What Is PLM?

PLM helps manufacturers and their supply chains manage the entire product design and release process from concept through end-of-life. PLM streamlines product development, drives continuous improvement, and reduces costs—enabling teams to deliver high-quality products to market.

PLM bridges the gap between engineering and manufacturing to ensure the finished product works as designed. Ensuring design interoperability is easy when the electrical, mechanical, and software designs are brought together into a single system and passed to downstream systems upon release.​

Many companies think that product data management (PDM) can substitute for PLM. However, these solutions are designed to solve different problems and are complementary as teams move from NPD through testing, procurement, and production during NPI.  ​

PDM tools help individual engineering workgroups to work together on CAD design iteration and version management.

PLM systems bring the entire design together enabling quality, procurement, manufacturing, and supply chain teams to review, approve, and release the finished product.​

PLM systems bridge engineering and manufacturing processes to ensure the right product is built at the right time and for the right cost. Product lifecycle management solutions track past, present, and future designs with a transparent audit trail of all product changes. Click on each benefit to see how PLM helps drive results.​

When considering PLM software solutions, it’s critical to understand the total cost of ownership (TCO)—not just the cost for the software. Depending on the type of PLM solution, you may be dealing with an easy-to-configure cloud solution or a more difficult to code toolkit. Here are the key questions and considerations when evaluating what it takes to implement PLM successfully. ​