r words, it supports project coordination and allows companies to implement concurrent engineering schemes and compress the product-development cycle.
For example, a PDM system permits a project leader to control the progress of a project via "states" using "triggers" and a routing list that reflects a company's organizational hierarchy. Or, to coordinate a particular work flow effectively, a worker can define the interdependence of tasks to match a project's structure, time frame, and goals.
"PDM helps en
gineers manage both data and the product-development process," explains Ed Miller, president of CIMdata (Godalming, Surrey, U.K.), an international PDM consultancy. "However, it's not designed to help individuals do a better job, but rather to facilitate an organization's management initiatives." Such initiatives might include concurrent engineering or conforming to the "design anywhere, build anywhere" philosophy.
An organization moves to PDM primarily because such a system can help cut the time it takes to bring a product to market. But PDM is not restricted to the manufacturing industry. Its ability to manage a vast amount of different data types benefits other industries as well. For instance, 20 percent of the installations of Hewlett-Packard's WorkManager PDM system are in the health-care, insurance, construction, telecommunications, and software-development industries, according to Dietmar Jenuwein, a member of HP's German PDM marketing group.
As a concept, PDM has been around for more than
a decade. Early PDM systems were not successful primarily because they were not flexible enough to handle the uncontrolled proliferation of data within an organization. But as consistent data modeling becomes more prevalent throughout the entire development process, PDM stands a good chance of delivering on its promises.
Today an increasing number of companies are installing PDM systems. The global PDM market, which is currently worth over $900 million, expanded by 31 percent in 1996, according to CIMdata. The company expects a total market volume of $2 billion by the year 2000. CIMdata also says that Europe accounts for just over a third of this volume and that the European market is faster-growing than, for example, the U.S. market.
Results from the most recent survey issued by the British Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) reveal that PDM users experience several important benefits from using these systems. These include a 10 percent reduction in engineering costs, a 20 percent decrease in
product-development time, 30 percent faster reactions to changed orders, 40 percent fewer changes in the development process, and, in combination with concurrent engineering methods, a time-to-market decrease up to 50 percent.
"Considering only our increase in engineering productivity and our reduction in costs related to quality defects, we've had a 14-month return on our investment," says Philippe Martin, IS director at Schlumberger (Paris, France), which implemented an enterprise-wide PDM system in 1996.
Many previous generations of PDM were based on relational database systems. Now that PDM applications include more object-oriented features, systems are a lot easier to manage. As Mark Horne, general manager of Quillion Systems, a PDM vendor in the U.K., notes, "Object technology is the only way to efficiently manage product data, although you still have to comply with the relational-database world."
With object orientation now being used, the type of data used for a PDM application no l
onger matters. A CAD drawing, process information, bills of materials, and an engineering-change order can all be different kind of objects and still used in the same system. In addition, objects support dynamic data, which facilitates rule-based process flows.
European Variations
But even though object technology is heralded as one of the big liberators of PDM systems, some conceptual problems between engineers and process managers remain. For instance, engineers tend to prefer straightforward working practices and do not appreciate the formal object definitions of PDM systems, according to Patrick Piekolek, product manager for Matra Datavision's Design Manager, an object-based PDM system.
Most of the big players in the PDM market, including CoCreate Software (a subsidiary of HP), Computervision, Dassault/IBM, Metaphase, Parametric Technology Corp. (PTC), SDRC, and Sherpa, are focusing on enterprise-wide installations in international companies. This leaves a big opportunity for local PD
M vendors to address the data-management needs of engineering departments. To the extent that the industrial structure in Europe varies from one country to another, there are also substantially different local requirements for data management. In Germany, for example, the national DIN standards closely dictate design and manufacturing conditions -- and therefore, for example, component-classification schemes. PDM systems have to reflect these local standards.
Today, one of the most important issues facing a PDM system is its ability to work with an enterprise-resource-planning (ERP) system and enterprise-management applications, such as SAP's R/3 and Baan's Triton. "In two years, you won't find any reasonable system without an SAP or Baan interface," says David Hodgson, general manager for AIM Systems, a PDM system vendor in Karlsfeld, Germany.
For example, Matra Datavision's new Euclid Design Manager for Windows NT connects to enterprise-management systems from SAP and Baan via an interface based
on the ISO's Standard for the Exchange of Product data (STEP). Other companies, such as Computervision, Dassault/IBM, and PTC, are currently extending their PDM products with enterprise-management functionality. On the other hand, the next version of SAP's R/3, 4.0, which is slated for release early this year, is expected to offer enhanced PDM functionality.
The lines between departmental PDM systems and higher-level business-management and enterprise-wide resource-planning systems are blurring. "There's already considerable overlap between PDM systems and business-management applications," explains Tobias Diepold, a project manager and PDM expert with IDS Professor Scheer (Saarbrücken, Germany). "When companies have both types of systems in place, they typically have to decide which one is to be the master and which will work as slave."
Diepold says that standardized interfaces between systems solve only part of the problem. Other points of friction between a PDM system and a business-manag
ement system include the management of engineering changes and the modification of processes within a running, complex engineering project.
PDM/Web Integration
As with everything else that it has touched, the Internet has brought big changes to PDM as well. "Web technology has had a terrific impact on this industry," enthuses CIMdata's Ed Miller. "With an intranet in place, you can get a lot of information in return for a small investment."
For example, CoCreate's Dynamic Conferencing modules for the WorkManager PDM system enable virtual 3-D modeling over the Internet. Design sessions can be shared across the Web, and users can discuss changes or make annotations to a model that was just designed in another location.
PTC's new Pro/Intralink product also includes tools for communications in a concurrent engineering environment, as well as an open architecture that permits information in the system to be shared or posted on the Web. "Information from various systems is being linked to
gether in a common user interface: the Web browser," explains Tom Sears, PTC's director of data management.
PDM began as an aid to help engineers manage information, handle technical drawings, design models, and control the work flow in their departments. But the same technology that saves time and improves communications in engineering departments is now being applied more broadly to extend these benefits throughout entire organizations. Says Dick Arnold, a technical director at Hollandse Signaalapparaten, part of the multinational Thomson-CSF company: "PDM is key to staying competitive."
Where to Find
AIM Systems
Karlsfeld, Germany
Phone: +49 8131 59970
Fax: +49 8131 91005
CIMdata
Godalming, Surrey , U.K.
Phone: +44 1483 421970
Internet: http://www.CIMdata.com
Better Control with PDM
