What is PLM?
PLM stands for Product Lifecycle Management and it represents the collection of solutions and business processes that are required to manage the life of the product. From its conception to its withdrawal from the market.
This is made possible by the full sharing, harmonisation and integration of product data across platforms, business functions and offices.
We are Fourteen TEC, one of the most qualified SAP partners in Product Lifecycle Management.
We have implemented PLM processes for large multinational companies in the Industrial Automation, Automotive, Aerospace, CPG, Fashion & Energy industries, focusing on business processes, efficiency, collaboration, and productivity.
The PLM stages
To reach product excellence, companies need to ensure that the product is developed, manufactured, managed and supported as efficiently and economically as possible.
You just have realised that delivering the right product to the market is only half of the path, and that’s why you’re here.
Are you wondering what it takes to make a quantum leap in product management and its life cycle?
You will be able to follow the phases of your product's life cycle in depth, using a strategic approach that covers the management of information, processes, people and technologies involved in the various phases.
PLM provides an integrated and required management to define processes, organise collaborative working methods, manage resources, communications and information with different objectives.
Implementing a PLM strategy allows you to increase efficiency and quality, reduce costs and the errors that can occur.
It is important that you are aware of the phases of PLM:
Idea/Concept: This is the product conception phase. In this phase, the achievability of the idea is assessed. The requirements for a product are established based on various factors, such as competition, gaps in the market or the need in the market.
Design/Development: In this phase, the design of the product is developed in a detailed way. This phase also includes the approval of the product and the development of a prototype, which allows the required refinements to be defined.
Production and Launch: Thanks to the previous phase, a market-ready version of the product is produced. If it is a serial production, in this phase the production of the new product is increased and then distributed on the market.
Support/Maintenance: In this phase, the product is available in the market. This phase generates feedback through the support and maintenance channels, which is essential to understand how the product is used, sold or can be improved.
Phase out: Here it’s the end of the product's lifecycle, its withdrawal from the market must be properly managed both within the company and towards customers.
Common problems in PLM
There’s been an increase in the number of tools and information we can access, sometimes even leading to management inefficiency.
Not only has their size increased, but they are often data of a very different nature.
What is the origin of this problem?
With the increase in competitiveness and globalisation of markets and the changing demands of customers (more and more demanding quality timeliness-service), companies have been pushed to increase innovation and reduce the time-to-market of their products.
As a consequence, we work with multiple documents, files and data managed in different applications and stored in different systems. In addition, it is often necessary to switch from one platform to another and send/retrieve documents between different offices, and communicate with different stakeholders.
All this has increased the time spent managing data, instead of working on product development.
How to implement correctly a PLM strategy?
A successful PLM implementation strategy involves determining first of all what level of harmonisation we need. Which can be briefly defined as:
Global: Processes defined at the group level and data are integrated and managed in the same way across sites.
Standardized: Processes are defined at the group level.
Harmonised: Recommended processes are defined, but are not mandatory.
Local: Without any integration of processes and data with other locations, needs are defined locally.
Then we can work out which support is best suited to our needs, using different PLM software:
Mars PLM: for customers using SAP. It integrates all modules involved in the product lifecycle and focuses on improving communication and collaboration between stakeholders to maximise decision-making. For manufacturing and food, pharma, chemical and consumer packaged goods companies.
beCPG PLM: is a PLM solution created for the CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) industries with a particular focus on food, cosmetics and DPH (Public Health).
Agile PLM: it’s Oracle's PLM software and can be used in a variety of sectors from semiconductors to pharmaceuticals.
Arena PLM: it’s the PLM software dedicated to high-tech electronics, consumer electronics and medical device companies. It manages both the product life cycle and quality management.
Teamcenter: is a PLM software that allows you to manage 3D designs, electronic aspects, embedded software, documentation and bills of materials (BOM). Qualified in the Manufacturing sector.
Centric: is PLM software focused on the fashion area.
So you've understood what PLM is and its vital importance for maintaining control over the product lifecycle and its evolution.
Now you’re able to define the right strategy to integrate data, people and processes by breaking down all the barriers between different departments.
If your company already uses SAP, then Mars PLM is the strategic add-on to achieve your goals in the shortest possible time.
If you want to be supported in the right implementation of PLM processes, Fourteen TEC is the market leader for the implementation of these on SAP.
Over the years we have developed application templates according to the industry and in a way that is tailored to the customer's needs.
You can contact us and schedule a meeting with one of our consultants.
