PDM: Untangling The Data Mess

Studies

indicate that engi neers actually spend only 20% of their

time on designing products, the remaining time goes in a series

of verifications and calculations. This means that a design

department spends only one day per work-week in designing

its core job. If it is losing out on 80% of its time, it is

a threat to the productivity of any manufacturing organization.

In today's highly competitive scenario, where time to market

has become a crucial differentiating factor, no company can

afford such a loss. There is an increasing need to streamline

the product development process and enhance the speed to market.

This

has created a room for PDM or Product Data Management-an enterprise

wide tool. A PDM package enables manufacturers to manage and

control engineering information, specifically data surrounding

new product designs and engineering processes. By organizing,

tracking and controlling access to product information as

it is created, PDM facilitates a team-oriented approach to

product development and saves duplication of time and effort.

"Product development, which was never a priority area till

a few years ago, has now become the focus of attention. You

may have deployed the most efficient order processing software

or ERP, but unless you have a unique product that is accepted

in the market, you will not get anywhere," says Shantanu Rai,

Area Specialist, Windchill Enterprise Solutions, Parametric

Technology.

Designing

needs

In an

effort to stay ahead of competitors, manufacturers try to

revamp existing products and introduce newer versions. The

aim is not only to add more features, but to be among the

first to hit the market. The manufacturer is well aware of

the increasing appetite of consumers for better designs and

quality. Says Narender Reddy, Country Manager, India, SDRC,

"Consumers want newer products and newer features. No one

waits for products that have fallen behind. Hence the market

seems to be adopting technology tools like CAD/CAM/CAE with

a backbone of PDM." Today, there is a tremendous pressure

on designers to expand the usage of CAD/CAM tools to satisfy

the increasing consumer demands. As the use of CAD increases,

the expectations from users also rise. "If we want to reap

maximum benefits from the design unit, we have to manage it

effectively and integrate it with our ERP environment, and

a PDM system will serve this purpose," says Neeraj Kohli,

Senior Manager, IT, Tractor Division, Eicher Goodearth. The

company is planning to invest in this package soon. Earlier,

CAD technology delivered data about the geometry of a component

and the associated information of tolerances, dimensions and

lettering.

But even

after a component is designed, it needs to be developed further.

As it develops, the associated information grows along with

it. In practice, the processing of such information is as

important as the original activity of creating the CAD model

and drawing. And so, no wonder that 80% of designers' time

is spent on this. But as the industry begins to realize the

significance of managing such data more efficiently, PDM will

become an integral part of the CAD environment. Established

players in the CAD/CAM market are offering PDM packages. Metaphase

from SDRC, Windchill from PTC and Ennovia from IBM are some

of them. According to Anurag Srivastava, Regional Director

(South Asia), PTC, the CAD/CAM market worldwide has reached

a saturation point and India would witness the same trend

very soon. If we have to increase our revenues, we need to

find newer areas.Therefore, Windchill will be the new focus

of our company.

Data

management

Manufacturers

are realizing they can no longer manage their product development

processes using a fragmented and outdated IT infrastructure.

They need the ability to create and manage comprehensive,

accurate and timely information over the entire product life-cycle.

Till recently, most of them have adopted a combination of

commercial applications and home-grown solutions to handle

product configuration, sourcing, bill of material management

and other activities throughout the product development process.

But the overall environment remains severely fragmented with

multiple, independent information applications performing

various tasks and managing unconnected pieces of data. These

applications typically employ propriety architectures, operate

on different databases with unique data models and utilize

varying user interfaces. As a result, it becomes difficult

to link them in a meaningful way. According to The Meta Group,

a typical Global 2000 corporation has over 49 enterprise applications

and spends 25-33% of its IT budget on application interoperability

solutions.

PDM software

may put an end to the manufacturers' long struggle with IT

deployment in the area of product development. It will not

only consolidate the operations of the engineering department,

but will also integrate the activities of suppliers, customers

and other external entities across the supply chain. As Reddy

says, PDM allows better management by linking people and bridging

islands of automation. With greater flexibility in its operations,

a company can respond more swiftly to new markets or changes.

A PDM system can be essentially viewed as the modern office

of design data management. These systems store information

about product catalogs, part catalogs, design standards and

codes. All documents are recorded in this system, avoiding

any duplicate numbering of parts. Revision of designs as well

as drawings can be tracked using such systems. "Starting from

the concept stage to detailing, testing, pilot and then full-blown

production, a PDM package controls the entire project," says

Rai.

These

systems are more than mere repositories for product information.

They also support the demands of a distributed processing

environment. As information and computing systems become more

distributed, it is not always clear where to find things or

determine who needs to know when a change occurs. "A PDM package

ensures that if a change is made in design, it is correspondingly

reflected in the ERP environment. This allows seamless integration

and saves a lot of trouble that went in manually doing the

task," says Kohli. PDM cycle-time provides a single location

for product definition data and an automated, file-based system

for access retrieval and notification of changes. It also

enables multiple views of the data. This allows engineering,

manufacturing, marketing, sales, finance and purchasing staff

to get information without re-entering the same data into

their own systems.

Thus,

PDM acts as a flexible data management tool for meeting productivity

standards. It appears that PDM will become an essential activity

in the coming years. Most companies, especially large enterprises,

are already implementing packages for supply chain management

and ERP. These packages are comprehensive and encompass all

the operations of a corporation. In fact, PDM goes hand in

hand with ERP for effective functioning of a manufacturing

organization (See box for details). As ERP alone may not be

able to tackle the engineering activities. Says Rai that ERP

takes an accountant's view of the world. Even the consulting

companies which implement ERP have a financial background,

so the package mainly consists of financial modules like accounts

or payroll. Product development is a creative activity and

the engineering depth involved can't be expressed in terms

of financial transactions only. "ERP, PDM modules cannot address

the complete range of engineering applications.There is a

need for software by a company that has legacy and experience

in engineering processes," echoes Reddy.

Nascent

market

Although

the application of this product in India is very little at

present, it is expected to grow in the coming years. "The

scenario in India has changed dramatically during the last

few years. We can't afford to lag behind the West. Unless

we keep pace with the changes taking place, we'll get stamped

out," says Rai. Prominent market players such as SDRC and

PTC are making efforts to create awareness, especially in

the large organizations. Explains Rai, "Large organizations

are already using their own solutions to tackle product development.

So, when we talk to such companies, they immediately see the

benefit of this software. Even the cost is much lower than

an ERP package." The main industries targeted by this system

include automobile, white goods, heavy engineering, aerospace

and defense. Vendors are vying with one another to create

their own niche in a market which is still at a nascent stage.

SDRC's Metaphase arrived in the market ahead of its competitors

and has the advantage of tapping an emerging market. It has

in its pocket orders from industry giants such as Telco, M&M,

NTPC and Infosys. Windchill, on the other hand, entered only

a year ago and will take some time to match this prestigious

client list. But due to its late entry, it has been able to

deliver a more comprehensive solution.

One with

many new functionalities such as ecommerce or internet. In

fact, PTC likes to term Windchill as an Enterprise Information

Management Solution (EIMS). "Compared to the other products,

Windchill has a wider scope. PDM is only a part of the entire

end-to-end solution that we offer. Moreover, it was conceived

after the web revolution, so it was designed to be web-centered,"

says Rai. Whether its technical edge or taking advantage of

established consumer base, each vendor has accepted PDM as

the technology of tomorrow and is gearing up its efforts to

lead the bandwagon. However, the belief that such systems

will remain restricted to larger organizations may not necessarily

be true. Says Reddy, "With off-the-shelf products like e!docs

we can address both large as well as mid-range organizations."

According to Rai, the assumption that small customers can't

take such technology is not correct. On the contrary, they

are more flexible and open to such innovations. Says Rajesh

Malik, Engineer, Product Development, Sumi Motherson, "Although

we have not yet considered buying a PDM package, however,

once we are convinced about its benefits, we would not mind

investing in it." Sumi Motherson is a medium-size manufacturer

of plastic parts for automobiles.

According

to Malik, a product like PDM can be very useful in maintaining

huge volumes of design data. ERP has already been accepted

and now the manufacturing industry is all ready for a tool

like PDM. However, one reason that usually holds companies

from investing in enterprise-wide applications is the belief

that they take a long time for implementation. Rai explains

that people shied away from ERP because it took about two-three

years to implement the software and the returns come only

gradually. According to him, one needs a lot of commitment

to invest three years in an unproven technology. But a product

like Windchill doesn't take that long and can be implemented

in a time period of 3-12 months. An inevitable tool To compete

in the global marketplace, manufacturing companies need to

get rid off the traditional applications that require heavy,

top-down data modeling and lengthy implementation cycles.

The failure to effectively manage engineering data can have

a devastating effect on a company's competitiveness and productivity.

Products will be brought to market much later than expected.

These

products will not only prove more costly, but will not be

able to offer a full range of features, due to the excess

time spent in developing and refining them. A PDM system proposes

to alleviate these problems and enable an enterprise to improve

product quality, reliability and reduce development costs.

The promises seem ambitious. But success will depend on how

well the technology is adapted by the end-users to translate

their business objectives into tangible deliverables.

SHWETA

VERMA



in New Delhi.