When it comes to PLM, the footprint in the engineering part of the company is quite big. It is in engineering that parts, products, and documentation are being created; the possible manufacturers and manufacturer’s parts are identified and validated. This generates a vast amount of data including requirements, specifications, datasheets, parts lists/Bill of materials, drawings, certificates, test reports, and much more. Controlling all this data poses a big challenge for many companies in the Electronics industry as often the data are located in several different places and systems, ranging from network drives to large IT systems. Due to this we often see that collecting product- or a project data are very time consuming and takes away time from what they should be doing; engineering great products.
In addition to this, requests for changes to the product and reports of quality issues are coming in from several different sources within the and outside the company; often without link to each other or the product data effected.
To complicate the daily life of an engineer even more, the electronics industry is being more and more focused on its core competences, which in most cases is engineering innovative new solutions and products, resulting in an increase in the use of external manufacturing and/or design partners to bring the products to market. This means that the flow of information that previously could have been handled informally within the four walls of the company now has to be formalized, structured and secure.
These are some of the key challenges that we are addressing with the PLM for Electronics® solution.