Why Product Data Management?
SolidWorks Product Data Management Software Solutions & Services
Most product developers know that implementing modern computer-aided design (CAD) tools not only improves productivity, but also helps achieve their goals of accelerating time-to-market, shortening design cycles, reducing development costs, and improving product quality. From the earliest application of 2D design tools to the growing use of 3D solid modeling systems, CAD technology has made a dramatic impact on product development, improving efficiency, quality, and innovation. Along with the greater productivity that CAD automation provides, product development organizations face a whole new set of challenges. These include managing, controlling, and sharing the incredible influx in the volume and diversity of product design data that engineers now create through the use of better and more automated design tools.
PDM systems boost productivity
Designing products in the digital age demands an easy-to-use, efficient, and cost-effective product data management (PDM) solution. This PDM system not only must support the creation and control of increasing amounts of diverse types of 3D product design data, but also must foster collaboration across design teams and with external partners. An effective PDM system does more than simply fulfill the role that documentation management systems played in the past. It also represents a critically important next step for maximizing the productivity benefits of CAD automation across product development stages and throughout the extended enterprise.
Paper document management systems discourage collaboration
In the old days, when designers created 2D engineering drawings of product designs on drafting tables, managing product design data was a fairly straightforward process of collecting, cataloging, and safeguarding paper drawings in storage cabinets. Most manufacturers devised systems for organizing and controlling engineering drawings for documentation, design reuse, and collaborative purposes, generally by categorizing drawings by number.
In many ways, the differences between using a paper document management system and working with a Windows®-based PDM system—such as SolidWorks PDM software—are analogous to locating library materials with a card catalog versus finding the information via an online search engine.
Paper document management systems are time- and labor-intensive, as well as prone to error since drawings can end up missing or misfiled. In addition, they discourage collaboration and design reuse because only one person at a time can sign out a drawing. Plus, sharing the information with colleagues or partners requires copying prints, mailing drawing tubes, or sending hard to read faxes.
Windows is not a PDM System!
While some product development organizations continue to use a paper system, others take advantage of the Windows operating system to create "project folders" and "shared drives" to manage drawings and revisions. Although this type of drawing management system improves access to design data, it also creates additional control problems. Knowing who is working on a file, what the design status is, what the correct revision is, or whether someone has overwritten or accidentally deleted a file are not issues that any product developer wants to face. To avoid these types of problems, some companies have implemented electronic drawing management systems. While that approach to data management may suffice for the management of flat 2D drawing files, it is woefully insufficient for managing the expansive, information-rich world of 3D design.
Besides providing a wealth of productivity-enhancing benefits, 3D design and analysis tools create unique data management challenges. Unlike flat, distinct, and autonomous drawing files, 3D files contain many references, associations, and interrelationships that link them to other files. These parts, drawings, bills of materials (BOMs), multiple configurations, analysis results, and assemblies need to be managed, preserved, and safeguarded.
Revising a 3D file or collaborating with other engineers on different parts of a 3D assembly involves much more than updating a single file. It demands an effective PDM system for controlling access to data, recording design changes to files, and managing the ramifications of those changes on other linked files.
3D design requires a Data Management System
Working in 3D, a PDM system is virtually mandatory. When a change to a file is made, the PDM system helps to ensure that the resulting ripples created throughout the associated design data are necessary and desired, rather than haphazard and costly. In design environments larger than a single user, it is nearly impossible - and definitely impractical - to manage 3D design data effectively with the "project folder" and "shared drives" approach. Managing assemblies, parts, and drawings requires careful adherence to procedures for file naming and an elaborate process for creating new folders.
For a manufacturing company to maximize the power of 3D CAD technology, boost productivity, foster collaboration, and utilize valuable 3D design data to its fullest extent, product developers need a simple, easy-to-use solution like SolidWorks Enterprise PDM.
