Successful PDM Implementation for SMBs

By Dave Chadwick

Small and medium-sized manufacturing businesses (SMBs) are implementing product data management (PDM) to improve efficiency and reduce time to market. Given limited resources, these organizations need to carefully plan and phase their PDM implementations to ensure success.

The market for PDM software and services among SMBs will grow faster than the market for enterprise PDM solutions, says CIMdata, and will represent 29 percent of the market by 2012. SMBs are increasingly implementing PDM solutions to address critical issues like the data explosion that results from the move to 3D CAD, reducing errors and rework, and collaborating more efficiently around the globe.

The benefits of implementing PDM in larger enterprises (such as reducing the time spent searching for data, improving accuracy of that data, and more efficient change processes) are equally important, if not more critical, to the success of SMBs, and yet many of them have not implemented PDM. These are companies typically concerned about the costs of implementing as well as maintaining and developing PDM systems. Typically they do not have IT departments, so implementing PDM requires careful planning and execution.

Several PDM systems are now available that specifically target SMBs with claims of being “out of the box” and “easy to implement.” These systems largely fall into two categories. First are those developed from “workgroup” or document management solutions. Second are those from vendors of established enterprise PDM solutions.

One example of the latter is Teamcenter Express from Siemens PLM Software. This approach has key advantages for SMBs. There’s the scalability of the solution to handle growing volumes of data and the possibility to easily add applications to meet needs not foreseen at implementation.

With either approach, SMBs can increase the probability of long-term success by adopting a phased approach to deployment. With a phased approach, an SMB can get an earlier return on investment. It is important to establish achievable goals for each phase of the implementation and to collect metrics before and after each. For example, if you can show management that one phase has trimmed the average time to complete a change order, it will be easier to get commitment for further phases.
There are four key areas to focus on for a successful PDM implementation:

• Manage the explosion of CAD data. PDM systems capture all the part, assembly, and drawing files, and all the links between files, versions, and revisions associated with 3D CAD systems automatically. They also manage this data, even from multiple CAD formats, resulting in improved reuse of it and more standardization.
• Identify the key issues that are impacting business. Is faster introduction of new products critical? Is improved management of engineering change critical? Further phases of implementation should focus on identified areas and should improve efficiencies.
• Train, train, train. In all phases, training users is critical, but SMBs are limited in resources. New training tools such as flash-based self-paced training guides can be of great benefit in this area. These utilities simulate the PDM environment and enable users to work through commonplace cases interactively without the need for the installation of a training database.
• Finally, plan for the future. With the soaring costs of raw materials and employment, applying PDM to the area of resource optimization will see increasing focus. Whether by reducing the amount of scrap and rework in the manufacturing process or by integrating project management into the PDM environment for early identification of bottlenecks, PDM will have an increasing role to play in improving SMB manufacturing competitiveness.

David Chadwick is the product marketing manager for Teamcenter Express at Siemens PLM Software. Send e-mail about this to [email protected]