Benefits of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)

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Reduce overhead

Simplify regulatory and contractual compliance

If your development or production process is subject to audit by a third party, a PLM product can simplify review and acceptance. It's far easier to document your process when it's based on commercial-grade documentation and system configuration reports, particularly if the PLM vendor is sensitive to regulatory issues, and has experience designing compliant products.

Mitigate and, if required, report on a product's environmental impact

Government regulations both restrict the types of materials contained in products and specify more stringent environmental-impact reporting.

Europe's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment ("WEEE") and Restriction of Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment ("RoHS") directives address product environmental impact and require material tracking and, in some cases, data reporting. The US Environmental Agency also prohibits or restricts the use of certain hazardous materials, and your company may be required to track and report on certain compositions.

New efforts are underway, particularly in the electronics and automotive industries, to increase the use of environmentally-friendly materials, and supply chain partners often require detailed materials reporting via a Materials Declaration.

Manual calculations, particularly for hazardous substances that are measured in parts per million (ppm) or parts per billion (ppb), can be time-consuming, imprecise and error-prone. PLM systems that can automatically calculate and report product material composition across a bill of materials radically simplify the task.

Reduce process administrative and clerical costs

Depending on your industry, for every 8 to 12 engineers and designers a manual document control and change management process may require a change analyst, administrator, document checker, or clerk. Implementing a PLM system may allow you to cut that ratio to 20:1 or better.