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.
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PDM vs. ERP
My view of the PDM / ERP debate is:
1. A business process view:
PDM11 is the engineering community trying to, win back the ground lost by the early expensive failures, and rule the world. (Maybe a cynical view). It 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 engineering tool. I would not describe it as a well developed methodology! But it is a welcome move to define the engineering process, and integrate it with production planning & control.
My ideal architecture would include:
Much discussion surrounds product configuration (See Postponement and Mass Customisation) where some ERP products have developed good 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!
2. 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 of the Week 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 engineering area. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. As a long-term strategy I would:
6. Finally longevity of data access and security remain the primary concerns for PDM.
Mike Thacker April 2000
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This topic is covered in the workshop:
M3 Engineering Data Management (including PDM)
The following articles were mentioned in this paper:
Previous Best Practice of the Week 014: Effective Bill of material Design
Postponement and Mass Customisation
Functional checklists are available for PDM and ERP systems on application. This service is not available to consultants.
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© SM Thacker & Associates April 2000