Product lifecycle management refers to different strategies applied by manufacturers to ensure that they attain maximum sales and profits for their products. It involves steps taken to; cut down the cost of conveying a product to market, ensure effective scaling of product to meet demand, ensure that the duration of a products profitable year of maturity is increased and maintain maximum profits even as product sales decline.
For Product Lifecycle Management to be effective there has to be ease of data sharing throughout manufacturing design, quality, and business systems , while at the same time maintaining cooperation among members of the supply chain team.
The central components of a PLM system also include capturing product data and effectively managing and communicating matters concerning product development issues to fine-tune product design processes.
Having a good PLM strategy in place can facilitate collaboration in product development and management and ensure manufactured products meet the required standards.
Regardless of a company’s stage in the maturity spectrum, PLM strategies should be implemented with the future in sight. To thrive and win in a competitive market, businesses should envision their growth through the implementation of good PLM strategies that hold solutions for the future.
Flow-based Product Lifecycle Management solutions are recommended for auto companies looking to narrow their business processes. Some important business flow solutions are listed below
Customer Need Product Formulation
The design of a product is typically determined by the product development team that put together a new product or concept that reflects the needs of the customers. Requests for enhancement, forums, CRM etc are some ways to discover customers’ needs. Through good team work and interactions, the needs of the customers can be translated into a desirable product.
New Part Introduction (NPI) Requirements
The part of a product should be documented in a system as soon as a product idea has gained internal approval. For the NPI process, all the necessary details including Product bill of material configuration, manufacturer’s part number, supplier part numbers, should be added to the part number.
Efficiency
Work-flow driven change control processes are recommended for the management of the phases of product lifecycle as they can track changes, and simplify the process to improve efficiency. The management of different change processes like the bulk change, product, and structure processes can be achieved through workflows based change types and changes are implemented once approved..
Engineering Collaboration
Designing a good product will involve collaboration between engineers, both internal and external at different locations. This will typically involve CAD design collaboration of the product BOM structure
Centralization of Product Records
Product records should be centralized using a decentralized database because discrepancies and incomplete information can cause increase in the data maintenance, operation and quality cost considerably.