Highlights of our full range of training courses / Workshops:
Lean & Agile Supply Chain / Inventory Modelling
Lean & Agile Manufacturing Planning & Control
Operations Management / Team Leader Training
Step Change Management / Business Process Reengineering
Continuous Improvement
Procurement (Purchasing & Supplier Management)
IS / IT / e-commerce
Product Management / New Product Introduction / Quality Management
Bookmarks for this topic below:
Our full range of training
Relevant Training / Workshops
Relevant Further Reading
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?
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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:
-
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!
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
_____________________________________________________________
Functional checklists are available
for PDM and ERP systems on application. (This service is not
available to consultants.)
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