What is Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)?

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Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) describes a practice which encompasses the people, processes and tools used to manage a product and its associated information from concept to end of life.

The discrete stages of a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) process may be defined as:

Throughout these stages, product data is generated and distributed to stakeholders within and outside of an organization. Within the organization, these stakeholders typically represent engineering, operations, procurement, manufacturing, document control, quality, regulatory, marketing and others. External stakeholders include a company’s suppliers, contract manufacturers and design partners.

What is PLM or Product Lifecycle Management Software?

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software can be a loosely defined category that encompasses the tools that enable product companies and their partners to collaboratively define, maintain, and securely share product and compliance information from concept to end-of-life. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Software can be a single system or PLM software can be multiple tools that work together providing the functionality and control across all the stages of the product lifecycle.

Whether you choose to utilize a single system approach or combine multiple systems to address these needs we can define Product Lifecycle Management and Product Lifecycle Management software by its functional capabilities. The following capabilities are core to PLM software:

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PLM software serves as the core product information management system. It complements ERP by synchronizing production systems on a single version of the product record across company functional boundaries like engineering, manufacturing and accounting. Product Lifecycle Management software also improves on traditional planning systems like ERP by linking project planning with project execution — making critical activities for on-time and on-target project completion visible across your supply chain.

PLM software captures a product’s structure before part numbers are defined, and it excels at tracking vast quantities of data in disparate formats. It also provides early visibility to the impact of design decisions in areas such as cost, quality, and obsolescence — helping to avoid costly and time-consuming redesigns after components and sourcing relationships are locked in.

PLM software enables the entire design and supply chain to track, document, and report on important details including design intentions, considerations, test results, decision rationale, and compliance requirements within the context of the as-designed product configuration. By tracking field improvement suggestions and providing suppliers a framework to communicate change requests, it allows the entire product team to better anticipate and react to events like supplier corrective actions and component end of life notices.

As the product definition evolves, Product lifecycle management software maintains the relationship between all the moving pieces as they change through multiple revisions. PLM software ensures everyone is synchronized on the current version and product designers can reconstruct the complete, versioned product definition (not just the BOM) at any point in time. PLM software provides process support beyond the focus of ERP, giving product managers the change control mechanisms they need to ensure consistent review and approval and to demonstrate due diligence against various compliance requirements. They control the change process itself, instead of simply phasing the finished product into production after all decisions have been made.

Product Lifecycle Management software supports product teams in the same way that ERP tools support production, giving managers access to current information and a common set of tools to consistently improve their results. PLM software bridges the flow of product information and changes from authoring tools (CAD and EDA) through to manufacturing planning (ERP) and execution (MES) systems. And, by improving overall data quality for all product information, it helps address data issues that can impede ERP adoption and result in excess and obsolete inventory based on old or out of revision product data.

Arena in the Product Lifecycle Management Software Landscape

Arena sits in the center of the Product Lifecycle Management landscape as the central hub tying together all the tools a company uses to author product data. Combing design data in Arena enables small and mid-size manufacturers to deliver quality products to market on time and on budget. Arena provides a collaborative environment for centralizing, controlling and analyzing complex and constantly changing product information, including bills of materials (BOMs), part specifications and change orders making it an essential part of the PLM software landscape.

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Ready to learn more about Arena?

Check out the Arena Starter Kit, a collection of must-read material from our resource center, designed to give you a quick, detailed introduction to Arena and bill of materials and product record management. Download the Arena Starter Kit