This is an interesting time for product lifecycle management (PLM). Over the last 20 years, PLM has become increasingly important to manufacturers when it comes to new product development and introduction (NPDI). PLM has been essential in getting products to consumers faster, especially in markets with complex products like medical devices, defense, and high-tech electronics where quality...

Every manufacturing company has the same problem: how to utilize CAD data in the most efficient ways in the larger product development process. Teams need the CAD component and assembly-level designs to flow into complete finished goods bills of materials (BOMs). Most teams depend on a brute force method of data entry. Or my favorite term, “stare and compare.” This can lead to many...

There’s an old phrase some say originated in the rural South, and others attribute it to Thomas Bertram Lance, (Bert Lance), Director of the Office of Management and Budget in Jimmy Carter’s 1977 administration: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” While that ideological phrase and thinking may hold water in some situations, —it’s detrimental in a world where time, speed, convenience, and ubiquity...