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Lean & Agile Supply Chain / Inventory Modelling

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Operations Management / Team Leader Training

Step Change Management / Business Process  Reengineering

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IS / IT / e-commerce

Product Management / New Product Introduction  / Quality  Management

 

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Our full range of training

Relevant Training / Workshops

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Relevant Training Course / In-house Workshop Highlights:

M03 Bill of Materials & Routing Design & Data Management

D01 New Product Introduction

D02 Specification Change Management: (Managing Product, Computer Programme, Documentation, or Process changes)

D03 Six steps To Near Perfect Quality

 

Relevant Further Reading: The following further articles were mentioned in this paper:

a. Permanently Maintained Website Articles:

MRP1

MRP2

Postponement and Mass Customisation

Implementing ERP computer systems

 

b. Previously Featured Articles from our Archives (Up to 2 per organisation available on request):

Previous Best Practices:

B014: Effective Bill of material Design

B019: Archiving

B023: Product Fit for Sale Checklist

B036: Collaborative Engineering (or why concurrent engineering is only half of the story)

B038: Product Design Parameters (Designing a product to deliver what your customers want, and which you can afford)

Previous Techniques:

T027: Product FMEA

T033: Process FMEA

T038: Bills of Materials Simplification

Previous Questions:

Q003: Software Selection In Europe?

Q012: Do I buy ERP or Best of Breed software?

Q022: Use of "Phantoms" in Bills Of Materials?

Product Data Management

This article describes Product Data Management (PDM) in terms of current state of the art and trends and directions. In particular it describes the interaction between PDM and ERP systems and touches on PDM2.

 

Links to related training and further reading on left

 

Our view of the management of product and process data is that this remains unresolved (and fragile). The PDM vs. ERP debate requires:

  1. A business process view

PDM11 stands for "Product Development Management" as opposed to "product data management". It is starting to recognise the need for integration with the rest of the business rather than being an design tool. I would not describe it as a well developed methodology! But it is a welcome move to define the design process, and integrate it with operations planning & control.

A vision for this architecture would include the secure and long term management of:

  • Drawings (2D / 3D)
  • Specifications/data sheets
  • Product catalogues
  • Test results
  • Bill of Material
  • Routes / Tools
  • Costs (target/estimated/actual)
  • FMEA (product & process)
  • Workflow (including milestones for new product development stages/checklists, but not project management) (See Previous Best Practice B023: Product Fit for Sale Checklist)
  • Classification of components, documents
  • Specification change management (product, process, drawings, documents)
  • Work history
  • Archive

Much discussion surrounds product configuration (See Postponement and Mass Customisation) where some ERP products have developed good configuration functionality. I think this a complex subject, which can vary considerably from simple decision rules to expert system applications depending on product complexity, and installation / commissioning requirements.

The business functional overlap (and the potential for conflict) is therefore clear!

  1. Ownership

It raises data management issues with regard to which system owns the Bill of Material, and Process Routing, that the introduction of MRP systems raised and has still not been satisfactorily resolved, and which current PDM / ERP users have either fudged or interfaced. (See Previous Best Practice 014: Effective Bill of material Design). The truth of course is that there is only one process but the software/technology gets in the way of this. In fact the current technology enforces a high brick wall at the entrance to the design office. I see no indication of "open" architectures allowing a central index to access distributed data yet, although this remains a key objective, which is likely to be delivered through intra-nets eventually. The immediate constraint is the "open" ness of the software. The long-term constraint is the software support issues surrounding such an architecture.

  1. Integration

With regard to software the ERP leaders now recognise PDM and have collaborative arrangements, with specialist PDM suppliers, but as yet I am not aware of an integrated (using common or distributed data) product. I fear this situation may continue for some time. My guess is that soon there will be an acquisition process by one of the major players to achieve integration (which will force the others). Workflow may lead this process. It is logical for the two paths to converge from a business process viewpoint, as I said earlier, however the software developer's commercial considerations are not clear. In particular sunken investment is a big issue.

  1. Technology

With regard to hardware and communications networks the demands for high levels of processing in CAD will keep high capacity workstations on the desktop for the time being. Whilst the demand for high levels of data in MRP (See MRP1)/CRP/Product costing (See MRP2) will continue to require big storage capacity and a central server. Much of the PDM data also falls into this category, particularly archive. The decision for a business is to try to reflect this in data structures e.g. to separate the BOM from the drawing.

  1. Archive & Retrieval

The long term nature of this data requires good archive facilities to ensure that that you can see the wood from the trees not cluttered with old obsolescent data. However any good archive also needs the facility to retrieve old information and to support old products in the field, and if necessary recover from archive back to live. This functionality is still weak in much ERP and PDM software.

  1. Longevity

Finally, longevity of data access and security remain the primary concerns for PDM. E.g. Will this data be readable by your successors and by the successor to your current software in 20 years time!

As a long-term strategy I would:

  • Currently be spending my money on integrating the business processes not on software. You may end up with betamax!
  • Use this knowledge to assess the software market place later.

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Functional checklists are available for PDM and ERP systems on application. (This service is not available to consultants.)

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Home Page Public Training Course Schedules Over 150 Best Practice Articles Expert Systems / Tools This Month's Features / News About Us Your Question / Contact Us

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Whilst great care has been taken to provide relevant, accurate, practical, advice based on our considerable process design and development experience, this will almost certainly require interpretation into the context of your unique business. Please be careful in doing so and if in doubt seek expert advice. We would welcome your feedback!

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