Product Lifecycle Management

IMPLEMENTING PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT IN INDIAN PRODUCT MANUFACTURE ORGANIZATIONS

Abstract

Product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from market demand, product design, manufacturing, services and disposal. By integrating people, data, process, business systems to provide product information which can foster a company's product innovation ability and their extended enterprise.

In short all-encompassing vision for managing all data relating to the design, production, support and ultimate disposal of manufactured goods.

The aerospace, medical devices, military, nuclear and automobile industries need to maintain safety and control extremely important. This safety and control measure brought about the concept of PLM in to the market. The configuration management further evolved into electronic data management systems. This further evolved into data management systems.

By using the PLM features, many manufacturers of industrial machinery, capital goods, consumer electronics and packaged goods have benefited largely in the past ten years, since the advent of the PLM.

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 PRODUCT LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT:

Product lifecycle management (PLM) is the procedure of managing the complete lifecycle of a product. It symbolizes the encompassing vision for supervising all the data relating to the design, manufacturing, support and the dumping of the produced goods.

The concept of PLM was first introduced in the areas where safety and control were extremely important like aerospace, nuclear industries, military and medical device.

These industries invented the discipline of configuration management (CM), which later got evolved in to the electronic data management system (EDMS), and this was further developed to the product data management (PDM).

The usage of PLM solution has benefited the manufacturers of the industrial machinery, packaged goods, consumer electronics and complicated engineered products, and also there is a rapid increase in the adoption of PLM software by the industries. Product lifecycle management (PLM) is the procedure of managing the complete lifecycle of a product from its beginning, through design and manufacture, to service and disposal.

PLM integrates people, data, processes and business systems and provides a product information backbone for companies and their extended enterprise. Product lifecycle management is one of the four cornerstones of a corporation's information technology system structure. Every company needs to communicate and share information with their customer relation management (CRM) and also shared with the supply chain management and their resources with enterprises management (ERP-Enterprise Resource Planning) and their planning (SDLC-System Development Life-cycle). The manufacturing and engineering companies should compulsorily develop, describe, manage, and communicate information about their products.

1.2 PLM SOLUTIONS:[1]

1.3 Some requirements of PLM:

* Data File Control & Management (The right data…)

* Product Data Access Control (To the right person…)

* Workflow & Process Management (At the right time…)

* Geometry Management

* CAD File Control & Management

* Digital Mockup

* Integration Point For Single Source of Product Data

* Information System Interfaces

* Authoring Application Integration

* Product Data Distribution

* Product Data Viewing

* Change Control

* Configuration Identification

* Configuration Status Accounting, Verification and Audit

* Program / Project Management Coordination

* Requirements & Design Traceability

1.4 Benefits:

Benefits of product lifecycle management include:-

* Reduced time to market

* Improve product quality

* Reduced prototyping costs

* Saving through the re-use of original data

* A frame work for product optimization

* Reduce waste

* Saving through the complete integration of engineering workflows

1.5 History:

Inspiration for the burgeoning business process now known as PLM came when America Motor Corporation (AMC) was looking for a way to speed up its product development process to compete better against its larger competitors in 1985, according to Francois casting Vice President for Product Engineering and Development. After the introduction of its compact jeep Cherokee (XJ), the vehicle that launched the modern sport utility vehicle (SUV) market, AMC began to develop a new model, which later came out as Jeep Grand Cherokee. The first part in its quest for faster product development was Computer Aided Design (CAD) software system that makes engineers more productive.

The conflicts are very easily solved by using new communication system .By this system costly engineering also changes because of availability of drawings and documents in a central database. AMC was purchased by Chrysler because of the effectiveness of the product data management .This made the designing and building product to connect with enterprise. While an early adopter of PLM technology, Chrysler was able to become the auto industry's lowest-cost producer, recording development costs that were half of the industry average for the Burge owning business process now known as PLM came when America average by the mid-1990s. C:Documents and SettingskranthiDesktoprakesh_prj_imgRKSH_IMG4.bmp Fig 1. Layout of Product life cycle management

1.6 Timeline -Increasing Productivity with Technology:[2]

1980's

§ Introduction of Commercial Computer Aided Design (CAD) radically improved

§ Productivity in Product Design

1990's

§ Adoption of ERP Systems

§ ERP Systems included Engineering and Change Management Modules

§ Design & Build remained separated in silos

2000's

§ Adoption of Workflow & Web technologies accelerated PLM concepts

§ Workflow enabled collaboration between different company silos

§ PLM drastically improved NPI cycle cutting time & cost

§ PLM extended visibility and collaboration to CMs & Suppliers using the we

Present

§ PLM extended Product Design to 3rd party Design Outsourcing

§ Collaboration extended across the global chain to Customers & Suppliers

§ Introduction of Industry & Government Standards Compliance

§ Adoption of Collaborative Quality Improvement across the supply chain

§ Adoption of Program/Project based PLM Portfolio Management

§ Adoption of PLM Analytics and Intelligence for Cost/Process Analysis & Improve.

1.7 Phases of Product lifecycle:[3]

There are many software solutions now developed which are use to organize and integrate the various phases of the product ‘s life cycle.

PLM is the single software with a suite of tools with several working methods, all these integrates to define single or different stage of product life cycle. PLM range is covered by some software providers but other only single application. Some of the applications can span various fields of PLM with different modules, with in the similar data model.

All fields in PLM are covered here. It should also not be forgotten that one of the main goals of PLM is to collect knowledge that can be reused for other projects and to coordinate simultaneous concurrent development of many products. PLM is mainly related with engineering tasks and also involves the activities of marketing like Product Portfolio Management (PPM), and mainly with regards to the new product introduction (NPI).

1.7.1. Phase 1: Conceive:

Imagine, specify, plan, and innovate

The initial phase in idea is the definition of its requirements based on customer, company, market and regulatory bodies' viewpoints. Major technical parameter can be defined by this product specification. Many functional aspect and requirement specification are carried out parallel with the initial concept design work carried out by defining the visual aesthetics of the product. For the Industrial Design Styling, work many different media are used from pencil and paper, clay models to 3D Computer Aided Design software

1.7.2. Phase 2: Design:

Describe, Define, Develop, Test, Analyze and validate

This is where the detailed design and development of the products form starts, progressing to prototype testing, through pilot release to full product launch. It may also include the redesign and ramp for improvement to present products as well as Planned obsolescence. CAD tool is used for design and development. This can be a simple or plain 2D Drawing / Drafting or 3D Parametric Feature Based Solid/Surface Modeling. Such software includes technology such as Hybrid Modeling, Reverse Engineering, KBE (Knowledge Based Engineering), NDT (Non Destructive Testing), Assembly construction

This step covers many engineering disciplines including: Mechanical, Electrical, Electronic, Software (embedded), and domain-specific, such as Architectural, Aerospace, Automotive, Along with the actual creation of geometry there is the analysis of the components and product assemblies. By standing alone the CAE (Computer-aided engineering) software can perform simulation validation and optimization task or it may carry out by integrating with CAD package. These are used to perform tasks such as: - Dimensional tolerance (Engineering) analysis task is performed by using CAQ (computer aided quality) such as Dimensional Tolerance (engineering) Analysis. Another task which is carried out at this phase is the sourcing of bought out components, possibly with the aid of Procurement systems.

1.7.3. Phase 3: Realize Manufacture, Make, Build, Procure, Produce, Sell and Deliver:

The method of manufacturing is defined when the design of the product's componnent is completed. It performs task such as design creation of CNC machining instructions for the products part as also it can perform tolls to manufacture those product which can be done using integrated or separate CAM. Process simulation for operations such as casting molding and die press forming will also be involve in the analysis tools. CPM comes in to play only when the manufacture method gets identified. The original CAD data with the use of Computer Aided Inspection equipment and software is used for checking the geometrical form and size of the components after they get manufactured.

Sales product configuration and marketing documentation work will be taking place parallel to the engineering task. This could include transferring engineering data (geometry and part list data) to a web based sales configuration and other Desktop Publishing systems

1.7.4. Phase 4: Service:

Use, Operate, Maintain, Support, sustain, phase-out, Retire, Recycle and Disposal

In final stage of the lifecycle the managing of in service information is involved. The repair and maintence, waste management/recycling information is provided to the customers and to service engineers. Maintenance repair and operation management software tools are involved.

1.7.5. All phases: Product lifecycle:

Communicate, Manage and Collaborate

In many cases or in real practical a project does not run sequentially or maintain isolation of other project development project. The co-ordination of and management of product definition data is the main part of PLM, it includes release status of the components, managing of engineering changes, management of documents, project resources planning, configuration product variations, timescale and risk assessment. The text and metadata such as the product bills of materials needs to be managed. At the engineering departments' stage this is the area of PDM - (Product Data Management) software, at the commercial level EDM (Enterprise Data Management) software; it is typical to see two or more data management systems within an organization. These systems are also linked to other systems such as SCM, CRM, and ERP. Associated with these systems are Project Management Systems for Project/Program Planning. Numerous collaborative product development tools cover this central role which runs throughout the whole life cycle and across organizations. This needs various technology tools in the area of Conferencing, Data Sharing and Data Translation.

CHAPTER 2
Research study conducted on (Cell phone)

During past decade of time the, cell phone has become a part of our daily life .Like any product, making a cell phone and its parts requires natural resources and energy. Understanding the life cycle of a product can help you make environmental choices about the products you use, and how you dispose of them. Let us consider the example of a Nokia cell phone product life cycle management.

2.1 Concept Design:[4]

The design of the product influences each stage of its lifecycle and also influences the environment. Design will affect the materials which are used in manufacturing of a product. If cheaper materials are used they are less durable, the product will have a short useful life. Waste can be prevented by proper design of the product. The design of the product with modular components can be easily replaced and entire product need not be thrown away if only one part of the product gets broken. The items having long life, trendy design should be avoided because they are not thrown away when they go out of style.

2.2 Materials Extraction:[4]

All products are manufactured from the materials which are found in or on the earth. Raw materials, such as trees or ore, are directly mined or harvested from the earth and this process can create a lot of pollution and also involves usage of large amounts of energy and depletes the limited natural resources. The manufacturing of new products from recycled materials will reduce the amounts of the raw materials, being taken from the earth. The hand set consists of 40 percent metals, 40 percent plastics, and 20 percent ceramics and trace materials.

The circuit board which is also termed as a printed wiring board, present in the hand set is the main component and is the brain of the cell phone controlling all of its functions. The circuit boards are up of mined and raw materials like silicon, copper, lead, nickel, tantalum, beryllium and other metals. Circuit board manufacturing requires crude oil for plastics and limestone and sand for the fiberglass, these materials are also known as “persistent toxins” and can stay in the environment for long periods of time even after their disposal.

The cell phone consists of a liquid crystal display (LCD), a low power, flat- panel display on the front of the phone that shows information and images. The passage of electric current through it makes it opaque. The contrast between the opaque and transparent areas forms visible characters. Various liquid crystalline substances, either naturally occurring (such as mercury, a potentially dangerous substance) or human-made, are used to make LCDs, require the usage of plastic or glass. The rechargeable batteries used to power the phones can use several types of batteries: nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH), lithium-ion (Li-Ion), nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cad), or lead acid. These batteries contain nickel, cobalt, zinc, cadmium, and copper.

2.3 Materials Processing:[4]

Once materials are extracted, they must be converted into a form that can be used to make products. For example, in cell phones: Crude oil is combined with natural gas and chemicals in a processing plant to make plastic; Copper is mined, ground, heated, and treated with chemicals and electricity to isolate the pure metal used to make circuit boards and batteries. The resulting copper pieces are transported to the manufacturer where they are formed into sheets and wires.

2.4 Manufacturing:[4]

The basic shape of the circuit board is made by using plastics and fiberglass, and is then coated with gold plating. The board has several electronic components which are connected with wires made of copper and are soldered to the board, are secured with coatings and protective glues.

LCDs are manufactured by sandwiching the liquid crystal in between layers of plastic or glass. Batteries have two separate parts known as electrodes, which are made from two different metals. Electrolyte is a liquid substance which touches each electrode.

2.5 Packaging &Transportation:[4]

The use of packaging can protect products from damage and provide product information. Finished products are transported in trucks, planes, and trains to different locations where they are sold. All of these modes of transportation burn fossil fuels, which can contribute to global climate change. The finished products and the parts of the cell phone require packaging and transportation in order to get from one place to another.

The transportation done by plane, rail or truck requires the usage of the fossils fuels for energy, which contribute to the global climate change. While the packaging of the product protects it from getting damaged, identifies contents and provides information, decorative or excessive packaging can be wasteful. Packaging makes use of the valuable natural resources which include paper (from trees), plastics (from crude oil from the earth), and aluminum (from ore) and other materials, all of which makes use of energy to produce and can result in waste.

2.6 Reuse/Recycling/Disposal:[4]

The way products are used can impact the environment. For example, products that are only used once create more waste than products that are used again and again. Using a product over and over again prevents the need to create the product from scratch, which saves resources and energy while also preventing pollution. Recycling or re-manufacturing products also reduces the amount of new materials that have to be extracted from the earth.

Always comparison - shop to be sure that you get the proper service and the phone that is right for you. By using the rechargeable batteries in cell phones reduces the amount of the waste and toxicity that disposable batteries will create. Be sure to follow the manufacturer's instructions for charging your batteries so you can extend their life as long as possible

2.7 Life:[4]

Recycling or donating the cell phones when they are no longer needed by you or want them extends their useful lives, and preventing them from going into the trash where they can cause problems relating to the environment.

2.8 Reuse:[4]

Many organizations including recyclers, Charities, and electronics manufacturers accept working cell phones and offer them to schools, community organizations, and individuals in need. Reuse provides people, who cannot afford them, free or reduced cost access to new phones and their accessories. And thereby it extends the useful lifetime of a phone.

2.9 Recycle:[4]

Springing up of electronics recyclers is every-where. Today, various stores, recycling centers and manufacturers accept cell phones for recycling. While few electronics recyclers only allow large shipments, the communities, schools, or groups can work together to collect used cell phones for shipment to electronics recyclers. Some of the rechargeable batteries can also be recycled, as many retail stores and some communities have started collecting them. The material recovered from the rechargeable batteries when they are recycled can be used for making new stainless steel products and batteries. You can use the phone book or Internet to find the local contacts that refurbish and recycle cell phones.

2.10 Disposal:[4]

By 2009, the rate at which cell phones are discarded is predicted to exceed 125 million phones each year, resulting in more than 65,000 tons of waste. The cell phones which are thrown into the trash end up in a landfill or are burned. As the cell phone contains plastics, chemical, metals and other hazardous substances, you should always recycle, donate or trade in your old cell phone.

2.11 Headset:[4]

Many people use a cell phone headset when they are driving or when they are walking around to keep their hands free. Most models of headsets can be reused when you buy a new phone.

2.12 Belt clip:[4]

Some people buy belt clips to carry cell phones while not in use. Reusing or donating your belt clip when you are finished using it prevents waste.

2.13 Face plate:[4]

Decorative face plates can be trendy and fun, but you don't need them to use a cell phone. The best way to prevent waste is to simply not buy products you don't need. If you do buy face plates, donate unwanted ones to a charity or swap them with your friends instead of throwing them away. Portable gaming cell phones have a lot of the same parts as hand-held video game and CD players, consoles and portable CD players, including speakers, circuit boards, and LCDs. Old or broken consoles and players can also be reused or recycled when no longer wanted. Advances in cell phone technology have given phones many uses today.

CHAPTER 3

CASE STUDY
3.1 Case study: Siemens

Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices (SHC) is a leading company for home and office communication infrastructure. The company sells its products in more than 50 countries.

3.1.1 Business Challenge:

SHC has several engineering and manufacturing disciplines which are unique and located at one single site, in Germany. Mold tooling development, mechanical design development, manufacturing and assembling are all done in Bocholt, Germany.

For Siemens the market pressure is very high in electronics and electric and consumer goods, and there is stress from this competition to reduce development cycles and it's time to market new goods, as there is a wide range of products introduced into the market year after year with new designs and more complexity. Therefore Siemens recognized that it has to make improvements in its quality and thus needed to enhance the supply chain integration and collaboration to meet its marketing challenges.

Siemens soon recognized that to overcome the external and internal pressures it has to improve its development and product life cycle for the future success of Siemens SHC. Siemens had been working with a 3-D CAD system “ Euclid 3” for about 10 years on which it had made all possible improvements and it cannot upgrade it any further, so it has to get help from outside partner to help and implement a new product life cycle (PLM) system.

3.1.2 Solution:

Siemens in partnership with IBM services implemented CATIA V5 and SMART TEAM as a new PLM platform for improvement in product development. CATIA V5 has a set of predefined product and process templates, helps to quickly complete even sophisticated design tasks with a high level of accuracy.

With CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM, SHC has improved design innovation, taking advantage of the existing know-how and design to manufacturing process to the development and reduction of costs. In addition to that, this tool has helped make the mold tool development and NC manufacturing very competitive with low-cost suppliers from places like China.

3.2 Case study 2: Airbus UK
3.2.1 Business Challenge:

To meet tight deadlines for delivery and reduce design and manufacturing costs by constantly improving working processes throughout the aircraft lifecycle.

3.2.2 Solution:

IBM has provided with a team of flexible and scalable experts which included strategic business consultants, aircraft industry specialists and project managers to define and implement transformation programs in business, financial and organizational disciplines.

3.2.3 Business Benefits:

Improved collaboration with suppliers eliminated data re-entry, saving €18 million on collaboration with suppliers.

* Improved concurrent engineering reduced lead time on wing by 41 weeks (36% reduction).

* The world's first flight of largest passenger aircraft completed on time.

* Keeping Scheduled programming.

* Innovative practices introduced from concurrent engineering and collaborative working.

3.2.4 Why it matters?

IBM team created new business, financial and organizational processes to meet the deadlines while cost cutting the design and manufacturing for the new Airbus A380. These changes has transformed the airplane manufacturing methodology while enabling Airbus UK to cut cost and time out of design and manufacture, improve collaboration with suppliers and deliver key components on schedule to ensure the A380 aircraft's on-time first flight.

3.2.5 Key Components: IBM Global Business Services

In developing the new technologies and pushing the boundaries of knowledge in the aerospace industry Airbus is leading the world. Airbus is an extremely complex business, which employs advanced technologies and procedures, some of which have mainly been developed for this project. In such a large-scale, modern design and manufacturing process, a lot of attention is paid at keeping costs under control. Wing assembly is one of the most complex parts of the aircraft, an element for which Airbus UK has the design and manufacturing responsibility.

The company realized early in the A380 program that new processes would be needed to achieve the aggressive timeline for the airplane. “We needed to radically transform our approach to the A380, and saw value in bringing in an objective external consultancy to help define and implement new ways of working,” says Iain Gray, Managing Director of Airbus UK. Nowhere is this more evident than in its design and development of the A380, the world's largest passenger jet. Airbus is a highly complex business, employing advanced technologies and processes, some of which have specifically been developed for this project. In such a large-scale, innovative design and manufacturing operation, much attention is paid to keeping costs under control. Airbus UK commissioned IBM Global Business Services to bring together a team of experts to analyze designs, design processes and manufacturing operations. “IBM is exclusively placed to give advice and help us transform Airbus UK,” says Gray. “It has enormous breadth and depth of knowledge, with expertise in business, financial and organizational disciplines as well as the aircraft industry and computer technology.” The core IBM Global Business Services program team includes strategic business consultants, aircraft industry specialists and project managers. This team is expanded when ever required by drafting in specialists and consultants who bring a complete cross-section of business and technical skills relevant to the specific problem being addressed.

3.2.6 Designing out cost:

“Initiatives from IBM Global Business Services help us drive cost out of design and manufacture, improve collaborative working, and transform the way we work with our many subcontractors,” explains Gray. Improved collaboration with suppliers eliminated data re-entry, saving €18 million. The IBM team has helped the Airbus UK improve the concurrent engineering, reducing lead time of the wing by 41 weeks (36 percent reduction).

Sometimes, initiatives originated directly from the IBM team. Airbus built complete 3D models of A380 components to analyze clash conditions in airframe systems and structure before committing to cut metal—for example, to ensure that there were adequate clearances for slat and flap mechanisms on the wing and the landing gear. Such large-scale 3D modeling involves an enormous volume of number-crunching, which would normally trigger the purchase of large processors. Seeing this situation, IBM consultants introduced Airbus to the concept of GRID computing, which pools unutilized processing capacity in hundreds of distributed workstations for use with processor-intensive applications. A prototype was developed, and IBM then completed the implementation of GRID technology, there by saving Airbus a considerable investment.

In the area of business transformation, IBM Global Business Services is organizing an experienced team of human resource and organizational specialists to help Airbus UK transform from a development organization to one undertaking large-scale serial production.

The key aspect in the success of the A380 program is educating several hundred people across Airbus UK and its many of the subcontractors in the new tools, processes and collaborative working. With an infinite pool of resources, IBM responded very rapidly to Airbus' training needs, building and delivering of tailored courses that reflect the processes and technologies defined at the strategic level.

3.3 Case Study 3: Maruti Udyog Ltd

Maruti Udyog Ltd., a subsidiary of Suzuki Moto Corporation of Japan, has been the leading Indian passenger car maker for about two decades. The company has a diverse portfolio that includes: the Maruti 800;the Omni; a premium small car, Zen; the international brands, Alto and WagonR; an off-roader, Gypsy; the mid-size Esteem; a luxury car, Baleno; an MPV, Versa; a premium subcompact car, Swift; and a luxury SUV, Grand Vitara XL7. The company's 11 base platforms encompass300 variants for 100 export destinations. According to Maruti's vision statement, its goals include maintaining leadership in the Indian automobile industry, creating customer delight, increasing shareholder wealth and being “a pride of India.” Customers have shown their approval, ranking Maruti high in customer satisfaction for six years in a row according to the J.D. Power Asia Pacific 2005 India Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) Study. The company has also ranked highest in the India Sales Satisfaction Study.

3.3.1The need for PLM:

Among the company's product development challenges, the need for shorter cycle times is always at the top. Management wants to be able to launch new models faster and reduce the time required for minor changes and development of product variants. Another challenge is co-development. Maruti's goal is to collaborate closely with its global teams and suppliers on the development of new platforms and product freshening. Other challenges include streamlining the process of vehicle localization and enhancing quality and reliability. These challenges pointed directly to a product lifecycle management (PLM) solution with capabilities for information management, process management, knowledge capture and support for global collaboration; a PLM solution directly addressing Maruti's business challenges. For example, PLM's information management capabilities address the issue of the many plat forms, local variants and export destinations. Process management permits concurrent development and faster change management and provides a platform for other process improvements - for faster vehicle development. Knowledge capture increases innovation and also reduces costs by increasing part re-use. PLM's collaboration capabilities permit global development by ensuring fast and accurate dissemination of product information.

3.3.2. Implementation profile:

Maruti selected the UGS PLM software solution because “UGS leverages the business value by offering complete PLM solution,” according to C.V. Raman, general manager, Engineering Division, Maruti Udyog Ltd. Maruti's PLM implementation includes Team centre, NX and Techno matrix software. Team centre provides a wide range of functionality for release management including bills of material management and change management. Team centre also handles the vehicle localization process, coordinates the part approval process and integrates design and engineering information with the company's ERP system. Team centre also provides the infrastructure for global collaboration. It does this by permitting real-time data sharing with suppliers in India and the global Suzuki team. NX supports vehicle design by providing advanced tools for styling, product design and digital mock-up. Its system-based modeling solution (WAVE) simplifies the creation of product variants. NX is also used for tool design and the development of machining programs. Techno matrix automates manufacturing process planning (final assembly and body-in-white) and allows for assembly feasibility studies, ergonomic analyses, welding cell simulations and so on.

3.3.3 PLM delivers results:

Since implementing the UGS PLM solution, engineering change notice (ECN) time at Maruti has decreased by 50 percent. The ECN errors have also been cut in half. The Cost reduction, cost which has been occurring to some extent is now more effective after the PLM implementation, with an improvement of 54 percent. With 3D parametric models now representing all elements of a vehicle, design reviews include digital mock-ups, which people find much easier to understand than drawings. On a latest program, digital design reviews revealed 36 issues that previously would not have been detected until the prototype stage, resulting in program delays. With the UGS PLM implementation, such delays are now avoided. The factory simulation functionality had equally beneficial results.

Factory simulation functionality has had equally beneficial results. Digital 3D plant layouts reduce errors and have cut personnel costs for accommodating new product introductions. In addition, Maruti has seen a 50 percent reduction in assembly/build issues.

From the business perspective, all this means vehicles get to market sooner. The company has experienced a reduction in design-to-launch time of 25 percent, and expects a further reduction of 15 percent as more of the collaboration with Suzuki and suppliers is done electronically in real time. From the customers' perspective, the move to the UGS PLM solution is seen in lower prices. Since the implementation of Team center, NX and Techno matrix, Maruti has reduced prices for five car models.

3.4 Business challenges:

§ Ensure customer delight

§ Increase shareholder value

§ Reduce development time and

§ offer cars at lower prices

3.5 Keys to success:

§ Information management,

§ process management and global

§ collaboration supported by

§ Team center® software

§ More efficient and innovative

§ design and manufacturing

§ with NX™ software

§ Ability to simulate

§ manufacturing processes using

§ Techno matrix® software

3.6 Results:

25 percent reduction in design to-launch time; additional 15 percent improvement yet to come

§ Lower prices for five models

§ 50 percent reductions in assembly/build issues and ECN time

CHAPTER 4
PLM MARKET ANALYSIS, PERFORMANCE AND FORECAST

4.1 PLM Market Analysis:

Annual study indicates continued growth for product lifecycle management initiatives throughout the next five years. The overall product lifecycle management (PLM) market grew 10.7% to reach $20.1 billion in 2006, and PLM investments are forecasted to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 8.5% to exceed an estimated $30 billion by 2011, according to CIM data 2007 PLM Market Analysis Report. The report presents an analysis of the 2006 PLM market with special emphasis on the collaborative product definition management (cPDm) segment of that market. Also included in the study is an analysis of the multidiscipline MCAD segment of the market, which provides CIM data's perspective on PLM across a variety of industry and geographic sectors and identifies market trends, reviews investments in PLM-related software and services during 2006, and forecasts PLM investments for 2007 through 2011. Forecasts are based on data available through the first quarter of 2007. CIM data partitions the PLM market into two primary segments: cPDm and tools. The tools segment is focused on fundamental intellectual property (IP) creation, and cPDm is focused on IP management, including collaboration, visualization, vaulting, and sharing of product-related information.

According to the study, companies worldwide spent $13.2 billion in 2006 on PLM tools, including MCAD, computed-aided manufacturing (CAM), electronic design automation (EDA), engineering simulation and analysis, technical publishing, and other technologies. Development in this sector was driven primarily by investments in EDA and midrange MCAD. Areas like the high-end MCAD and simulation and analysis experienced relatively lower growth, the study states. The tools portion of the PLM market is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 5.3% over the next five years to reach $17.1 billion by 2011.

The cPDm portion of the PLM market met the forecast for growth and reached $6.9 billion in 2006, representing an increase of approximately 13.6% over 2005. The cPDm sector is expected to continue its strong growth to $7.8 billion in 2007 and reach $13 billion by 2011 for a CAGR of 13.6%. cPDm focuses on collaboration, management, and sharing of product-related information. The section covers technologies and approaches such as PDM, collaboration and visualization, data exchange, portfolio management, compliance management, strategic sourcing, enterprise application integration, workflow, functional applications such as configuration management, and solutions for specific industries or businesses.

4.2 PLM Market Performance and Forecast:

IMPLEMENTING PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT IN INDIAN PRODUCT MANUFACTURE ORGANIZATIONS

Comprehensive PLM—covers the full product definition over the entire product lifecycle and across all industries. This comprises of mechanical, electronic, and software components, as well as both discrete and process industries.

Mainstream PLM—it covers a subset of the Comprehensive PLM market, but includes the subsectors that have traditionally been addressed by the major suppliers (i.e., drivers) of the PLM market.

4.2.1 Comprehensive PLM growth:

To increase at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 6.3% and expanding the market size to nearly $36 billion by 2013. Much of the growth in 2009 and early 2010 will be driven by services.

4.2.2 Mainstream PLM growth:

Although anticipated to be slower in 2009-2010, is expected to continue its climb over the next five years, increasing at a compound annual growth rate of just over 7% and expanding the market size to just under $24 billion by 2013 (as shown in 2).

4.3 PLM Market Categories:

PLM market into three major sub-sectors:

PLM Tools that create intellectual assets through authoring, analysis, modeling, simulation, and documentation of product and plant/facility information. Collaborative Product Definition management (cPDm) applications and solutions to capture, manage, disseminate, visualize, and collaborate on product-related intellectual (digital/virtual) information, including related processes. Digital Manufacturing systems for process planning, resource definition, factory floor layout, and product flow simulation and analysis-agronomy.

IMPLEMENTING PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT IN INDIAN PRODUCT MANUFACTURE ORGANIZATIONS

Historically, the Tools sector has received the largest amount of investment; $17.3 billion was spent in 2008 by companies worldwide on PLM Tools such as mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), electronic design automation (EDA), engineering simulation and analysis, architecture/engineering/construction (AEC), technical publishing, and others. The Tools portion of the PLM market is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 5.1% over the next five years to reach $22.1 billion by 2013.

The fastest-growing segment of PLM is for expenditures on cPDm, which covers technologies and approaches such as PDM, collaboration and visualization, data exchange, portfolio management, compliance management, strategic sourcing, enterprise application integration, workflow, functional applications such as configuration management, and solutions for specific industries or businesses. CIM data research indicates that the cPDm portion of the PLM market fell short of forecasted growth for 2008 but still reached $8.2 billion, representing an increase of approximately 8.9% over 2007. Although slower growth is expected in 2009, the cPDm segment is expected to continue its strong growth to exceed $12 billion by 2013 for a CAGR of 8.6% (as shown in 3)
4.4 Supplier Rankings:

While there are many companies participating in the PLM market, a few have distinguished themselves as “PLM Mindshare Leaders.” These companies are typically considered to be at the forefront of the market in terms of either revenue generation or thought leadership. With broad-based capabilities that support a full product lifecycle-focused solution, the group of PLM Mindshare Leaders for 2008 includes Dassault Systems, Oracle, PTC, SAP, and Siemens PLM Software. Rankings and statistics in subsequent s reflect the ongoing consolidation within the PLM industry as it matures.

The shared core and partner revenues can greatly expand the visibility and impact of a supplier in the industry, generating a significant market footprint. Based on these combined revenues, the global PLM market presence (no double-counting of revenues and royalties) for the PLM Mindshare Leaders is shown in 4.

Dassault Systems was the PLM market presence leader in 2008. The income generated by IBM's Dassault-based PLM services business is a significant contributor to Dassault's market presence. Siemens PLM Software, PTC, and SAP also exhibited strong and growing partner programs in 2008, and these provide a positive impact on their overall market presence as well. Direct PLM-based revenues from these mindshare leaders are shown in 5.

Every year, PLM-related technologies and services are provided by several companies representing all sectors of the PLM industry. To illustrate this increasing and wide range of companies that participate in the overall PLM market, the suppliers of PLM-related solutions that derived the most revenues from the market are shown in 6. As can be seen from the companies shown, many of these companies do not compete with each other, but focus on a variety of different aspects of PLM. In many cases, these suppliers are partners in provided more complete solutions to the PLM market.

Reinforcing the growing strength of the PLM market, there are seven companies with revenues of more than $1 billion as seen in 6.

4.5 A Wide Range of cPDm Providers:

A widely-diverse group of suppliers provide cPDm solutions and services. However, the same PLM mindshare leaders are also the mindshare and market presence leaders for the key cPDm sector of the PLM market. CIM data's analysis of cPDm market presence for the PLM mindshare leaders is shown in 7 and illustrates the impact that partner revenue has on a supplier's cPDm PLM footprint.

Siemens PLM was again the cPDm market presence leader for 2008, with both significant direct revenues and strong partner revenues from HP Consulting and its other partners. Dassault Systems was second with IBM generating the significant portion of its partner revenues, followed by SAP, PTC, and Oracle respectively.

As can be seen in the 8, the leader in cPDm-only direct revenues for 2008 was SAP, which continues to generate substantial cPDm revenues by selling within its installed base. All of the vendors shown in 8 had growth in 2008 as adoption of cPDm solutions as part of PLM strategies continues to grow. A lot of these organizations generate a substantial portion of their revenues through services.

4.6 All Sectors Continued to Grow:

Looking deeper into the fast-growing cPDm sector of the overall PLM market, CIM data statistics indicate that cPDm growth continued in all industry and geographic sectors for 2008, with 37.5% of PLM business from the Americas, 39.5% from EMEA (Europe, Mid-East and Africa) and 23% from the Asia Pacific region. Asia-Pacific was dominated by Japan, while continued investment by solution providers in China and other AP countries helped increase growth across the region during 2008.

Companies in a wide range of industry segments invest in cPDm. Automotive and high-tech continue to be the largest cPDm adopters in 2008. Aerospace and defense (A&D) and Fabrication and Assembly (F&A), which consist of machine tools ,white goods, retail and apparel, and others, had solid revenues. The process industry sector has solid growth. This consist of consumer-focused process industries (consumer packaged goods, food and beverage, and pharmaceuticals), petrochemical, and utilities. The ‘Other' category (insurance, financial services, etc.) showed increasing adoption of PLM by those non-traditional industries. This across-the-board development demonstrates the universality of PLM in providing the business value across such a diverse spectrum of industries.

4.7 Future Outlook:[5]

The PLM market remains robust and will continue to have solid growth over the forecasted period (2009 through 2013) as companies continue to invest in solutions that can provide them with a sustainable business advantage and profitability. The cPDm segment of the PLM market will be the fastest-growing segment as companies invest to better leverage product and plant information across the lifecycle from concept, through manufacturing, to service and operation. Development of PLM's definition and scope will continue to fuel growth in both services and software as PLM becomes more essential and embedded within a business' overall enterprise.

CHAPTER 5
THE PLM FOR SMALL TO MEDIUM-SIZE MANUFACTURERS BENCHMARK REPORT
(Enabling Profitable Growth for SMEs)
5.1 Executive Summary:

Aberdeen Group research shows that, like larger manufacturers, small to medium-size enterprises (SMEs) are focusing their product strategy on revenue growth in combination with cost reduction - to achieve profitable growth. However, as they pursue these goals, key targets such as product launch date, product development cost, product cost, and product quality are being missed. What is the cause for this gap between goals and performance? First, SMEs face the same increasingly complex product innovation environment as large manufacturers - including faster product commoditization, globalization, outsourcing, and demand for more complex products - and are more keenly affected by time-to-market pressures. Yet their product development processes are frequently out of control or at least inadequate to simultaneously address these challenges. This Aberdeen Group research examines these issues, how SMEs are responding by implementing PLM software, and the challenges these smaller companies face when implementing new solutions. The study further analyzes what top performers are doing to overcome their implementation challenges in order to recommend practical actions that SMEs can take to improve their product-related processes and compete successfully in the complex global environment.

5.2 Key Business Value Findings:

Aberdeen Group benchmark research shows that many SMEs are responding to the product innovation challenge by proactively focusing on product-related processes by planning for PLM solutions. Those that have done so are achieving significant performance improvements, including increased revenues (19%), reduced product cost (17%), and decreased product development cost (16%). Those SMEs that are engaged in PLM planning are looking to improve in the following critical areas:

• Control over product data and related project, product development, and program execution to handle the increased complexity of product data and the growing size and diversity of distributed product development teams

• Design and project collaboration - to include processes and expertise from multiple parties earlier in the design process to optimize designs for manufacturing and sourcing, reduce product cost, and support parallel work to decrease time-to-market However, SMEs face some unique challenges with PLM arising from their size, including the cost of implementation, the need to change business processes, and a lack of internal resources. Fortunately, software vendors are beginning to address these needs by offering solutions that facilitate PLM adoption. These include predefined workflows, data configuration templates, and industry-specific functionality, which reduce implementation barriers and provide a starting point for creating and automating processes that help to improve product development performance.

The PLM for Small to Medium-Size Manufacturers Benchmark Report All print and electronic rights are the property of

5.2.1 Implications & Analysis:

Leading SMEs are, in fact, adopting PLM solutions that lower implementation barriers with tools including templates, industry-specific solutions, and best practice processes and then adjusting them as necessary. However, many SMEs find these implementation aids unavailable when they need them, indicating a gap that SMEs must deal with during implementation. Furthermore, to reduce the effort required for technical deployment, many leading companies also choose hosted and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions rather than buying the software and implementing it in-house on their own technical infrastructure.

Finally, best-in-class SMEs make changes involving people, organizational structures, performance measurement, and business processes - in addition to adopting PLM systems. These companies are more likely to create organizations geared to integrate the product development process, coordinate product management across departments, and put in place key performance indicators to monitor the success of their product development processes.

5.2.2 Recommendations for Action:

Based on research findings, Aberdeen Group recommends that SMEs seeking to improve product innovation, product development, and engineering processes - in order to compete and win in the global environment - should take the following actions:

• Educate themselves on PLM including the implications of PLM outside of departmental and company boundaries, for example, with supply chain partners.

• Pick the right starting point by starting with a tangible business problem that they can solve and implementing a solution targeted to solve that problem as a foundation on which to build their full PLM solution.

• Look for PLM solutions that provide templates to common business processes and best practices and modify them if necessary, so they don't need to rethink every business process in an attempt to improve it.

• Seek solutions that fit their industry, through specialized solutions or industry templates.

The users will be more readily adopted to the software that provides a better fit.

• Include organizational, process, and performance measurement considerations in their PLM strategy.

• Consider hosted or software-as-a-service solutions to reduce the technical barriers to PLM adoption.

• Take benefits of the PLM opportunity to achieve substantial improvements. SMEs that do not adopt PLM will be at a competitive disadvantage.

5.3 Issue at Hand:
5.3.1 SMEs Face Product Innovation Complexity:

Manufacturers of all sizes are facing increased complexity in their product innovation environments, including faster product commoditization, outsourcing, globalization, cost pressure, and corporate pressure for growth. Aberdeen-Group's Product Innovation Agenda study indicates that small to medium-sized companies have many of the same challenges as their larger counterparts. Benchmarks of SMEs indicate that about one third outsource production and 22% outsource at least some of their product design, with about 75% having a global product design strategy in place. In addition, about half of respondents polled for this study report that they are facing demand for shorter product lifecycles, confirming previous research that indicates SMEs are even more keenly focused on time-to-market issues than larger enterprises ( 1).

5.3.2 SMEs Seek Profitable Growth, Miss Development Targets:

Despite the added complexity, these companies are not satisfied with simply addressing complexity and maintaining the status quo; they are simultaneously focusing on growth. According to Aberdeen Group's Product Innovation Agenda, companies of all sizes are focusing their product strategies on revenue growth in combination with cost control - to achieve profitable growth. SMEs exemplify this focus, but place even higher strategic importance on cost reduction than their larger counterparts. For many SMEs, achieving profitable growth in a more complex innovation environment is a significant challenge. Aberdeen Group research shows that companies of all sizes are not meeting product development targets. SMEs were benchmarked for this study on their ability to hit the following product development targets:

• Product revenue

• Product launch dates

• Product cost

• Product development cost

• Product quality

These benchmarks were compared with previous measurements of larger companies. The results indicate that the best-in-class SMEs (i.e., the top 25%) are performing at about the same level as the best-in-class larger companies. (See the Competitive Framework Key for definitions of best in class, industry norm or average, and laggard.) Average-performing SMEs, however, are doing more poorly than their larger counterparts and the worst performers - laggards - fall behind even further. As an example, benchmarks for SMEs indicate that top performers hit their product launch date targets between 81% and 100% of the time ( 2), and average performers between 21% and 80% of the time. This middle tier, roughly 50% of SME companies, are clearly demonstrating product development processes that are out of control, making profitable growth very challenging. And laggards, the bottom quartile of performers, are hitting their product launch targets only 20% of the time or less. They show similarly poor results in meeting targets for product revenue, product cost, product development cost, and product quality.

More complex innovation environments…simultaneous demand to increase revenue and decrease product cost, product innovation, product development, and engineering practices that frequently result in missed targets - this set of challenge is difficult for any company to address, let alone small to medium-sized manufacturers that lack the deep pockets and broad organizational resources of their larger competitors. There is visibly an opportunity for improvement.

5.4 Key Business Value Findings:
5.4.1 An Opportunity for Significant Improvement:

Despite the gloomy picture painted for SMEs, there is hope. Leaders are addressing the challenges mentioned in Chapter One proactively by focusing on improving product-related processes to facilitate product innovation, product development, and engineering processes. Although smaller companies appear to be less complex and seem to have less room for improvement because of their size, in fact, these companies are achieving significant performance improvements, resulting in tangible, corporate-level benefits on par with larger companies (Table 1).

Aberdeen Group's Product Innovation Agenda analyzes best-in-class performers to identify common characteristics of top-performing companies. The research concludes that better performing companies are organizing and automating their businesses for innovation, leading to corporate success. In particular, the report disclosed that best-in-class manufacturers are more likely to have product innovation, product development, and engineering led by a central executive; measure performance more regularly; and are four times more likely to utilize PLM-related technology ( 3).

Unfortunately, SMEs have not organized or automated on a par with their larger counterparts.

Aberdeen Group benchmarks show:

• Only 13% of SME currently have centralized product data.

• Over a half have limited procedure automation and collaboration.

Despite the fact that improvements are available, they have not taken full advantage of the opportunity.

5.4.2 SME Are Taking Action, Planning for PLM:

The benefits of PLM are available to SMEs, but these companies have been slower in making progress on the PLM adoption curve. SMEs tend to be more traditional, it often waits for the new solutions to be well proven before it adopts them.

While several of core capabilities of PLM application has proven track records, today's expanded PLM solutions that enable collaboration, control, and communication of product innovation data and processes mark a recent shift from defining PLM as a group of traditional design-related tools.

However, SMEs are now planning to act: 17% of small to medium-size manufacturers indicate that they will be pursuing PLM solutions in the next 12 months. The peak areas of investment are control-oriented solutions, which includes those that develop control over product data and related product development projects.

a) Improved product data management:

The increased complexity of product data, as well as the growing size and diversity of product development teams, creates a need for tight data controls. As a result, revision control, security management, search capabilities, and maintaining “one version of the truth” in regards to product information now comprise an essential foundation for a PLM infrastructure.

• Improved project, program development execution and product. Faster project times, cross-functional teams, and dispersed resources require better control and communication in order to prevent mistakes and rework. Management of tasks, timelines, deliverables, approvals, and status extend core product data management with business process automation and project management capabilities to coordinate activities in addition to data. In addition to seeking better controls for data and processes, SMEs are also looking to involve more parties in their design and development activities through collaboration. Shorter product lifecycles and rapid response to market demands are critical to SMEs' success and require parallel design, development, sourcing, and marketing activities. Collaboration infrastructure and tools allow companies to incorporate input from multiple parties early in the product development process to enhance designs and prevent rework.

• Collaborative design. The increased focus on optimizing product lifecycle impacts earlier in the design process - for example, design for manufacture and design for sourcing activities - are creating a demand for broader participation in design processes. In addition, many companies are including suppliers and other third parties in the design process to leverage external expertise. Sharing designs and gathering feedback, whether online reviews, embedded in documents, through remote access to files, or with visualization technologies, provide the opportunity to build designs right the first time - enhancing time to market, product appeal, and product quality.

• Project collaboration. Today's multi-disciplined project teams frequently cross department and even corporate boundaries. Project velocity requires that all resources work on the same information, with tight synchronization. Project collaboration tools provide shared access to deliverables, documents, project data, and tasks as well as promote and coordinate product development efforts.

b) SMEs Report Multiple Opportunities for PLM

Many PLM solutions provide broad and varied capabilities and, therefore, offer many opportunities to improve. In addition to the actions being pursued SMEs are targeting improvements in all aspects of their product innovation, product development, and engineering performance. The following improvement initiatives are also being pursued by survey respondents:

• Design for Lean

• Increased reuse of designs and parts

• Concurrent engineering

• Digital manufacturing/manufacturing process management/simulation

• Product simulation/virtual prototyping/virtual assembly

• Design for Six Sigma

• Design for mass customization/“to order” manufacturing

• Design for sourcing/total cost management

• Design for serviceability

• Enhanced portfolio management

• Design for environmental and regulatory compliance

c) SMEs Face Unique Challenges with PLM

In response to increasing complexity and strategic directives for profitable growth, many SMEs are planning to improve product innovation, product development, and engineering processes with PLM technologies. SMEs face challenges when considering or implementing PLM, however, that are unique to smaller-sized organizations. In particular, they frequently do not have the same resources available and are often daunted by the effort to make the business changes required when adopting PLM technologies. In other words, operational improvement does not come without change and requires investments beyond the cost of the software. In fact, less than one third of participants in this SME benchmark mentioned the cost of a software package as a challenge to adopting PLM solutions. Their concern, instead, was focused on successfully incorporating the solution into the business

* Cost of implementation: Implementations of enterprise software solutions require acceptance and adoption - i.e., regular use - by the business in order to provide value. To achieve successful adoption, companies must assess their business processes, identify the changes to be targeted and the solutions to be deployed, and train users to take advantage of them. An implementation may also involve integration with existing systems although many smaller companies choose to integrate PLM solutions relatively loosely in early implementation phases. However, the cost of implementation may become a barrier if solutions are too complex, require significant configuring, entail software modifications, or force companies to rethink business processes from scratch. While some companies are looking for fundamental transformation, other companies prefer smaller, incremental changes that provide short term business value by showing a timely ROI.

* Necessity to change business procedure: Change is hard. While no company should expect to achieve significant benefits without enacting change, many companies feel that they must conform to the business process built into the software. The greater the changes to business processes, the more effort required for training, documentation, and user acceptance. Often, SMEs must create a balance: changing processes that enable a business advantage, for example by implementing a best practice, but not changing other in-house practices that may be “good enough.”

* Necessity of internal resources: Smaller companies may be able to approve funding for software and implementation, but then face roadblocks in assembling the appropriate project team. Implementing new solutions that help to enable a business change will not be effective unless users adopt them. Making business-knowledgeable employees available to help craft the new processes and determine how to use the software is important to ensure that new business processes fit the business. Typically, companies need to invest their top internal talent in the implementation in order to ensure a successful and beneficial result. While functional talent may be hard to commit to projects, SMEs may also lack the depth in technical resources required to implement a new solution. These resources, however, are more readily available from the outside because they do not need the same level of familiarity with the business and the industry as functional resources.

d) SMEs Find PLM Help

Fortunately for SMEs, software vendors and consultants have recognized the difficulties of implementation for SMEs and are providing tools and techniques to help reduce the overall change effort. Aberdeen Group identified the most popular methods that smaller companies used to meet their PLM goals and then conducted further analysis to determine which approaches were used by companies that are top performers in meeting product development goals ( 6).

• Workflow templates: Many business processes that are a preferred approach to business have been labeled “best practices.” Some of these have been thoroughly researched and documented, such as CMII definitions for configuration management or Stage-Gate processes for new product development projects. Many times, these processes provide a standard starting point for smaller businesses with inconsistent processes or no formally defined process at all. For these companies, adopting a predefined process can save time and prevent political arguments over what the best practice is. Instead of defining a new best practice from scratch, companies can adopt or alter the template process.

• Customized packaged solutions: Many companies need to alter the base PLM package during implementation. Presumably these changes enable company best practices that provide a competitive advantage over the software provider's best practices. Alternatively, companies may customize the package to address specific industry capabilities or enable processes not supported by the solution. As an example, one company extended its solution to address regulatory compliance issues not yet supported by its vendor. As further analysis indicates, although customization was the approach taken, it was not the desired approach for many.

• Industry-specific solutions: Solutions developed for specific industry requirements often provide better support for common industry processes than broadly targeted PLM solutions. Sometimes these processes are truly best practice for the industry; at other times they are simply the accepted norm. These solutions typically fit the distinctive workflow and “speak the same language” as the user, reducing the overall organizational change effort required to adopt them.

• Templates for data configuration: Product data management solutions readily capture, retrieve, and utilize product information; these are their core capabilities. However, many data management solutions provide significant flexibility and configurability for tailoring data structures to specific business needs. These templates give companies a starting point that leverages the vendor's cumulative customer experience, so that each SME does not need to rethink its overall approach, but can validate and change the existing process as needed.

e) Implications & Analysis

PLM product offerings that help smaller companies achieve the available benefits are emerging, leading to increased adoption by SMEs. However, achieving value requires more than just PLM software. It also requires efforts to transform the organization and business processes, in combination with the underlying supporting technology.

f) Organization, People, Metrics

Although appropriate solutions can reduce the organizational change required for successfully adopting PLM technologies, they aren't the whole story for improving product innovation, product development, and engineering processes. Aberdeen Group's Product Innovation Agenda identified the following characteristics of best-in-class companies:

* Best-in-class companies are more likely to have a C-level executive in charge of the full innovation process, including identifying product ideas, engineering them, and bringing them to market. In fact, 60% of best-in-class companies have a chief product officer, chief innovation officer, or the equivalent.

* Leading companies are more likely to have centralized organizational structures and product innovation strategies that centrally control and coordinate product innovation, with three-quarters of the best-in-class having at least centralized coordination, if not centralized control.

* Best-in-class companies varied from the industry norm significantly in measuring performance. They were three times more likely to measure key performance indicators (KPIs) on at least a monthly basis and about 50% more likely to measure them on an enterprise level than the industry norm. In contrast, laggards typically do not measure KPIs consistently and tended to measure them on an ad-hoc basis, if at all.

g) Business Processes

SMEs are adopting predefined best practices, utilizing data configuration templates, and taking advantage of industry-specific solutions. The key to successful implementation for these companies is not to start from scratch or “reinvent the wheel” instead, they choose to adopt standard approaches and modify them when required. Aberdeen Group compared the solution implementations aids that SMEs used with what they would have liked to use and found some relatively significant gaps (Table 2), leading to the following observations based on the research results:

* Half of the companies that customized packaged solutions did not want to do so. Customization may provide advantages, but also produces long-term costs that need to be considered.

* Industry-specific solutions and industry templates both scored highly as desired solutions.

h) Enabling Technology

From a technology perspective, we have shown that companies choose solutions that provide a better fit for their business and lower barriers to adoption. Aberdeen Group also analyzed how SMEs deployed the technology. In particular, survey respondents indicated that they had implemented their PLM solutions by the following methods:

• Traditional method: The company owns the software, implementing it in-house on its own technical infrastructure.

• Hosted solution: The Company owns the software, but it is hosted on someone else's technical infrastructure.

• Software used to service: The company does not own the software or infrastructure and pays a monthly fee for access to the software solution just as SMEs are seeking to reduce the hurdles to functional adoption of the software, they are also looking to decrease the effort required for technical adoption. Aberdeen Group found that best-in-class companies - in other words, those companies that are best meeting their product development goals - are using hosted ( 7) and SAS solutions ( 8).

i) Recommendations for Action

The following recommendations are intended to help small to medium-size manufacturers take action and seize opportunity that PLM provides to improve product innovation, product development, and engineering processes to improve corporate-level business performance. Specifically, SMEs should take the following actions:

* Educate them on PLM. Many small to medium-size companies reported that they do not have a good understanding of PLM.

* Select the right starting point. PLM solutions encompass design tools, analysis solutions, product development enablers, portfolio management solutions, and other valuable capabilities. SMEs should develop a strategy to implement these solutions step-by-step, first picking a relevant and high-impact business problem that they can solve and implementing a solution to that problem as a foundation on which to build their full PLM solution.

* Seek solutions that fit their industry, through specialized solutions or industry templates. Software that provides a better fit with the business can support better business processes, leading to more rapid user adoption.

* Include organizational, process, and performance measurement considerations in their PLM strategy in addition to technology considerations.

* Consider hosted or software-as-a-service solutions to reduce the technical barriers to PLM adoption.

* The advantage of the PLM opportunity to achieve tangible improvements. SMEs that do not adopt PLM will be at a competitive disadvantage.

CHAPTER 6

SCOPE: PLM-BASED DM, THE INEVITABLE CHOICE OF AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURERS TO ADDRESS CHALLENGES

6.1 Preface:

The automobile manufacturing industry in China is experiencing a key development stage with both opportunities and crises. On the one hand, large amounts of capital inputs and continuous prosperity of the consumption market drive the rapid development of the automobile manufacturing industry. The problem of automobile manufacturers being "big but not strong" is rather outstanding. Specifically speaking, (1) resources for complete automobiles are spread around. (2) the automobile industry lacks innovation abilities in China. (3) with rather weak international competitiveness, China's automobile manufacturers have difficulty in walking out of China.

As the domestic market is becoming mature increasingly, the profit rate of automobiles is also decreasing to the average level of the global automobile industry, and the survival of automobile manufacturers is being threatened. Under such rigid circumstances, domestic automobile manufacturers have to seek innovation in terms of management and technology. To raise core competitiveness, many automobile manufacturers are committed to learning and utilizing advanced management concepts, and are committed to combining advanced manufacturing technologies and information technology to create new values. Among these advanced concepts and approaches, lean production or JIT is the long-standing key with far-reaching implications, while Digital manufacturing (DM), based on PLM, is a new driving force.

The “Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)” concept created in the late period of the 20th century is the extension of product data management (PDM) to planning and manufacturing chains. Previous PDM only pays attention to product definition data, while PLM seeks the full management in the whole lifecycle period, including data, technology, techniques, manufacturing, process, material, and repairs and scrapping. On the integrated PLM platform, not only design, techniques and manufacturing are easily coordinated, but also imitation analysis and optimization of the manufacturing process in the virtual environment become more convenient than ever. The application of digital modeling and imitation technologies in planning and manufacturing processes forms Digital Manufacturing (DM).

The successful application of PLM-based DM technologies in foreign automobile manufacturers cannot be separated from the support of some excellent software products. In domestic China, due to outdated concepts and technologies, information software companies have not released mature DM software products made in China.

6.2 Challenges faced by automotive manufacturers
6.2.1. Inside & Outside Pressures:

* Profit

* Product innovation

* Customers' demands

* Overcapacity

* Quality and recalling

* Policies & regulations

* Global manufacturing

The above internal and external pressures will necessarily push the automotive industry to continuously improve their product manufacturing processes and increase the technical content, thus driving the automotive manufacturers to adopt integrated, digital and agile manufacturing technologies.

6.2.2. Development Trends:

* Lean production

* Complicated process

* Flexibility and

* standardization

* Make to order

* Automation

* simulation technology

* Network production

DM advantages can be seen as follows after the digital description of data related to products: Firstly, it is convenient for information management, consistent maintenance, inquiry, statistics and repeated utilization. Secondly, it is convenient for the virtual analysis and verification of products and the manufacturing process, and helps to optimize the design plan and process plan. Thirdly, it is convenient for network sharing and collaborated work.

The basic direction of digital development is to realize the digital process in the integrated product lifecycle. However, the application of digital manufacturing is rather hard mainly for: (1) It is hard to manage data due to the huge amount of information. (2) Integrated digital design has to be taken as the base. (3) It involves many parties (such as design, planning, production, logistics and other departments of such manufacturers), it raises high and comprehensive requirements for manufacturers, and they need to reconstruct the process.

6.3 Meaning of DM and its current development in the automotive industry

6.3.1. Meaning of digital manufacturing:

According to the definition of CIM data, DM is a solution in which support, design, manufacturing and engineering teams undertake plan procedure collaboration. It adopts the most viable process, and allows access to tools and manufacturing process design and other digital product. DM, in wider definition, means to use digital technologies to the product planning process and the practical manufacturing process.

* Demands & Plan

* Concept Design

* Assimilation & Analysis

* Product Engineering

* Manufacturing Engineering

* Process Verification & Analysis

* Production & Manufacturing

* Test & Quality Verification

* Product Distribution

* Service Support

* Scrapping & Recycling

* Automobile Product Lifecycle

6.4. DM:

DM spans product design, process planning, process analysis and verification, product manufacturing, quality assurance and other stages in the product lifecycle. At present, only a few leading software companies have the ability to provide integrated DM solutions.

6.5. Results of application of digital manufacturing in leading foreign automotive manufacturers:

Up to now, digital manufacturing has been widely applied in leading foreign automotive manufacturers. Research shows that all of the world's top 15 automotive manufacturers have adopted digital manufacturing solutions, although varying in scope, and have received return in several aspects.

6.6. Value Point Value Externalization Case:

Identify and correct errors in the Product design defects or process errors. By using DM technologies, automobile manufacturers can assimilate, analyze and certify the manufacturability, assembly, reasonableness of the manufacturing process, and the effectiveness of product lines in a virtual environment, and can find and correct mistakes in time. By using digital tools without increasing costs, VW uses more optimization methods to ensure more accurate and optimized data and models Decrease changes. Too many changes not only increase the production development time and trial-production time, but also increase the cost. The purpose of trial-production of the physical sample machine is to examine the manufacturability and assembly so as to verify automobile performances. After DM technologies are used, many analysis and verification work can be finished by the digital sample machine. Optimize product line design before laying out the product line, continuously analyze, certify and improve design plans in the virtual environment. It can greatly optimize the quality of the product line, and can decrease losses caused by work adjustments. Optimization of the process planner provides product designer with the means for computer-aided simulation.

After the implementation of the simulation software: GETRAG manufacturing process, so that the designer, through simulation, can identify such problems as the manufacturing bottlenecks, low utilization of equipment, etc, and better utilize manufacturing equipment, reduce the machining and idle times of machines, and, before making the purchasing decision, simulate new tools and manufacturing process

Optimize assembling sequence and process: through the virtual assembly and analysis in DM environment, the feasibility of the assembling sequence is certified, and the product line can be also balanced easily.

Helping improving production efficiency through production reorganization Design and analyze production processes in the software environment to virtually assess alternative layouts and logistics programs and, before changing the production layout, predict the results of change, thus making the production reorganization process simpler and more reliable before removing or integrating the plant.

Simplify communication and information exchange. Information exchange among plants and between complete automobile manufacturers and suppliers (parts supplier, product line manufacturer, etc) becomes more convenient.

Increase production flexibility through the flexibility design of product lines. Produce more types of automobiles with a product line. It significantly increases the utilization rate of product lines, saves costs sharply, shortens time, and gain more benefits in the process of new model development.

A standard process can improve the planning efficiency, enable better cross-department collaboration, drive data flows to run through the development and planning stages, lead to quicker response, and better meet customer requirements

As can be seen from the above, the results of digital manufacturing implementation in foreign automotive manufacturers are very outstanding, which is very attractive to domestic automotive manufacturers and provides them with a lot of experiences in terms of implementing digital manufacturing.

6.7. DM Understanding and Application of Domestic Automobile Manufacturers:

Besides some joint ventures, the majority of domestic automobile manufacturers did not touch the DM conception for a long time, and their understanding of DM is still in the preliminary state.

6.8. Problem Understanding or Current Situation Analysis:

The starting point of DM is the time when process planning starts and the ending point is the time when the products are in the formal batch production. DM mainly means the virtual manufacturing work with the computer, including the assimilation of manufacturability, the virtual planning of product lines, etc.

Relationship between DM and CAD/CAM: The process assimilation in DM is carried out on a platform that consists of plants, products and resources. Compared to CAD/CAM, it obviously looks like a real manufacturing environment.

Relationship between DM and CAPP: CAPP does not support 3-D platforms, and has no process analysis and verification functions. At present, these jobs are done in the 2-D environment, and can be done well. If such jobs are done on 3-D platforms, visualization can be realized, design speed can be increased, and errors can be found in time by means of assimilation.

Preliminary recognition of manufacturing execution system (MES): In their opinion, MES is a workshop-oriented management system between ERP and distributed control system (DCS) and only focuses on how to improve production efficiency and solve production line bottlenecks. It manages the real-time records and data of all workshop-level production activities and connects the design, process to service and maintenance in the PLM. Although DM technologies have been widely used by foreign automobile manufacturers, they are new things in China.

In order to accelerate the time-to-market, improve product quality and reduce production cost, domestic automotive manufacturers are actively learning the advanced management philosophies and technical means from foreign peers.

Below are three typical types of domestic automotive manufacturers.

It can be seen that there are some differences among their current applications of manufacturing technologies (including digital manufacturing)

6.8.1. Complete automobile joint venture: -

As domestic leading automobile manufacturers, such as FAW-VW, SAIC, Shanghai GM, these enterprises have the following characteristics and current situation:

(1) Personnel quality is high, plant equipments are advanced, and the automation level of product lines are high.

(2) They have mastered foreign advanced management experience, and are successfully implementing lean manufacturing, timely production, comprehensive quality management and other management strategies.

(3) Most of their automobiles are imported (and possibly had been sold), and design and procedures are relatively mature, therefore, they need not to make much improvement and changes on their own.

(4) Generally speaking, they lack abilities to plan and design plants on their own, their product lines are generally imported from foreign countries and installed and commission in China and they need some adjustment and optimization work in terms of procedure planning. (5) In the production process, quality detection tools are relatively advanced, and quality control is strict.

(6) They import information systems from the parent company in foreign countries, such as document management system, project change management system, product configuration system, production management system, etc.

6.9. Complete automobile manufacturers with self-owned brands:

There are considerable complete automobile manufacturers with self-owned brands in China. They produce car, truck, minibus, commercial automobile, coach and other type of automobiles, such as Chery, Jianghuai and Geely. These enterprises have the following situation:

1) Except some leading ones, most enterprises are in very bad conditions and are seeking foreign partners to form joint ventures or are on the verge of closing down.

2) Most of these manufacturers are implementing low-priced automobile strategy and their technical content is low. They have widely used CATIA, NX and other 3-D CAD software. They use CAE software to analyze design results. They finish planning, layout and implementation of product lines by cooperating with suppliers.

3) They start to pay more attention to information construction. They have implemented ERP, PDM (though the use of PDM is still in the grinding stage, and it has not play its full role) and project change system. Parts of these manufacturers have started to use MES system.

4) The automation level of product lines are moderate, robots are only used for few jobs, and the remaining jobs are under manual operation, workers have heavy workload, many plants have rather bad working environment, and the extent of the mixed flow is low.

5) Levels of product design and manufacturing are low. However, due to featured automobiles, quality problems are not serious (such as minibus. Customers' requirements in terms of aesthetics, comfort, safe and environment are not high.

6) Main automobiles (truck, minibus, etc) in China's automobile export market must abide by regulatory requirements in importing countries.

6.10. Suppliers of parts and components:

The overall situation of numerous domestic suppliers of parts and components is seen as follows:

1) Besides few joint ventures, the product level and technical development ability of the industry of parts and components is more backward than that of complete automobiles, which directly leads to slow growth of the quality of complete automobiles. Due to the implementation of the “Recall System”, some suppliers will pay huge prices and face the crisis of going bankrupt.

2) Complete-vehicle manufacturers transfer the pressure of lowering prices to parts/components suppliers, so the latter face the double challenges complete-vehicle manufacturers demanding lower prices and rising prices of raw materials.

3) Complete automobile manufacturers adopt the lean manufacturing approach, and provide customers with increasingly abundant choices, which bring about huge pressure for downstream suppliers: the time in advance is shortened, procedures become more and more complicated, while quality needs continuous improvement.

4) Since parts and components have not realized generalization and standardization as seen in the international market, due to the local protection related to parts and components, the production of parts and components has not reached the required economic scale, and it is hard to decrease cost.

6.11. Analysis of requirements for DM in the automotive industry:

The manufacturing of an automobile can be divided into the following processes: pressing, body-in-white welding, spray coating, general assembly, power assembly (engine) and manufacturing/assembly of other parts. The analysis of the features and digital manufacturing requirements of these three processes is as below.
1）Features and DM requirements of body-in-white:

The basic manufacturing process of bodies-in-white is using robots (or manual operations + auxiliary robots) to transfer, grip and clamp discrete sheet metals and pressed parts and weld them into complex body-in-white structures. Statistics show that the body-in-white of a saloon car will undergo 3,000-5,000 spot welding steps in the welding process and use 100 plus big clamping fixtures and 500-800 retainers.

A lot of process information is closely related to the 3D geometric characteristics of parts, thus presenting many challenges in terms of selecting parameters for the car body welding process, planning the process, controlling the quality of car body welding and even designing car bodies.

Generally, the features and development trends of the body-in-white process are as follows:

1) The current development trend of the body-in-white welding technology is to minimize the number of welding points and extensively use the advanced laser welding technology.

2) The manufacturing process is a highly capital-intensive one. Huge investments are required for the high technology involved and the technical equipment required for the process.

3) It uses a lot of robots and automation technologies. In order to ensure the tact of the welding process and the overall quality of bodies-in-white, at foreign automotive manufacturers, at least 90% of the body-in-white welding operations are done by robots.

4) It has very high requirements for the quality of product designing and process planning. It requires that over 95% of the actual manufacturing be simulated and requests accurate equipment designs, simulations and production tact so as to shorten the debugging and ramp-up times.

5) In order to maximize the value of existing capital equipment, the requirement for mixed line for body-in-white production is becoming more and more obvious and the requirements for standardization and flexibility are becoming higher and higher.

However, for many years, in the body-in-white welding field, most domestic complete-vehicle manufacturers are still at a very low technical level. Either for project bidding or for project implementation, most of relevant data is still based on AutoCAD drawings.

The existing problems of the body-in-white manufacturing process include the following: process design data and means still remain at the 2D age; no means available for effectively managing information about welding points; no consistent platform for data management; no means for accurately analyzing the welding process; no more intuitive and accurate means for factory layout and simulation; no accurate means for analyzing the logistics process; no more competitive technical means for bidding and tendering.

These problems are the main reasons why automotive manufacturers actively adopt digital manufacturing technologies for the body-in-white process and the manufacturing process.

Generally speaking, a digital manufacturing solution supporting the body-in-white process shall have the following characteristics:

* It shall be a complete solution supporting the “concept planning - rough planning - detailed planning - production & operation management” of the body-in-white process;

* It shall support the planning of the body-in-white process. It shall acquire product data and 3D assembly information, define the sequence of work steps, optimize the layout of welding points, use 2D and 3D methods to allocate and arrange resources, manage changes, assess investment costs, and finally generate process cards and relevant documents.

* It shall support simulation of the body-in-white process. It shall be able to model the body-in-white welding information, and generate the work cells for simulation, manage and analyze the results of simulation, and simulate production lines through the combination of work cells.

6.12. Features and DM requirements of the general assembly process:

The basic process of general assembly is using the manual means (or manual operations + auxiliary robots) to assemble parts on moving car bodies in the predetermined order and finally generate finished automotive products.

Generally, the features and development trends of the general assembly process and manufacturing are as follows:

(1) The manufacturing process is a highly labor-intensive one. It has several objectives of optimization:

a) Optimization of the value of labor by making full use of the online work time;

b) Balancing the overall production line to maximize output;

c) Meeting the ergonomic requirements to realize safe production;

d) Meeting logistics requirements to realize JIT manufacturing.

In order to maximize the efficiency and quality of the manufacturing process, each and every work step must be understood and defined in detail, i.e. the process should be planned in detail.

(2) Due to the complexity of automotive products, the huge number of assembling tasks and mixed production of multiple categories of products, it is critical to validate and optimize the planning of the assembly process before the beginning official production and to efficiently manage the production process after the beginning official production.

(3) The characteristics of mixed general assembly production lines are changing from relatively certain and static to uncertain and dynamic. In an environment of mass customization, the objects of production need to change within a certain scope according to the changes in customer requirements.

(4) Improve the “commonality” of process planning by globally creating and reusing the best process planning practices:

a) Different models share the manufacturing planning information to improve the ratio of reuse and minimize repetitive work;

b) Globally distributed factories (these factories may carry out the same general assembly operations) share the manufacturing planning information.

Currently, most domestic complete-vehicle manufacturers are not able to confidently meet these challenges. The most serious problems are that many problems will arise during debugging and ramp-up due to the flexibility and complexity of the manufacturing process and that, in subsequent production, design and process changes will also give rise to many new problems. So, virtual technologies must be extensively used to enable computerized planning and validation of the assembly process so as to discover and correct problems in time and minimize changes after actual commissioning.

Generally speaking, a digital manufacturing solution supporting the general assembly process shall contain the following functions:

(1)Digital Pre-Assembly (DPA): For a new car, usually 20,000 DPAs are needed. At the initial process planning stage, each DPA will be simulated and tested for several times in a 3D virtual environment to assure that it is free of errors, thus lowering the possibility of problems occurring during production. The tasks of DPA include assembly checking, dynamic assembly section testing, assembly path analysis, dynamic assembly interference checking, tooling and clamping fixture checking, etc.

(2) Digital Process Planning (DPP):

a) Define product variants;

b) Define the operations at every workstation, determine the sequence of operations within a workstation, optimize and integrate the whole production process within one tool module, and establish a model that can calculate man-hours, analyze costs, manage documents and manage product changes;

c) Define all tools and clamping fixtures on an assembly line, which involves all the resources used in a workshop, e.g. clamping fixtures, slide rails, lifting equipment, auxiliary equipment, etc;

d) Define the detailed operations of every workstation and acquire the accurate times needed for various operations at every workstation and use this as the basis for assembly line balancing and optimization;

e) Analyze assigned operations, e.g. judge if it is limited to operate on this side of the car, if it more suitable to operate on the other side, etc.

(3) Digital Planning Validation (DPV): It provides 3D simulation and workstation layout optimization for the whole workplace and validates if there is any mutual interference between workstations, and checks for any bottlenecks or interventions required.

(4) Production management and supplier collaboration: efficient production management requires making full use of the manufacturing execution system (MES), real-time process and control (SCADA/HMI) and process planning capabilities. The objective of supplier collaboration is to ensure the quality of parts and realize JIT production.

6.13. Features and DM requirements for the power assembly process:

The manufacturing process of engines is very complex. An engine manufacturing factory consists of the mechanical machining lines, the engine assembly line, and the engine testing line and equipment. Meeting these challenges requires not only advanced technologies and manufacturing equipment are required but also digital process planning and simulative validation - digital process planning and simulative validation are also important approaches to improve the level of power assembly process.

6.14. Basic requirements for digital process planning are:

(1) Plan the machining process:

a) Identify the machining features of the engine design model, and perform knowledge-based work step selecting, tooling designing and multi-axis program planning;

b) Automatically generate the NC code for the machining process and improve the quality and performance of the NC program;

c) Determine the machining line, assign work steps and balance the machining line.

(2) Plan the assembly process: an engine assembly system consists of the parts assembly lines, general assembly line and the corresponding tests and controls. Whether or not the whole assembly production system is complete and advanced mainly depends on the control of the key workstations (control points) of the assembly line. These key workstations are critical to the quality of the final engines, and optimize the operational steps of key workstations, control assembly deviations and improve quality.

6.15. Basic requirements for digital manufacturing simulation are:

(1) Establish simulative models for the engine production workshop:

a) Establish solid models: 3D models needed for process layout, e.g. engine frame, assembly, test, warehouse, etc;

b) Establish process simulation models: assembly, machining process, testing process, auxiliary production process, materials handling process, etc.

(2) Use simulation to generate the program for optimizing the process layout of the engine production line and perform data analysis:

a) Analyze the space utilization of the production line;

b) Simulate the operational process (based on the final program) for different business decisions.

c) Ensure that, when the system is dynamically operating, no blockage or interference occurs due to the inconsiderateness of the layout.

(3) Use simulation to generate the material flow analysis and materials distribution plan after mass production of the engine begins:

a) Collect relevant data to get the volume of material flows, the intensities of material flows in various paths, etc and offer the proposal for mitigating the pressures of the paths or cells with big material flows, thus optimizing the transportation routes;

b) Output a materials distribution plan and, through manual correction and supplementation, offer a reasonable materials distribution plan;

c) Establish a dynamic simulation model for the inventory of materials to dynamically simulate the inventory status and offer a program for minimizing inventory investment and determining a reasonable inventory level.

(4) Use simulation to generate reports for engine workshop production and logistics cost analysis: output the production cost, calculate the ratio of the logistics cost in the production cost, generate a report and analyze the reasons.

6.16. Brief introduction to the DM solution for the automotive industry:

According to the completeness of the provided digital manufacturing solutions, they can be divided into the following four classes:

(1) Leading PLM/ERP software providers that provide services for multiple industrial applications; however, currently they do not focus on the concept of digital manufacturing or launch corresponding digital manufacturing solutions.

(2) Providers of point solutions for digital manufacturing: they only provide some discrete point applications for digital manufacturing, e.g. process planning, production system modeling, MES, etc.

(3) Providers of relatively complete digital manufacturing solutions: they can provide solutions designed for specific industrial applications, but do not have their own PLM platforms, so it is hard for them to provide diverse services.

(4) Providers of complete digital manufacturing solutions: they have the market-leading PLM products. The digital manufacturing solutions provided by them are complete in terms of category and functionality and are well integrated. They can provide tailor-made applications for such industries as automotive, aerospace, electronics, etc.

Currently Siemens PLM Software (USA) and Dassault (France) are the only software providers in the world that have such characteristics (note: after acquisition of Polyplan, PTC also has its own digital manufacturing solutions, but it will take time to integrate Polyplan and Wind chill. A digital manufacturing solution specific for the automotive industry must embody the characteristics of automotive manufacturing. It shall focus on improving the whole automotive manufacturing process and covers all the functions from the power system, blank car bodies, coating, final assembly and plain arrangement of workshop through to the supplier and system management.

CHAPTER 7
CONCLUSION

PLM is the next step needed to improve the manufacturing.With the help of PLM and DM, the automobile manufacturers of China can gain their lost market share. They can as well develop the missing technologies in-house. not only will they lead in numbers but in technology as well. These days every manufacturing company is trying to cut out its unnecessary wastes that are happening during the process of product development it includes different phases and that starts from designing of a product to the deployment of the product at the client environment. In the process of achieving this, new methodology has been introduced by different companies and this methodology is called Product lifecycle management (PLM). It utilizes the material, money and time in great way and not to cause any wastage. Not only theoretically, even in practically it is proven that it is the best way reduce the unnecessary costs after this method has been implemented by different manufactures like General Electric, General Motors and Dell and they showed their savings of billions in unnecessary costs and their time as well. Research and analysis has been done on this methodology and different concepts of this methodology have been explained along with the examples and tried to explain about different concepts like developing and implementation of the PLM methodology to support for your company requirements and objectives.

Ø Eliminating the waste by controlling and coordinating the workers

Ø Better way of using their capital. This technology or methodology gets you more productivity and profit by saving the unnecessary time money and resources.

References

[1] For the table data is collected form www.plm.com

[2] The above information is collected from www.pittoavg.oavg.org

[3] This above information is collected from www.Wikipedia.com.

[4] To complete the study data is gathered form

i. Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) www.ctia.org

ii. Plug-in to e Cycling Program www.plugintoecycling.org

iii. Re Cellular, Inc.www.recellular.com or www.wirelessrecycling.com

iv. Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC)www.rbrc.org

v. The Wireless Foundation www.wirelessfoundation.org

vi. National Recycling Coalition's (NRC's)Electronic Recycling Initiative www.nrc-recycle.org/resources/electronics/index.htm

vii. United Nations Environment Program me, Life Cycle Initiative www.unepie.org/pc/sustain/lca/lca.htm

viii. HowStuffWorks.com, Inc.www.howstuffworks.com/cell-phone.htm

[5] www.edstechnologies.com/mailers/may/09/articel4-CIM-data-PLM-market-analysis-2008.pdf

[6]. “Product lifecycle management: 21st century paradigm for product realisation” by John Stark. Edition3, illustrated.

[7]. “CIMdata Releases its 2006 PLM Market Analysis Report: Comprehensive Information and Analysis of the PLM Market” by ANN ARBOR, Michigan, October 10, 2006.

[8]. Incose SYSTEMS ENGINEERING HANDBOOK, A “HOW TO” GUIDE For All Engineers, Version 2.0, July 2000. pg 358.

[9]. Product Lifecycle Management Information Centre: www.plmic.com

The PLMIC, LLC provides complementary data management resources for benchmark and research purposes. Our resources now span across 7 different industry sector/marketplaces.

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