Product Lifecycle Management: challenges and opportunities for the businesses
The production processes are intricate and require proper management for the success of the entire process. A single breakdown at any stage of production can affect the whole process and lead to a significant monetary loss.
So, how can businesses avoid such losses?
Modern businesses can leverage a service called Product Lifecycle Management to streamline every stage included in the production. This revolutionary tool empowers businesses by planning each step of the production, which ultimately increases efficiency and avoids losses.
What is Product Lifecycle Management?
Bringing a new product to the market is a long-complicated process requiring ample preparations, analysis, and an effective strategy. The absence of any of these three leads to issues like low productivity or even recurring breakdowns. Besides, the businesses have to maintain quality as well as time efficiency. Product Lifecycle Management is the service that addresses these situations. It combines the following three aspects of production, which are:
- Establishing quality
- Setting the standard for goods and services
- Implementation of timely production
PLM combines these aspects to maximize the advantage for your business. Moreover, PLM blends data and operation with modern technology to supply top-quality products in the market. This aspect of PLM is beneficial for organizations regardless of their size. On the one hand, small businesses leverage PLM to scale up, while on the other hand, larger organizations can utilize PLM to become more agile and flexible.
History of PLM
PLM is not an entirely new service. Its development dates to 1930 when Otto Kleppner designed a pioneer, which later evolved to become today’s PLM. Today, PLM has become an all-inclusive approach to managing the data of all aspects of a product, from its design and production to support and disposal. In simple words, PLM is the extended process of designing the entire lifecycle of a product across the supply chain, from its manufacturing to sales and services.
Businesses leveraging PLM
Businesses encounter a wide range of problems while manufacturing goods. PLM recognizes such issues and provides a strategy to mitigate them. By rectifying the recurring issues, PLM aligns the product’s journey by allowing quick data access to teams across the production.
Originally, PLM was built to aid engineers collaborating on the product design and managing the information across the entire product lifecycle. During the initial stages, PLM only focused on providing support to on-premise. However, it has fully evolved into a methodology covering a larger portion of the business, including marketing, customer service, sales, suppliers, etc.
Organizations with complicated operations can especially benefit from the services of PLM. This is because PLM identifies and then removes bottlenecks with repetitive processes. In addition, PLM clears the path for innovative transformations by driving operations towards efficiency.
Modern Challenges and PLM
The Covid-19 pandemic affected every aspect of human life, and businesses are not untouched by it. After the 2019 crisis, the business changed the way they work. Clearly, it is time to prioritize production and supply chain processes to sustain the losses caused by the pandemic. At such times, businesses need to,
- Maintain supply and demand by managing inventory
- Recognize and accurately cater the customer demand
- Optimize production
- Ensure employee safety
- Manage logistics effectively
It is no doubt that consumer demand fluctuates, and integration of PLM within the ERP structure of the organization is a key to addressing this changing demand adequately.
Relation Between PLM and Supply Chain:
Integration of ERP system with PLM unifies all the information regarding a product in one uninterrupted source, which becomes accessible for every system within the organization. It automates critical processes, which reduces human intervention and preserves data integrity. This time-efficient merge eventually improves overall supply chain efficiency.
What PLM-ERP integration brings to the table?
Data Integrity
PLM-ERP integrations record the data, changes, and even updates on one and just one platform. Any revisions or new versions are also documented in the same system, avoiding issues like multiple entries and making it easier to track changes.
Collaboration with real-time updates
Documentation of data on one platform facilitates interdepartmental transfer, which improves communication within the organization.
Improves Visibility of Product Life Cycle
Product’s success in the market is somewhat dependent on its life cycle during productional stages. At this point, a lot of data is constantly circulated. However, this data is more helpful when the manufacturing department has complete access to it. PLM-ERP integration allows the manufacturing team to recognize problems within the supply chain and fix them in real-time.
Syscons for Product Lifecycle Management
Manufacturing is at the center of any business, making the product life cycle the most crucial process. At Syscons, we have a team of professionals who understand that every production process is unique and that product’s life cycle. That is why we provide top-quality consultations where we recognize the challenges and define the goals. Mr. Robert Tome leads our team.
Sycons focuses on engineering while developing PLM solutions. So, we collaborate with your engineers to deduce and target specific challenges and come up with solutions. Our solutions concentrate on the following aspects of the product’s lifecycle:
- Boost productivity
- Accelerate time-to-market
- Lower production cost
- Preparation for mass production
Adopting PLM for your business not only streamlines the product’s production and journey but also leads to delightful benefits like increased transparency, improved product quality, and more revenue.