulletproof and optimal solution. The integration of the two systems is fundamental for manufacturing companies to really achieve the complete management of the products through their full lifecycle.

There are specialized PLMs that bringing this idea to another level: having ERP and PLM in one environment by embedding the PLM solution into an (ERP) system.

ERP PLM software

To make sure to reach the desired level of integration, it might be advised to use an ERP-embedded PLM software. Embedded PLMs fit the more and more common cloud-based enterprise resource planning system approach and also emphasizes its advantages such as having lower implementation costs and giving a full integration possibility with staying safe and stable. Having a PLM embedded in the ERP represents the highest possible integration between the two systems, with providing a bi-directional transfer of information, and a stable base for business process automation.

As a conclusion having a Microsoft PLM system embedded in the ERP environment has several advantages. Some of it are the following:

• Better information flow: Instead of having separated information flows in multiple software environment, there is only one main information flow through the product’s processes from design to sales, linking engineering and manufacturing together. This allows to have a better overview of the product lifecycle and also increases the efficiency of interdepartmental communication.
• Reduced costs and number of errors: Automated data transfer overcomes issues arise from synchronization between the two environments, as there is only one, common system to maintain which the data does not leave through the processes. Besides, as these transfers are automated, the corruption of data such as missings or typos caused by the long and tedious manual work are eliminated. This could increase the data accuracy and quality which lowers the need for rework. The total cost and error reduction can be as high as 75 percent. (CIMdata – PLM and ERP Integration: Business Efficiency)
• Shortened time: System integration cuts lots of non-value adding processes that were needed for e.g. the data transfer between the two systems. Besides, as the increased transparency of data given by the integration helps planning ahead, it also shortens the time needed to spend on the product between design and sales.
• User-friendliness: By having a single collaborative setting, people do not have to learn to use an additional system, they are going to work in the same user interface which they are already familiar with. This not only provides faster implementation, but also can give additional confidence for the users.

We hope we’ve made you a little wiser. Please, don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions you might have.

• A solution that manages all of the information and processes at every step of a product or service lifecycle across globalized supply chains.
• The management of data and processes used in the design, engineering, manufacturing, sales, and service of a product across its entire lifecycle and across the supply chain.
• The handling of a firm’s approach to the various phases of a product’s development through to its ultimate decline.