The challenge facing today’s manufacturers is to be able to turn more ideas into successful products quickly and while doing so take greatest advantage of the resources that they have available to them through greater productivity and more efficient processes, all while optimizing the cost and quality of their products. PLM will help manufacturing companies establish an environment to deal with these issues and the product and process complexity that they bring.

In effect, PLM can help companies execute the activities that are required to build the right product and build the product right. Building the right product means meeting customer requirements in terms of time, function, performance, price etc. Building the product right means executing design and production processes that meet the requirements of cost, quality, reliability, sustainability etc. In order for manufacturers to be able to simultaneously build the right product and build the product right they must develop a rich platform of product and process knowledge to underpin and support continuous innovation across all disciplines and phases of the product’s lifecycle.

The bottom line is that PLM can help address challenges that have accentuated because of the economic slowdown; PLM is critical to help companies accelerate time to market, extend returns form products by quickly introducing market driven enhancements, increase product profitability through reduced warranty costs and optimizing manufacturing processes and resources, reduce build costs by minimizing costly prototypes and eliminating manufacturing errors, reuse knowledge to gain efficiencies in processes and eliminate non-value processes.

Ensuring that the designed product can be manufactured within the required parameters in the most efficient manner is critical before any major capital expenses are committed, more so in the current economic situation. Successful companies always align their processes to be in the best position to capture market potential even at the eleventh hour. This can be achieved by building processes and systems that lets them make informed decisions.

Every company needs to make decisions about how best to meet customer demand in the most flexible and cost efficient way. How to create a lean production system that is optimized and demand driven. Automation systems, the programming of automated systems and the need to reduce downtimes of expensive equipment are driving factors towards creating this.

Further, instead of vertical integration, companies tend to partner with many companies, each with their own core competencies and processes. One needs to be able to effectively collaborate with partners so one can build products where it makes the most business sense. Investing in technology tools like PLM and Digital manufacturing, that can enable these initiatives, therefore becomes very critical.

The drivers of optimization for small companies are often quite similar to that of large companies. They include :

• Reducing Cost
• Optimizing product components
• Optimizing manufacturing resources
• Reuse of materials, parts and resources
• Increasing Productivity
• Increase capacity of existing resources
• People
• Capital
• Removing Waste
• Increase capacity of existing resources
• People
• Capital

Digital manufacturing solutions provide an intelligent foundation for business decisions, giving the management valuable insight into the processes that drive production throughput. Some examples where such solutions can help midsized companies in their optimizations initiatives include:

• It can help manufacturers create factory models faster and ensure that they are operating at peak efficiency before production ramp-up. By enabling engineers to visualize the outcome of their factory plans in virtual plants, the company minimizes resources otherwise wasted in fixing problems in real plants.
• Lean initiatives can be realized by reducing non-value added administrative tasks that are associated with managing large volumes of product/process/facility data.
• One can build smarter products, more efficient operations and plants, and leverage the information across the organization for current and future programs
• By tying the factory layout together with throughput simulation, it is possible to develop multiple production scenarios quickly and analyze them for bottlenecks, efficiency, and throughput potential.

Leading companies always want and need to get the best products out as quickly and as efficiently as they can, especially in a challenging economic environment. Good value is more important to consumers now more than ever before. Value is where PLM comes in, and at the end of the day that’s what PLM provides to companies: the opportunity to get something through the process from initial idea to market – to get through the innovation curve faster than they could without a platform like PLM . Only the PLM system captures, maintains and manages the rich product and process knowledge that is required to support the process of continuous innovation. This holistic view can support better and more complete decision making processes within a corporation thereby minimizing their risk and maximizing their value.

Today, PLM is experiencing that same dynamism that ERP did some years ago and evolved into a core strategic element of a company’s enterprise IT strategy. Over time as the PLM toolkit has expanded, it is increasingly being looked at as mission-critical technology that no manufacturing company can do without. For the sheer impact that it can have on companies top line , through better return on products , as well as bottom line, through operation efficiencies and cost savings, PLM presents a very compelling value proposition for companies looking at IT investments that can yield quick return on value.