Product Lifecycle Management is firmly back on the manufacturing agenda.

Well actually, I'm not sure it ever went away, rather just entered acronym hell where everyone thinks they know what everyone else means by PLM, but in reality it tends to depend from which perspective your viewing the subject.

Bob Clements, Managing Director of in2grate, as their name suggests a company specialising in integration and automation, was kind enough to spell out his perspective for me: "A truly joined-up product lifecycle management software solution can be an excellent tool in helping manufacturers manage everyday production processes that work through manufacture, packaging, distribution, support and maintenance and ultimately right through to product disassembly." Crucially, he likes to make the distinction between his definition and those established PLM offerings that in his view "are in fact only engineering lifecycle management systems as they do not manage the entire lifecycle of the product."  

Perspective

But then Bob's perspective is different. Firstly, his business is making PLM available primarily to businesses that design, configure or engineer-to-order. This means that the bespoke design to manufacture nature of their business makes both speed and accuracy of customer costings a far greater critical business factor than for most mass manufacturing operations. Therefore a PLM system that integrates and automates many of the processes involved in generating this business critical information has to be good for an organisation's overall efficiency, not just at manufacture but at subsequent maintenance stages, and thus its bottom line. 

Secondly, its not just about manufacture. Bob believes there is profit to be both saved and made from the looming issue of recycling. A recent set of articles in the Financial Times point out that "waste" has become a political and financial nightmare. If the politicians' approach to the ever-increasing costs of disposal is to introduce environmental laws that shift those costs on to the manufacturers that produced the goods, then manufacturers had better be ready.

New directives such as those aimed at forcing motor manufacturers to re-cycle old cars and electrical and electronic goods manufacturers to do the same will not only relieve pressure on landfill sites and reduce the pollution caused by burning or burying waste, but should also provide the incentive for manufacturers to improve the design and tracking of products and components to make recycling process easier.

Bob explains that if a PLM system can give all relevant personnel quick access via an extranet to any data related to a product in question, then "such a system should be able to help designers and manufacturers choose quickly from a selection of environmentally friendly or regulation-compliant materials when designing a product or choosing the packaging materials. For example, certain materials might be more easily recycled at the end of product life, or be known to be less environmentally harmful during their useful life."

Future profit

The case for protecting profit becomes clearer, but making profit? Again according to the FT, skilful design could allow some companies to turn new legislation into an opportunity rather than a burden. The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) a directive on computer waste, has introduced the concept of "individual producer responsibility," which means that individual companies, rather than the sector as a whole, are required to recycle their old products. This will surely give a competitive edge to manufacturers that monitor and engage supply chains that design products and supply components that are cheap to recycle. Good ultimately for the environment, the consumer and business.

It is true to say that smaller businesses may be less aware and therefore less prepared for what future legislation might deal them, but all the more reason to begin considering the sort of system that can mange this recycling obligation issue as early as possible.

Definition

At this point, let's just recap on what we mean by a PLM solution. According to in2grate, it is an end-to-end solution encompassing CAD-based sales configuration, 3D design, revision and lifecycle management, job costing, project management, production scheduling, manufacturing and resource planning, repair maintenance and overhaul, supply chain management and now potentially environmentally responsible product disposal - just about everything really. 

A company such as in2grate has linked industry-standard CRM, CAD, PDM, CPC, and ERP components to produce a practical PLM solution that critically deals with the inter-relational nature of these solutions. For these businesses that design, configure or engineer-to-order, every customer quote is a one-off that can take days to produce, involving significant sales, design and administration cost, and often ends up as a "guestimate". The cost of this bidding process is rarely built into the bid price and is taken as a direct cost to the business, hence anything that can reduce these costs of producing the bids and increasing their accuracy will have a positive and direct impact to the company's profitability.

By having one master data set for design and production,  a PLM system can automate the whole process or any part of it. Products can be designed and modified to customer specification in minutes, with information being pulled from production and distribution to provide accurate quotes and estimated delivery times without the need to sidetrack other staff.

Even if the information gathered does not result in an order, it adds to the company's pool of reusable knowledge. The longer the system is in use, the more information it gathers and the greater the savings.  

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