Product Life Cycle Management System: CAD is attached. PLM - a new generation of control systems

With a modern approach, 11 stages of the life cycle of a product can be distinguished:

• Marketing and market research;
• Product design and development;
• Planning and development of processes (production technologies, operation, etc.);
• Procurement;
• Production or provision of services;
• Packaging and storage;
• Implementation;
• Installation and commissioning;
• Technical assistance and service;
• After-sales activity or operation;
• Disposal and recycling at the end of useful life.

PLM Development

The very term "product lifecycle management" appeared as a result of almost twenty years of evolution of the relevant markets and technologies. For the mid to early 1990s. there was simply no consensus on what exactly should be categorized as product information (especially in the sense of engineering data). Gradually, these data began to be concretized as product data. It was at this time that the term Product Data Management (PDM) was coined. The last few years have brought final clarity: the industry has matured and is constantly expanding both in scope and in the power of the solutions offered, due to which, in fact, the term PLM was adopted. The term is now used to describe business approaches to:

• creation of intellectual capital and information related to the product
• management of these product components
• directed use of capital and information throughout the life cycle of a product

In the course of the development of PLM, approaches to determining the life cycle of a product have also changed. So, if twenty years ago, the life cycle was understood, as a rule, as design and engineering work, since the tools were primarily focused on computer-aided design with data management, then in the late 1980s, the approach already included both the workflow and the processes occurring during the development of the product life cycle. Thus, there is an exchange of information and processes between different areas of development work.

Application of PLM

The scope of PLM systems is growing rapidly. It integrates areas where the use of, and exchange of, product-related smart assets provide measurable value enhancement. The use of such systems enables enterprises to produce products of the required quality and provides customers and users with the best benefits in working with specific types of products. Merging PLM with other areas brings new opportunities and opens up areas where the potential of product-related intellectual capital is realized within the expanded enterprise. Now PLM is used in the following areas:

• idea generation management
• digital production
• simulation analysis and management
• after-sales service, including maintenance, repair and operation
• warranty service programs
• source requirements management
• portfolio asset management
• program portfolio management
• product portfolio management
• asset management in discrete manufacturing
• mechatronics - management of the integration of electronic devices and software
• systems design
• technical characteristics/recipe/nomenclature management
• compliance management

Key tasks of PLM

It is customary to single out six main key tasks for the work of PLM in the framework of maintaining a product from development to disposal:

• product data management
• asset lifecycle management
• program and project management
• collaboration throughout the product lifecycle
• quality control
• environmental and labor protection, occupational medicine

Product Data Management

Product data is a significant part of the total amount of information used throughout the life cycle of a product. On the basis of these data, the problems of production, logistics, marketing, operation and repair are solved. As can be seen from practice, even a partial electronic presentation reduces the production time of a product by one and a half times and leads to a reduction in costs by 50-80%. According to the key CALS technology standard ISO 10303, it is necessary to harmonize terminology, types, types of documents, formats for their electronic representation, protocols for working with them, and means of protection against unauthorized access.

Equipment Lifecycle Management

The PLM solution helps enterprises plan, operate, maintain and replace equipment, enabling them to achieve a higher level of control and accuracy of equipment operation. Equipment life cycle management implies a number of functions aimed at improving overall performance, ensuring an uninterrupted production cycle, etc.

Program and project management

This functional area provides information for making strategic decisions on products. For effective management, the project must be well structured - divided into interconnected work packages, which allows you to control the budget of the product, plan the necessary capacities, and manage communication flows.

Interaction support

Increasing the efficiency of product development can significantly reduce its cost, and thus increase competitiveness. The tight integration of design, manufacturing, sales and service processes improves the efficiency of bringing a new product to market by providing immediate and continuous feedback throughout all stages of development.

Quality control

Increased competition has led to a noticeable tightening of consumer requirements for product quality. To remain competitive and operate at a profit-free economic level, it is necessary to apply effective and efficient quality control systems at all stages of the product life cycle. This aspect is quite broad and includes marketing, design and specification, procurement and procurement, process development, actual production, test control, certification, installation, operation, maintenance and disposal. PLM-systems help to solve problems of this kind with great effect.

Compliance with environmental requirements

PLM systems, among other things, should include components designed to reduce costs, minimize risks and take into account the requirements of regulatory legislation, which helps to maintain a positive reputation of the company in the eyes of the public, expands opportunities for staff development by supporting the exchange of information throughout organizations. In addition, the use of such applications in the PLM solution system significantly reduces the time to fill out safety prescription forms.

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Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Branch of the federal state budgetary educational institution of higher professional education

" South Ural State University "

(national research university)

in Miass

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering

Department" Ground transport and technological complexes "

Essay

for information technology

Subject:PLM systems

Completed by: Mochalov I.V.

Checked: Lukomsky K.I.

Miass, 2015

Introduction

In itself, the history of the introduction of information technology in industrial enterprises in the twentieth century deserves a separate study. While computers were expensive and imperfect, due to the limited technical and financial resources, scattered attempts were made to automate individual, often not the most critical, areas of production. The beginning of the mass introduction of computers in the 1960s was laid by the calculation of economic and accounting data - The computer then was perceived almost exclusively as a computing device. In the 1970s, with the advent of computer graphics, computer-aided design and technological pre-production systems began to actively develop ( CAD / CAM ). In the 1980s, DBMS, personal computers, client-server architectures and other technologies typical of that time opened up wide opportunities for solving a wide variety of accounting tasks, unifying workflow, etc. .

But these were all particulars. - the information systems of those years never reached the level of enterprise management as a whole. This means that their economic efficiency remained a relative value. First prototype systems PLM appeared about two decades ago, but soon it became necessary to separate the automation of design and production processes ( CAD / CAM ) from the management of information accompanying products. Then there was an independent CAD / CAM direction product Data Manage - ment ( PDM ), i.e. product data management. It is mainly associated with the workflow of design and technological documentation. .

However important as the task of managing such data streams is, the software PDM applied at the level of design and technology departments, without going to the corporate level .

Toolkit PDM not used by managers above the middle level. Meanwhile, in today's market, when the speed of updating the product line becomes critical to the competitiveness of the enterprise, from PLM it is required that the proposed tools become tools for managers of the highest level.

Until recently, the production system of CAD categories , CAM , ERP , CRM , BI etc. were desirable, but not obligatory and to a certain extent secondary. Could have done without them too. - no one has scientifically proved their fundamental influence on the performance of the enterprise as a whole. However, with the advent of the era of electronic business, the situation began to change radically. Automation systems have become mandatory, have become of paramount importance and must now form a single control system. The computer "umbrella" under which they unite is product lifecycle management. PLM ( product Life - cycle management ).

Understanding the PLM system

IN no one is currently need to be convinced that improving the competitiveness of an enterprise is directly related to managing one of strategic resources - information about products. The question now is to eliminate the existing enterprises shortcomings in managing this information and appropriate use of modern solutions in this area. IN our country had different names for the approaches used in information management about products: CALS-technologies, FPI-technologies, PLCS, now the era of PLM has come.

PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) - product life cycle management) is a methodology for applying modern information technologies to improve the competitiveness of industrial enterprises, with an emphasis on data management product. The application of PLM is based on use of integrated data models about product and business processes of the enterprise. PLM involves new ways of working with information about product, allowing you to closely link it With processes, providing simultaneous access to data of various categories of employees, allowing to fully implement the principles of parallel product design.

The main components of a PLM system are:

· PDM- system (PDM - Product Data Management). Data management system for product, is the basis of PLM, designed to store and data management;

· CAD- system (CAD - Computer Aided Design). Product design;

· CAE- system (CAE - Computer Aided Engineering). Engineering calculations;

· CAPP- system (CAPP - Computer Aided Production Planning). Development of technical processes;

· CAM- system (cam - Computer Aided Manufacturing). Development of control programs for machine tools with CNC;

· MPM- system (MPM - manufacturing process management). Modeling and product manufacturing analysis.

Under the PLM system we understand not one superfood, and set of software products (in including from different suppliers, although some manufacturers are trying to close the entire line). A PLM system should solve the problems of both creating engineering data (by means of CAD/CAE/CAPP/CAM/MPM systems) and engineering data management tasks (using PDM-system tools). The system must communicate with project management system and CMS/ERP-system, and also, if necessary, information systems of the customer or subcontractors of the enterprise .

It should immediately be noted that almost all modern PDM systems have functionality for project management, but our opinion, its application according to compared to using specialized systems always justified.

As can be seen, a key role in PLM is played by a PDM system whose task is to provide the necessary data to the right time in the right form in According to access rights.

The main functions of the PDM system are:

· Data storage and documents (including changes) and providing quick access to him;

· Electronic document management (management of design processes);

· Product structure management, including configuration management;

Maintaining classifiers and reference books.

The most typical tasks solved with the help of PDM-systems:

· Electronic archive of documentation (design, technological, organizational and administrative, design, regulatory and technical);

Electronic document management (coordination of data and documents, execution control);

· Managing data development and documentation (collaboration in working group, staff management and product configuration)

· Computer system of quality management;

· Electronic reference books (materials, CRPs, standard products and T. d.).

Benefits of PLM

At business professionals often face difficulties and doubt when they are required to formulate the benefits from automation in general and from PLM implementations in particular. Without providing such " evidence " top officials often refuse to finance projects , And absolutely right. On in our opinion, the whole wide range of benefits associated with engineering data management can be roughly reduced to a fairly concise list:

· Increasing the productivity of employees;

· Reduction of production preparation time;

Improving product quality and degree of customer satisfaction;

· Cost reduction;

· Maintenance of intellectual property of the enterprise;

· Providing data to the automated control system / ERP-system;

· Compliance of the enterprise with the requirements of ISO 9000.

PLM Implementation

PLM solutions are not enough just to install on workplaces and teach employees how to use them functionality. The reason for this is the fact that a PLM solution is a work organization tool that needs to be customized for those operating procedures adopted by enterprise. By statistics, only 20% of projects for implementation of information systems on enterprises end successfully. IN in other cases, there is dissatisfaction of the management and / or end users with the result of the project, exceeding the deadlines and project budget, or all of the above factors combined. information electronic document management

At such failures, as a rule, several reasons, but most often they are associated with lack of any implementation methodology, insufficient experience of the participants in the process, inadequate choice of software and hardware, lack of organizational support from guides and, as usual, insufficient funding. IN First of all, to ensure success in implementation, it is necessary to have a proven methodology that clearly stipulates all the steps that need to be taken, and also the presence of a team with successful experience in implementing such systems on other enterprises.

The result of the implementation is - PLM solution that includes myself:

· Redesigned business processes and enterprise data structures (adapted to work in in electronic format);

· Specialized software (CAD, PDM);

· System software (OS, DBMS, office suites, EDS systems);

· Hardware (servers, LAN, workstations, peripheral equipment);

Staffing (prepared for work users);

· Regulatory and methodological support (enterprise standards (STP), classifiers, reference books);

Legal support (legal cleanliness of the use of electronic data, in including organizational mechanisms of EDS).

Work on implementation includes myself:

· Redesign of business processes and enterprise data structures;

Determination of requirements for PLM solution components and their mutual linkage;

Choice of software and hardware (in features, specialized software) from available on market;

Setting up a specialized Software for business processes and enterprise data structures;

Setting up the system software and hardware;

· Staff training;

· Adjustment of STP;

Reconciliation of classifiers and directories;

· Solving legal issues;

Solving internal organizational issues of the enterprise putting the system into action (in including issues of employee motivation).

Implementation methodology

Years of company experience KELS-center " V areas of implementation of PLM-solutions allowed to form and to test the implementation methodology, which in guarantees the success of any project implementation. The methodology covers all implementation tasks: pre-project survey, selection of a suitable PDM system and CAD, system setup, development of regulatory and methodological documentation, personnel training and system transfer to industrial operation. The methodology is constantly evolving and based on wide application of project management technologies in According to PMI recommendations PMBOK, which allows you to carry out projects effectively, achieving planned results, in deadlines and V within a certain budget. The methodology assumes maximum openness for the Customer in part of informing about progress of the project and emerging problems. Our methodology will allow us to take into account the project is not only the interests of the company's shareholders and his top management, but And the needs of the end users of the system e. lighten them work.

The life cycle of creating a PLM solution consists of several stages. First, a preparatory ( " null " ) stage, for which goes through a number of stages of creating a PLM solution (stages starting from first).

The purpose of the "zero" stage is to carry out preparatory activities before starting the implementation of the stages of creating a PLM solution, including the choice of an implemented PDM system and CAD. The final result of the stage is the terms of reference for the PLM system. In the course of the stage, an examination of the enterprise (technical audit) is carried out.

Why a PLM system is useful

In the modern world, an increasing number of business leaders tend to believe that the main tool in the struggle for the success of the company is the introduction of innovative technologies. Innovation - it is the power that allows your enterprise to take a large share of the market, the power that allows your products to bring maximum profit. Innovations reduce the cost of organizing management and increase its efficiency. The most advanced companies use innovative approaches not only at all stages of production, but also at all stages of the life cycle of their products.

Hundreds of new ideas emerge annually at enterprises to speed up production, improve the consumer properties of products, and reduce production costs. Some of these ideas, upon initial consideration, are recognized as untenable, of the remaining ones put into development, at least half do not bring the expected effect, and only a small proportion actually turns out to be embodied in the final product. However, how much information data is produced! Documents, versions, amendments, changes made by different people - dealing with all this manually, even in a small company, may not be possible. The use of a PLM system allows you to create a controlled information dissemination environment in which you can save all ideas and documents that will later be available on demand to a circle of people strictly defined by the regulations. Another positive effect: the use of a PLM system allows you to get rid of unnecessary duplicate information.

Introducing information about earlier developments into the PLM system may not seem like a worthwhile practice at first glance, but this approach allows you to reuse ideas that have proven successful in previous projects. Instead of wasting time reinventing the wheel, it's better to get it from the archives of the PLM system. And if you need another version of it, why not first analyze the dozens of already existing ones in the same archive?

The reality is that doing business now involves constant communication not only within the company, but also with partners, suppliers and even customers located in different parts of not only one city, country, but the entire globe. There can be many reasons for this. Perhaps the company does not have specialists in a particular area of ​​production, and then the involvement of specialists from another company - the only way out. Maybe there are specialists, but they are busy on other projects; or it may simply be cheaper to outsource production to third parties than to produce something in-house. And if we talk about the technical support of the product, then ensuring the interaction between geographically distributed participants in the life cycle of the product becomes an indispensable condition that the PLM system successfully copes with.

The PLM system provides another important function - collecting data on the operation of the product from the customer. You see how the product is operated, under what conditions, what happens to the product, you see the weak points of the product - this is invaluable data, by analyzing which you can both improve the service of your product and improve the next versions of the product itself by eliminating the corresponding shortcomings, optimizing certain characteristics. Based on the data obtained, it is possible to predict the timing of the decline in functionality and failure of certain components of the product and carry out their maintenance or replacement in advance. Finally, when disposing of the product, it becomes possible to determine the value of certain of its components and the possibility of their reuse. As a result - reducing the cost of production, use and maintenance of the product, minimizing its downtime as a result of possible failures.

The manufacturing and product support processes are often the same repetitive activities. Without an automated system that controls such processes, their flow may not go so fast: the performer may confuse something, use incorrect data, or even completely forget to take this or that step. The lack of feedback from the performer does not allow the manager to see the state of the process and respond promptly. The PLM system allows you to describe the rules of the business process, and then automatically monitors its execution. The contractor receives precise instructions on what and how to do, receives the documents necessary for this, and most importantly - he does not need to think to whom to transfer the process further - The PLM system itself will select the right person, guided by once created rules. But even if the process stalls for some reason, the manager has the opportunity to notice this - The PLM system will tell him that there is a delay at one stage or another - and respond promptly. As a result - reducing the time of the process, increasing the productivity of the enterprise.

Another strong point of the PLM system is reports. Often, when creating a report manually, it takes a lot of time to collect and analyze information from different files, data types. The PLM system takes on this task. Specialized modules themselves find the necessary data according to the specified parameters and produce a report in the form that is needed. In addition to the current state of affairs, based on the available data, the PLM system can also show what can happen when a particular decision is made, which significantly reduces risks.

All of the above makes the PLM system the most significant innovation, the introduction of which in your enterprise can revolutionize all your activities and bring only positive changes.

What does a PLM system consist of?

PLM system - it is a complex software package consisting of several interconnected components. The heart of the PLM system is the metadata servers that provide all the logic of the system. They collect, store and process data about files, products, users, etc. Separately, there are file servers that contain electronic versions of documents stored in the PLM system. As soon as this or that document is placed in the PLM system, it goes to the file server, and information about it goes to the metadata server. Later, when requesting a document, the metadata server checks whether it is possible to issue a particular document to the requesting person, and if he has sufficient rights, a copy of the document of the required version will be sent to this user from the file server. It should be noted that all versions of documents placed in the PLM system are stored on the file server, so searching for archive copies of a particular document is not difficult; moreover, the search engine of the metadata server will make it easier to find the desired version of the document by limiting the search by date, user created, or individual attributes.

In addition to the server, there is also a client part of the PLM system. As a rule, this is a set of modules that perform a particular task on the user's computer. Most often, these modules integrate the PLM system with various applications (CAD programs, office suites, etc.). Such modules allow you to communicate directly with the PLM system in an intuitive way without leaving the software products familiar to the user, take data and documents from the PLM system for editing and place the modified documents back. At the same time, the PLM system takes care to notify other participants in the process that the document is checked out for editing by another user, and offer them an updated version of the document when one appears.

A PLM system cannot do without a module that manages business processes. Having described the business processes taking place in the enterprise, it is possible to entrust the PLM system with the task of tracking when, to whom and what document and / or data must be delivered for the successful completion of a particular task. The PLM system will track delays in the performance of certain tasks and notify the process manager about this, which will allow him to analyze and eliminate process bottlenecks. Since the business process description is, in fact, a document, its versions are also stored in the PLM system, which makes it easy to review previous versions of business process descriptions, analyze them and make the right decision on how, in case of problems, the description of the business -process (and, as a result, the business process itself) needs to be rebuilt.

Another type of modules - report generators. According to the data stored in the PLM system on the metadata server, they generate all kinds of reports of regulated types on standard forms. When updating the product structure, you can automatically generate a new report. Again, since the report - document, all its versions can be found in the PLM system.

Surely your enterprise has software with which the PLM system is not integrated by default, but the data from which it would make sense to store in it. A PLM system must have a developer toolkit (SDK) that allows developers of such a program to organize the interaction of their system with a PLM system according to certain rules.

Conclusion

Companies Implementing PLM Despite the obvious advantages of such systems, they face serious problems. The company must have the appropriate IT -infrastructure: high-speed networks that allow mobile expansion and reconfiguration, specially trained qualified personnel, modern equipment, etc. In addition, security issues inevitably arise. IT - a division of the company has to resolve issues on the distribution of access rights among users, which can be not only various divisions of production, but also partners, suppliers, customers. This also includes the problems of the functioning of the system, which involves a large number of people with different levels of competence. .

In addition, the processes for making changes to documents should be strictly regulated. PLM - the system involves the combination of such systems as CAD working with graphical models, and PDM who process the documentation. Moreover, the question arises of integrating an already existing database accumulated by an enterprise over many years, and in various software. Since most suppliers PLM -systems do not offer a complete package of tools for implementation at all levels, the company has to use additional tools for unifying data formats. In addition, most often companies do not completely change the software in all departments, avoiding additional costs and the need for complete retraining of specialists. . Recognizing all of these problems, developers PLM -products of different levels are trying to agree on a single data format standard in order to get rid of overlap problems. Yes, the platform PLM open developed by the company EDS , integrates with many other PLM -P R products at the level plug and play .

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In today's world, technology is changing faster than businesses can integrate it. The incompatibility of various systems and the inability to organize interaction between them causes a severe headache for users. This problem is exacerbated by a sharp increase in competition in the face of an economic downturn. To succeed, you need to release innovative products in the shortest possible time, and as a rule, several enterprises are engaged in the creation of them at once. Collaborating on complex projects is not easy. It is this problem that the technology of managing product information throughout its life cycle (Product Lifecycle Management, PLM) is designed to solve.

A bit of history

Although the term PLM is a recent coinage, the challenge of managing product information and project collaboration has attracted attention since the 1980s. Various methods have been proposed to solve it. For example, IBM put forward the idea of ​​computer integrated manufacturing (Computer Integrated Manufacturing), and the US Department of Defense proposed a methodology for automated decision support for the acquisition of products and logistics (Computer-Aided Acquisition and Logistics Support, CALS). But for a number of reasons, these initiatives did not arouse much enthusiasm among users. Perhaps they were just ahead of their time.

Rice. 1. Global PLM Market

At the end of the last millennium, the same IBM developed a new concept - PLM, which was more fortunate than the previous ones. In a short time, it became popular to such an extent that two of the largest computer companies - IBM and EDS - used this abbreviation in the name of their divisions, and demand for PLM products began to grow even in a downturn in the global economy. Thus, according to the analytical company CIMdata (www.cimdata.com), last year the volume of the global PLM market (including software and services) amounted to 13.5 billion dollars, and by 2007 it is expected to grow to 20 billion dollars (see Fig. 1). Analyst firm IDC (www.idc.com) estimated the value of the PLM services sector alone at $3 billion in 2002 and predicts it will rise to $9.7 billion in 2007.

What explains such success? To understand this, we will first try to understand what PLM is and what tasks it solves.

Definition

What is PLM? It is not easy to answer this question precisely, since there is no clear definition, and the formulations of the main ideologists, although detailed, are very vague. For example, CIMdata, which specializes in PLM market analysis, argues that it is a strategic business approach that allows enterprises to collaboratively develop, share, manage and manage product information through an integrated set of enterprise applications, from project before disposal. It brings together people, processes, business systems and data.

EDS defines PLM as an end-to-end enterprise information system that manages all aspects of a product's life cycle, from requirements, market analysis, and development to manufacturing, delivery, and service. EDS adds that PLM is the information backbone of the enterprise, as it supports real-time interaction of all those involved in the product throughout its life, and allows the resulting virtual enterprise to distribute knowledge and preserve its intellectual capital.

IBM believes that PLM enables an enterprise to design, analyze and manage products from concept to retirement. The result is a more efficient product development process and easier use of product information to improve decision making and customer service.

All definitions sound so beautiful and vague that at first glance it may even seem that PLM is more of a marketing slogan than a real technology. Such a point of view exists, skeptical users even claim in the press that software companies simply came up with another abbreviation to spur demand for corporate software products in the face of its decline. And although, of course, there is some marketing component in PLM, it would be premature to say that the possibilities of this concept are exhausted by this. After all, if we abstract from spectacular formulations and understand the essence of PLM, it becomes clear that this is the same computer technology as many others, with its own tasks, advantages and problems.

Tasks

Unwilling to put up with this state of affairs, users have long demanded fully integrated solutions from developers. And then the latter proposed PLM - a solution that combines individual areas of automation in a single information space and implements an end-to-end design, technological and commercial cycle, from project preparation to disposal (Fig. 3).

Advantages

This approach promises enterprises considerable benefits, the main of which are:

accelerate the release of new products;

Strengthening quality control;

Reducing costs by replacing physical layouts with virtual ones;

savings due to the repeated use of design data;

Expansion of opportunities for optimizing products;

Savings due to the reduction of production waste;

Reducing costs through the full integration of engineering workflow.

It is these advantages that explain the popularity of PLM. After all, any company dreams of such advantages. For example, an automotive or aviation company can speed up the release of new models, designers can shorten and improve the development cycle, suppliers can reuse already created projects, maintenance departments can quickly find information about a product, and managers can get a complete picture of the results of the entire production process on based on information from various technological sites, customer service centers. All of this translates into huge savings. Thus, according to the analytical company Daratech (www.daratech.com), large automotive concerns could save from 50 to 100 million dollars in the development of each new car if they organized the exchange of drawings and models between different CAD systems.

Rice. 2. PLM market leaders in 2002

Unfortunately, it is impossible to simply buy and install a PLM system, as there are no ready-made solutions. After all, this is not a boxed product, but a certain set of technologies and methods for integrating already functioning corporate systems (CAD, ERP, CRM, etc.) with teamwork systems to create a complete environment that allows you to fully manage the processes of design, testing, production, maintenance , write-off and disposal of products. The term PLM covers many components. Analysts from CIMdata listed the main ones: basic standards and technologies (XML, visualization tools, collaboration and application integration); engineering information preparation tools (CAD, CAE, CAM, etc.); auxiliary programs (data storage, information management, document management); functional applications (for configuration management, versions) and corporate systems (ERP, CRM, SCM, etc.). Combining all these components, PLM allows you to create a kind of middleware (middleware) that integrates all enterprise information systems and supports teamwork on projects (Fig. 4). Products for building a PLM solution are now offered by many vendors operating in the CAD and ERP markets (see table).

Problems

Nothing comes for free, and PLM is no exception. To take advantage of this enticing concept, significant technical difficulties must be overcome. This applies to both users and developers.

Rice. 3. PLM combines individual areas of automation into a single enterprise information space

Teamwork. Typically, each department issues its own information and processes it in its own way. For example, engineering, production, and purchasing departments can use completely different versions of bills of materials and make decisions independently of each other. Therefore, before implementing PLM, company leaders must first establish corporate standards for data formats. But that is not all. The fact is that most enterprises use CAD systems from different suppliers to perform individual tasks of the production process. To integrate them within the PLM environment, it is necessary to use data conversion tools from one format to another, which often causes errors and degrades the quality of information. The most obvious way to avoid this is to implement single vendor PLM products. This approach, according to analysts, will also save on the integration and updating of programs. However, few vendors offer the full range of PLM tools, and enterprises are unlikely to want to change their familiar CAD systems for new ones.

The only way out is to create an open data format. Such attempts are being made, but, unfortunately, little progress has been observed. For example, the ISO organization (www.iso.org) has issued the STEP (Standard for the Exchange of Product

Model Data) to describe 3D CAD models, but it has not received much support from vendors. Now we are developing formats based on the XML metalanguage. The EDS company offers the PLM XML format for visualization and description of geometry (www.eds.com/products/plm/open), the OpenHSP consortium (www.opnesf.org) promotes its eponymous standard for visualization, and the OASIS organization (www.oasis.org ) develops ebXML technology for the exchange of commercial information between enterprises. These developments are just beginning to be implemented, and it is still completely unclear whether they will become the basis for a full-fledged PLM standard and when it will appear.

Reuse of information. Designers often do extra work by re-creating part models each time instead of taking them from other projects and reusing them. There are a number of reasons for this. First, old models are difficult to edit, because modern CAD systems, including solid and surface modeling tools, face shape controls, and other tools, create very complex models. If from the very beginning, when choosing a basic structural element, the designer does not guess how the part will change during its life cycle, then later it will be easier to propose a new model than to make changes to the old one. Secondly, the problem arises from the archaic organization of data storage. The fact is that the relationships and relationships of parts in an assembly are usually stored in tables in the form of drive names and directories of the corresponding files. If a product has a long life cycle, then in the course of its evolution, these files move around the network and the links between them can be broken. This dependence on the physical and logical location of individual files can lead to errors in cases where some nodes are used simultaneously in several products. To some extent, product data management (PDM) systems can solve this problem, but even they do not always "know" about the relationships of individual files in an assembly.

Different ways of working with information. As you know, there are two types of production: continuous and discrete. The first includes enterprises of the oil and gas, metallurgical, chemical, pharmaceutical, and food industries. They mainly deal with information about formulas, ingredients and recipes. To share it, they need specialized PLM systems, and they are just beginning to emerge. Enterprises of the second type, belonging to the automotive, aerospace, shipbuilding and other industries, use data in the form of three-dimensional CAD models. Since the creators of the PLM concept are CAD developers, most PLM packages are focused on this type of production. However, there are also significant differences related to the duration of the product life cycle. For example, ships or aircraft live in production for a long time - 20-30 years, cars - about five years, and consumer electronics or computers for only a few months (then the model is replaced by a new one). Manufacturers of these products have different requirements for the use of life cycle information. To some extent, this problem is solved by PLM products for vertical markets, but they do not yet cover all industries.

This is not a complete list of barriers to PLM implementation. In fact, there are many more. Eliminating them is not easy, especially for large organizations. Apparently, therefore, even in the West, not a single enterprise has yet implemented the PLM concept in full.

pioneers

As EDS PLM Solutions Vice President Chuck Grindstaff said during his visit to Moscow, the American aerospace organization NASA has advanced the farthest in this direction, but even there the implementation process has not yet been completed. Other large users - Ford, General Motors, Nissan - have encountered difficulties associated with the use of products from different suppliers and the inertia of management. However, General Motors has already deployed a PDM system and moved to the next stage of PLM implementation - the introduction of digital layout management tools. As a result, she was able to reduce the design time for a new car from 48 to 18 months, and now she is trying to speed up production processes.

Rice. 4. PLM manages product information throughout its cycle

It is easier for smaller organizations to switch to new technology than for giants. And although this process is just beginning, descriptions of the first successes of the pioneers have already appeared on the pages of the computer press. True, these projects do not yet cover the entire enterprise, but only its individual sections. Thus, the American company Lear, which supplies equipment for the automotive industry, deployed a number of PLM tools and was able to provide customers with complete information about the project throughout the entire development cycle. Previously, all information was transmitted randomly - in the form of spreadsheets, e-mail messages, text files - and was often inaccurate. Now it is in the past. Another example is aerospace venture Hamilton Sundstrand, which has not yet finished deploying PLM, but has already seen the first fruits of more interchangeable parts and easier design changes.

PLM is also being introduced in our country. Take, for example, a project at the Tekhpribor aircraft instrument-making enterprise (St. Petersburg). Its main highlight is the coverage of the full production cycle (development, pilot and mass production), as well as the integration of CAD with PDM and ERP systems. As a CAD, "Compass" of the Ascon company is used, PartY PLUS of the Lotsia Soft company acts as a PDM, and special interfaces have been created for exchanging information with the Microsoft Business Solitions ERP system.

There are many such examples. But they all have one thing in common - the active role of the top management of the enterprise in the implementation of PLM. After all, to achieve success, you have to change the way individual departments work and the way employees think, as well as spend significant funds on software and hardware, services of consultants and system integrators, employee training and support. But these efforts are paying off. Thus, according to the analytical company AMR Research (www.amrresearch.com), in the US alone, the introduction of PLM will increase the total profit of industrial enterprises by more than 106 billion dollars.

Conclusion

Almost all analytical companies operating in the corporate market highly appreciate the prospects of PLM. Businesses are increasingly interested in this technology and are exploring its possibilities for their business. However, in times of economic instability, they are cautious, carefully analyzing vendor offers and carefully assessing the return on investment. Therefore, according to analysts, software vendors should take into account the specifics of real production processes and improve their products, ensuring interaction with the systems of other players in this market. System integrators should be more attentive to educating users, educate them more about the benefits of PLM, and help them implement new technology. And the users themselves need to be aware that PLM is not a system, but a development strategy aimed at introducing an integration platform throughout the enterprise, which cannot be implemented without special organizational measures.

PDM systems is the use of software to manage product data and process related information in a single central system. This information includes computer-aided design (CAD) data, models, part information, manufacturing instructions, requirements, notes, and documents. The PDM system provides solutions for secure data, process and configuration management.

PDM systems: the history of technology creation

PDM systems originated from traditional design activities where product drawings and diagrams were created on paper using CAD tools to generate parts lists. The first PDM systems, exemplified by paper-based media, used PDM and BOM data in enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to coordinate all of a company's transactional activities (customer order management, purchasing, cost accounting, logistics).

Goals of introducing PDM systems

Product data management is the use of software or other tools to track and control data associated with a particular product. Tracked data typically includes product specifications, specifications for manufacturing and development, and the types of materials that will be needed to manufacture the goods.

Product Data Management Goals:

• common understanding of the task by all parties of the process;
• minimizing errors in project execution;
• adherence to high quality control standards.

Product data management allows a company to keep track of various costs associated with building and launching and is primarily used by engineers.

Secure data management

PDM systems capture and manage product information, ensuring that information is delivered to users throughout the product lifecycle in the correct context. Security and administrative functionality protects intellectual property rights through role management, project-based security, and appropriate access rights.

PDM systems allow companies to optimize the following business processes:

• fast search for the correct data;
• increased productivity and reduced cycle times;
• reduction of errors and development costs;
• improving the value creation process;
• compliance with business and regulatory requirements;
• optimization of operating resources;
• promoting collaboration between global teams;
• providing the visibility needed for better business decision making.

Configuration Management

The PDM system provides the visibility needed to manage and present the complete material (BOM). This makes it easier to align and synchronize all data sources and life cycle stages.

The best PDM systems are available to multiple applications and multiple teams in an organization and support specific business needs. Choosing the right PDM software can provide a company in any industry with a solid foundation that can be easily extended to a complete Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platform.

Features and Benefits

Within PDM, the focus is on managing and tracking the creation, modification, and archiving of all product-related information. Information stored and managed (on one or more file servers) includes engineering data such as computer-aided design (CAD), drawings, and related documents.

The central database also manages metadata such as file owner and component release status and performs the following functions:

• product data verification for multiple users;
• engineering change management, release control, and component troubleshooting across all releases;
• creating and manipulating a Bill of Materials (BOM) for an assembly;
• help with product variant management configuration.

PDM allows for automatic product cost reporting and allows companies producing complex products to propagate product data throughout the PLM launch process. This greatly improves the efficiency of the startup process.

Data management

PDM is used as a central data repository for process and product history and facilitates data integration and exchange among all business users, including project managers, engineers, salespeople, buyers, and quality assurance teams.

Product data management is focused on the collection and maintenance of information about products and services through its development and useful life. Typical information managed in the PDM includes:

• part number;
• description of the part;
• supplier/manufacturer;
• number and description of the supplier;
• unit of measurement;
• cost price;
• diagram or CAD drawing;
• material passports.

PDM systems help manage and track all product-related data changes, spend less time organizing and tracking, improve productivity by reusing design data, increase collaboration, and leverage visual management.

Comparison of PDM systems: specification and features

PDM systems: an overview of popular and popular solutions:

NX is a commercial CAD CAM CAE PDM system software package developed by Siemens PLM Software. NX is widely used in mechanical engineering, especially in the automotive and aerospace sectors. NX is commonly referred to as a 3D PLM software application. The product supports all stages of product development from conceptualization (CAID), design (CAD) to analysis (CAE) and production (CAM). NX integrates product life cycle stages using a parallel engineering workflow, design tools and data management tools that apply across all functional areas.

CATIA (Computer-Based 3D Interactive Application) is a multi-platform commercial CAD/CAM/CAE software package developed by the French company Dassault Systemes and sold worldwide by IBM. Written in the C++ programming language. Supports multiple stages of product development (CAX): from conceptualization, design (CAD) to manufacturing (CAM) and analysis (CAE). Widely used in mechanical engineering, especially in the automotive and aerospace industries.

3D modeling software

Solid Edge - for modeling a parametric 3D model. Runs on Microsoft Windows and provides reliable modeling, assembly and development for mechanical engineers. Through third-party applications, it has links to many other Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) technologies.

Rhinoceros (Rhino) is a standalone commercial NURBS 3D model modeling software developed by Robert McNeel & Associates. The software is commonly used for industrial design, architecture, nautical design, jewelry design, automotive design, CAD/CAM, rapid prototyping, reverse engineering, product design, and the multimedia and graphic design industries.

Creo Elements/Pro (formerly Pro/ENGINEER) is the standard in 3D product design, featuring state-of-the-art productivity tools that promote cutting-edge performance while meeting industry and company standards. Integrated, parametric, 3D CAD/CAM/CAE solutions speed up the development process while maximizing innovation and quality.

PDM/PLM systems: what is it?

Product Data Management (PDM) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems are widely used in today's product development organizations. The PDM system is one of the components of the PLM system.

Common functions as PDM/PLM systems:

• Document management: CAD models, drawings and product metadata are stored either in a central or distributed repository. Once product data and other information is in storage, it can be made available to authorized users in a predefined format.
• Process and Workflow Management: PDM/PLM systems grant required permissions to the user and effectively communicate activities to all stakeholders.
• Product Structure Management: Users can easily see alternative parts and their business impacts through these systems.
• Parts Management: PDM and PLM systems emphasize the need to reuse and standardize components.

System differences:

• PLM has a greater level of integration across departments, uses many CAD tools, and works with a wider range of products. PDM only works with CAD related product data.
• PLM is developed on a web platform whereas PDM is not web based.
• The cost of a PLM system is very high compared to a PDM system. The implementation of PLM is justified only for large multi-position organizations.

Product Data Management (PDM) is a subset of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). PDM systems mainly handle CAD-related product data. Design departments provide input to the PDM system. The PLM system requires participation at the organizational level and integration of other organizational information systems.

A few years ago, the concept of product lifecycle management (PLM) appeared in the IT world, aimed at combining individual sections of enterprise automation in a single information space and implementing an end-to-end design, technological and commercial cycle - from project preparation to product release, its operation and recycling. Now this idea and related technologies are gaining recognition both in the West and in Russia. The process is fast, the situation is constantly changing. Consider what is being done in this area at the present time.

What is PLM

Using PLM, you can organize and provide quick and secure access to product information to everyone who needs it - designers, technologists, engineers, employees of the sales, marketing, technical service departments, as well as partners, suppliers and customers. This concept came just in time. Enterprises have long demanded from suppliers not disparate systems, but unified solutions. Now they have hope to find them.

Unfortunately, the main ideologists of PLM define this concept in different ways (see PC Week / RE, N 34/2003, p. 26). And due to the lack of a precise definition, it is difficult to figure out which products belong to this class. Perhaps the clearest description of them is given by the analytical company CIMdata (www.cimdata.com). According to its experts, PLM includes:

Basic standards and technologies (XML, visualization, collaboration and application integration tools);

Tools for design automation (CAD), engineering calculations (CAE), production management (CAM), program development (CASE), electronic device design (EDA), etc.;

Auxiliary programs (for data storage, information management, document management, etc.);

Functional applications (for managing configurations, versions, knowledge, etc.);

Specialized industry software.

Thus, PLM cannot be called a new technology. This is some concept for combining existing developments into a single integrated solution.

The basis of such a solution is the engineering data management system (Product Data Management, PDM), which connects all of the listed components, and also serves to interact with other corporate applications designed for enterprise resource management (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and suppliers (SCM).

PLM solutions are now offered by all the leading CAD vendors, independent PDM vendors, ERP market leaders, and developers of specialized PLM products for process manufacturing enterprises (see table).

PLM Market Leaders

It should be noted that the concept of product life cycle management is intended for enterprises of various types - both with discrete and continuous production. The former mainly deal with drawings and three-dimensional models, the latter with information about formulas, ingredients and recipes. Therefore, they require different systems. But we will focus on the discrete segment, especially since it accounts for almost 90% of the PLM market (estimated by ARC Advisory Group, www.arcweb.com).

The market is on the rise

The popularity of PLM is indicated by the constant growth of this market. So, according to CIMdata, last year the volume of sales of PLM products worldwide increased by 10% - up to 16.9 billion dollars, in the next 5 years, according to the forecast, it will grow by 8% per year and by 2009 - mu will reach 25 billion dollars (see Fig. 1). There are many suppliers in this area. Most of them offer programs and services for specific market segments, and only a few release software suites that cover all aspects of PLM. These are Agile, MatrixOne, PTC, SAP, UGS, and the IBM/Dassault Systemes alliance. They are market leaders and own a fair share of it (Fig. 2). Around the "oligarchs" there are many smaller firms - integrators, consultants, resellers, dealers. These partners make good money on the promotion of PLM systems, actively contributing to the expansion of the client base of their vendors (Fig. 3).

Rice. 1. Global PLM Market

Rice. 2. Income of market leaders PLM (2004)

Rice. 3. Revenue of top PLM vendors and their partners (2004)

Other analytical companies specializing in this area give slightly different market estimates. According to Daratech (www.daratech.com), PLM product sales will grow by 10% this year to $10.42 billion, and according to ARC Advisory Group, the annual growth will be 11.5% per year, and the market volume will increase to 9.16 billion dollars in 2008. At first glance, this scatter of estimates is bewildering. But the reason is simple: due to the lack of a precise definition of PLM, analytical companies calculate the size of the market in different ways. Nevertheless, they are united in one thing - sales of PLM products are growing now and will continue to grow in the coming years.

In our country, there is also a revival of demand for PLM. "This is primarily due to the desire of enterprises to provide an end-to-end design-production cycle in order to reduce the time for new products to be released," explained Artem Avedyan, Marketing Director of SolidWorks Russia.

Interest to PLM appeared at us not so long ago. "Before, domestic enterprises had other priorities - improving production, creating basic business processes, automating accounting, supply and sales. They needed to solve the tasks necessary for survival," said Arseniy Tarasov, PTC Regional Director for Russia, the CIS and countries the Baltics. And only now, when the most advanced companies have already built the basic infrastructure, they begin to invest in the product development process, that is, the source of their daily bread.

Thus, the introduction of PLM in our country is at an early stage, but I must say that in this we are not very far behind the West. In particular, a recent survey by the analytical company AMR Research (www.amrresearch.com), conducted by it among one hundred American industrial enterprises, showed that PLM is now used by only 30% of them, while CAD - 93%, and ERP - 84 %. A quarter of respondents intend to start implementing or evaluating PLM systems this year, and 45% do not have such plans yet.

True, unlike in the West, the term "PLM" has not yet become widespread in our country, and the environment for life cycle management is often called a complex solution. Such a solution necessarily includes a PDM system that combines various CAD modules and subsystems into a single whole. Therefore, its creation can be considered a movement towards life cycle management. Thus, the Special Design Bureau for Instrumentation and Automation (Kovrov) implemented a comprehensive solution covering design, production preparation, engineering analysis of data management and combining all of the above systems in a single information space of the enterprise. And there are many such examples.

We still have few full-scale PLM projects. "Such work is already underway, and complex systems are being implemented, but now we are usually talking about the implementation of individual PLM fragments," said Nikolay Shiryaev, Executive Director of Lotsia Soft.

Since the domestic PLM market is growing, there is enough space for all companies. “There is no serious competition between suppliers yet. There are not so many truly professional teams working in this area, and large projects require the involvement of a significant number of specialists,” Nikolay Shiryaev explained.

In addition, the integration nature of PLM technology encourages vendors to collaborate. "As a rule, manufacturers of the same type of software products compete. When suppliers of CAD, CAM, CAE, PDM and ERP class solutions meet in the same project, they begin to work together to organize the interaction of systems, and as a result, new data transfer interfaces are born, which then replicated to other enterprises," said Artem Avedyan. Vitaliy Taldykin, marketing director of Top Systems, agrees with him: "The demand for integrated solutions is constantly growing, so suppliers who do not have such products in their arsenal are constantly looking for opportunities to integrate with other suppliers' systems to meet customer requirements."

What gives PLM

Lifecycle management systems are not cheap, and their implementation project requires a lot of effort and money. Why are these costs and efforts necessary?

Obviously, when deciding to move to PLM, an enterprise wants to achieve certain goals. According to Arseniy Tarasov, the objectives are usually to increase the efficiency of product development, reduce costs and time for design, reduce errors and more easily meet customer requirements. Achieving these goals directly affects the financial performance of the company, and therefore, allows you to achieve the main goal - increasing profits.

An important role in the implementation of PLM is played by the desire to increase the transparency of the enterprise in order to improve the manageability of all departments, whether it be a supply department, a design office, a workshop or a warehouse for finished products. "One of the most important results of the implementation of a comprehensive solution is the optimization of many processes at the enterprise, for example, the procedure for coordinating documents," explained Anton Filippov, manager for working with corporate clients of the Russian Industrial Company. "Thanks to this, obvious and hidden contradictions that seriously slow down work of the entire organization.

Some customers, Vitaly Taldykin added, are implementing PLM to optimize existing business processes by redefining the functions of individual departments and reducing staff. He believes that these goals are quite achievable, and as a result, the company can get profit growth and the possibility of further development.

This opinion is confirmed by the experience of the pioneers. Thus, due to the introduction of a comprehensive solution, the Tver Carriage Works planned, first of all, to reduce the time for design and preparation of production while improving the quality of design work. In addition, it was planned to slightly reduce the staff of specialists in the design and production departments. “The main goals were achieved in full, which allowed us to significantly expand the range of cars and maintain our leading position in the market,” said Alexander Severov, an employee of this enterprise. “However, due to the increase in the number of manufactured models, it was not possible to reduce the number of designers.”

As you know, in recent years, many Western enterprises, out of economy, transfer part of their work to regions with cheaper labor - Asia, Eastern Europe and South America. The trend of international distribution of labor is already being felt in Russia, stimulating the transition to PLM. After all, the Russian partner must work in the same information environment as the Western customer. "Increasingly, foreign companies put forward the exchange of information in electronic form and product support in accordance with the requirements of PLM technologies as one of the conditions for concluding contracts," Nikolay Shiryaev said. Other vendors agree. “Most of our clients are enterprises of the military-industrial complex that supply their products for export,” said Artem Avedyan. “Foreign customers have strict requirements for the format of the information provided. Naturally, domestic design bureaus participating in joint work on international projects must comply with them by purchasing the appropriate licensed programs and focusing on the most modern technologies."

You can list the benefits of PLM for a long time. For brevity, here are the main ones:

Improving the quality of products;

Reduction of terms of design and production;

Reducing the cost of designing and manufacturing products;

Simplification of certification according to international standards, primarily the ISO 9000 series (including the edition of ISO 9000:2000);

Increasing the level of data protection from unauthorized access;

Accumulation of the intellectual property of the enterprise within the framework of a single information space;

Improvement of interaction with foreign partners;

Increasing the transparency of the enterprise for management and its attractiveness for investors.

The hard way to PLM

But to get these benefits, you need to implement PLM, and this is very difficult. After all, there is no ready-made integrated system. This is not a boxed product, but a set of technologies and methods for integrating new and already functioning corporate systems. It is no coincidence that even in the West few people have implemented this concept in full. The thing is that on this path the enterprise has to overcome many problems - technological, financial, organizational and even psychological.

From the point of view of technology, the main difficulty is the integration of various systems. After all, most of them initially did not have the means of interaction. Take CAD for example. Each vendor uses its own proprietary data format. To integrate multiple CAD systems into a single environment, information must be converted, which often degrades its quality and causes errors. Of course, you can implement PLM products from one vendor. That is how the Tver Carriage Works operated. "Our integrated solution is implemented on the basis of the products of the Minsk company Intermech, such as Search, Cadmech, Cadmech Desktop, TechCard, AVS and ImBase. She also helped us implement these systems," Alexander Severov said.

However, this mono-vendor approach does not suit everyone. Many enterprises are looking to maintain investments in their current software or want to use products from different vendors for other reasons. In this case, when choosing products, it is worthwhile to find out if they have the possibility of interaction. Thus, the complex solution of the Special Design Bureau for Instrumentation and Automation includes systems from Autodesk (Inventor and AutoCAD); "Intermech" (Cadmech and Search); MSC.Software (visualNastran 4D and MARC); Pathtrace (EdgeCAM). "All these programs have a common interface with Inventor CAD, which is used for designing at our enterprise," said Lead Design Engineer Ilya Kholkin. "This allows you to exchange files between applications directly, without using additional converters or intermediate formats."

The transition to PLM is inevitably accompanied by organizational problems. After all, this process entails serious changes in the work of the enterprise. This includes new ways of doing business, running a company, executing projects, collaborating with partners, and more. Change is needed so that different departments can work in parallel and integrate their automated processes. Not all employees welcome such changes, so the support of senior management is indispensable here. "A lot depends on the will of the top officials of the enterprise. Where the management is really interested in the system, it is implemented successfully and in a short time," Nikolai Shiryaev shared his experience.

This point of view is confirmed by the experience of the Special Design Bureau for Instrumentation and Automation. "The main problem in the implementation of an integrated system is to ensure that all employees of the company understand not only the strategic goals of automation, but also their place in the new information system," said Ilya Kholkin. "This task was solved thanks to a clearly formulated position of the company's management on this issue and well-organized process of personnel training at the stage of system implementation.

However, not everyone is successful. The main reason is disorganization. Indeed, even before the introduction of PLM, management must determine the development strategy of the enterprise and its place in the market. For example, whether it will develop new products on its own or will mass-produce products of other enterprises, how flexible it needs to respond to market requirements, what plans it has to expand its market share, what personnel policy will be, etc. This determines the choice of products and PLM implementation methods. "We constantly have to deal with a situation where there is no such strategy, and the implementation of IT begins. In this case, there can be no optimal solution by definition," Sergey Maryin, director of the CAD department at Lanit, noted with regret. - In addition, internal disorganization at enterprises is a big obstacle, when, in the absence of a common ideology, various structures try to solve their narrow local tasks, and even with cheap software. Because of this, it is not possible to establish normal business processes. Money is still spent, but the result is not visible. "In fact, a comprehensive solution covers different departments - production, design, planning, financial, marketing, etc. Therefore, a special team is needed that will deal with both the project itself and its budget .

Another problem is that PLM is located at the intersection of two areas: on the one hand - IT, and on the other - the design and production of real products. Therefore, when implementing a solution, it is important to correctly allocate roles between the IT department and other departments. “It is very common for industrial enterprises to entrust the formation of the ideology of computer technologies, for example, to the head of a computer center or an IT specialist,” Sergey Maryin shared his observations. “This approach leads to complete absurdity. A person who understands the subject area should lead the ideology. The design bureau should be a designer, at the plant - a pre-production specialist, etc. "

The insufficient level of training of employees of enterprises to work with computer technologies also makes it difficult to switch to PLM. "We can't discount the problem of the company's lack of its own qualified specialists involved in the implementation of the system and then using it, - noted Anton Filippov. - After all, the return on any integrated system depends on the people who work with it."

Therefore, employee training is an integral element of the project to build an integrated system. "The Russian Industrial Company and Intermech helped us to implement software products. Technical support specialists from these companies trained our employees, and now they continue to provide assistance and consult," said Ilya Kholkin. Suppliers also emphasize that it is necessary to teach employees how to work with the system already at the very initial stages of the project - then they will better understand its capabilities and be able to more accurately formulate implementation tasks.

Of course, we should not forget about money. After all, as noted above, now industrial enterprises are just starting to invest in IT and do it carefully. Thus, one of the problems faced by the Tver Carriage Works was the lack of funding in the amount necessary to purchase hardware and software in the right quantity and quality. “But time convinced most of the leaders of the need to switch to new technologies and their sufficient funding. And those few who did not understand this had to leave,” Alexander Severov said.

However, PLM implementation is not limited to software implementation alone. All the accumulated information about designed products, components, non-standard products, as well as reference books, specifications, etc. must be transferred to the system. This may take years. After all, here it is necessary not only to digitize mountains of paper documentation, but also to develop universal corporate standards. According to analysts from AMR Research, creating common definitions is a difficult but very important task that takes a lot of time and money.

These difficulties are exacerbated by national characteristics. The fact is that the standards in force in our country, such as ESKD, ESPD, ESTD and SPDS, limit the use of electronic documents. Because of this, a paradoxical situation arises: technically it is now possible to implement a completely paperless technology, but legally it is not. "This problem is especially relevant for enterprises of the military-industrial complex, the transport sector and for areas related to human security," said Anton Filippov. "However, even here there are ways of peaceful coexistence of paper and electronic flows." After all, the federal law adopted in 2002 provides for the principle of voluntary application of these standards (except for a few exceptions). Thanks to this, enterprises can develop their own regulatory documents (i.e. their corporate standards), coordinate them with customers and rely on them in the future. And in the future, this problem may be completely solved, since at present the listed standards are being revised taking into account the peculiarities of working with documents in electronic form.

From the foregoing, it can be concluded that the successful implementation and operation of a PLM system depends on a number of factors - the availability of financial resources, the desire of management, its readiness for volitional decisions and the presence of qualified specialists in the enterprise.

Customers - who are they?

It is clear that any organization wants to reap the benefits that PLM provides. But is everyone financially and technically ready to switch to this technology? After all, the cost of such a project can reach many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Historically, the whales of the global industry have become pioneers in the field of PLM. "Maximum effect from PLM solutions is achieved by large corporations that have set as their goal the introduction of complex systems at subsidiaries, - explained Artem Avedyan. - The larger the enterprise, the more difficult it is to manage it without automation, and in these cases, the more obvious the advantages of PLM."

But now this situation is beginning to change. Not the last role here is played by leading CAD vendors, adapting their PLM products for small and medium businesses. Such customers also need complex automation. After all, the relevance of this task is determined not so much by the size of the enterprise as by the complexity of the products. In addition, it is easier for them to achieve positive results from PLM. "Efficiency from the introduction of the system is usually the higher, the greater the percentage of employees of the enterprise is covered by its work", - said Nikolai Shiryaev.

If we consider the distribution by industry, then, according to suppliers, PLM is primarily of interest to areas related to the development and production of complex technical products. These are the aerospace and automotive industries, the defense industry, mechanical engineering and instrumentation, electronics, shipbuilding and energy.

How to implement PLM

Given these difficulties, it becomes clear that the entire enterprise is unlikely to be immediately transferred to PLM. Therefore, experts recommend acting in stages. "For a Russian organization, as a rule, which does not have sufficient funds, it can be difficult to immediately decide on a comprehensive solution. First, it is necessary to develop some general strategy for the development of computer technologies to support the core business. After all, IT is just a tool for solving the main production tasks, - says Sergey Marin. - Then we should move step by step, getting a positive effect at each step. At the same time, it is important to follow the correct order of implementation of PLM components. You need to start with CAD / CAM, then, with some time shift, you should work on the engineering data management system - PDM ", and it can be developed constantly, setting new tasks and expanding functionality. In parallel with PDM, a system for preparing technical processes should be introduced so that this preparation is carried out in the PDM environment. Then you can implement a planning program, ensuring its integration with PDM and other information systems. "

By the way, such a phased approach contributes to solving the problem of financing. For example, the Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant (Yekaterinburg) is now spending a lot of money on information technology. "It became possible only after the management saw the real benefit from the IT project at the previous stages," Sergey Maryin explained.

When dividing the project into stages, it is necessary to determine which tasks are priority. In some cases, the issues of providing production with materials and components require a priority solution, in others - an automated calculation of labor intensity. However, we must not forget that in any situation, initial data is needed that describes the design composition of the product and the technological process that are created by CAD, CAM and PDM systems.

The creation of a single information space implies the integration of CAD and ERP. At the moment, few Russian companies have implemented such a connection, but many are already going. “In the near future, we plan to introduce ERP. However, at an industrial enterprise, such a control system can only be built on reliable and up-to-date information on the composition of manufactured products, and it, in turn, is based on design and technological documentation,” said Ilya Kholkin. The sources of such documentation are CAD, CAM and PDM systems, so most of the participants in this review believe that the effectiveness of a PLM project in design offices and design organizations increases when it starts with these systems. "Then by the beginning of the implementation of ERP, the enterprise already has a source of up-to-date information about its products," Artem Avedyan explained.

But, unfortunately, enterprises often start implementing ERP without having either CAD or PDM. "That is why ERP production modules almost never work in mechanical engineering," Sergey Maryin complained.

True, CAD and ERP can be implemented in parallel. "But it is important that these two processes proceed in concert and be aimed at one common result," Vitaly Taldykin stressed.

Thus, according to the participants of the review, the transition to CAD and ERP can go sequentially or in parallel, but when using only one ERP system at an industrial enterprise, there is a risk of encountering organizational and technical problems. For example, there are errors caused by the need to manually enter data into the ERP system, and then its work will not bring the expected effect.

But it is not enough just to introduce CAD and ERP - they still need to be integrated. Difficulties may arise here. After all, there are serious differences between the products of these classes: the former focus on design and deal with unstructured information (drawings, models, sketches), while the latter are mainly focused on project management, product configuration, documents and workflows, i.e. work with structured data. There is no single recipe for integration. "The complexity of implementing the connection between CAD and ERP depends on each specific pair of such systems. If they are developed by one company, the possibility of such integration is laid initially. Otherwise, a lot depends on their architecture and the availability of open interfaces," said Anton Filippov.

Since the first option is rare (historically, CAD and ERP are produced by different companies), now CAD vendors are trying to provide interfaces for interacting with popular ERP products in their PDM systems (namely, through them this connection is made).

Depending on the requirements of the customer, the degree of integration between these two components of a single information environment may be different. For example, sometimes a unidirectional connection is sufficient. "Situations are possible when a simple transfer of data from PDM to ERP is enough. In this case, the first one acts as the core of the enterprise information system and should, in particular, solve the problems of maintaining all centralized directories of the enterprise - nomenclature, materials, etc.", - said Nikolai Shiryaev.

This is exactly how the Tver Carriage Works intends to act. “At the moment, we don’t have a full-fledged connection with the ERP system,” said Alexander Severov. “But we are going to implement it in one direction, at the level of information requests from databases of design and technological documentation. Such a connection will automatically receive real and up-to-date data on the composition of the product, on the rate of consumption of materials, on route technologies, operations, etc. Based on them, it will be possible to form production plans, purchase plans and production orders.

Although the "unidirectional" approach solves the most acute problem - it eliminates the need to manually transfer information from CAD to the management system, it cannot be considered full-fledged integration. "At the first stage, communication can be one-way, but in the future, data exchange should go both ways," Sergey Maryin believes. "Otherwise, the enterprise will not be able to solve design tasks for a given cost, maintain general directories in PDM and ERP, and implement end-to-end business processes ".

Thus, a comprehensive solution must be formed gradually, in the right order and with tangible benefits at every step.

Is it worth switching to PLM?

The path to PLM is not paved with roses. What does the organization get as a result? How to evaluate the economic effect?

It is known that there are two ways to increase the efficiency of activity: by reducing costs or by improving results. Vendors believe that PLM achieves both goals. After all, a complex system begins to bring returns to the enterprise from the very beginning - as specialists are trained and its individual parts are put into operation.

For example, during the first stage of implementation, productivity increases due to the automation of a number of design procedures, which leads to an increase in the productivity of engineering and technology departments and reduces design errors detected at the production stage. “In financial terms, savings at this stage can be measured in the amount of several tens to several hundred thousand dollars, depending on the cost of raw materials, tooling and products,” Artem Avedyan emphasized. “For example, in the automotive industry, the cost of manufacturing a stamp can reach 100 thousand dollars, but if a marriage is found, it will need to be re-issued. Thus, in the initial stages of the project, financial benefits are achieved by reducing production costs.

Significant savings are also provided by the overall increase in the level of information security and a significant reduction in errors due to a single entry of information into the system and the integration of all data.

As the management elements provided in PDM-systems are implemented, there are opportunities to increase labor productivity, which is achieved due to the parallel conduct of work and thus the reduction of the project stage. According to some indicators, it is possible to achieve acceleration by several times. "For example, the Lotsia PDM PLUS system allowed the Ramensky Instrument-Making Plant to reduce the time for making changes in technological documentation by almost eight times," said Nikolai Shiryaev.

The connection at the next stages of operational planning systems, resource management and other corporate applications ensures a clear establishment of control links and a rational division of tasks between enterprise departments, which leads to a more correct and cost-effective allocation of resources and, accordingly, to a reduction in production and non-production costs. As a result, a reduction in the cost of manufactured products is achieved.

Then, during the operation of the complex system, the value of the information accumulated by the enterprise begins to increase, which makes it possible to increasingly borrow data for new developments and thereby reduce the time and cost of their implementation.

We should not forget about the growth of the prestige of the enterprise in the eyes of colleagues and customers, associated with the use of modern technologies.

Future prospects

World practice shows that PLM is turning from a trendy trend into a necessary component of a successful business, especially in high-tech industries. Russia is no exception in this process. Moreover, we have an advantage - the ability to avoid the mistakes made by the pioneers, and take advantage of a large number of ready-made solutions that have absorbed world experience and have already got rid of "childhood diseases".

And although our enterprises are still only at the beginning of the path leading to the full-scale implementation of PLM, the question of the need for this step is no longer worth it. Another question is on the agenda: how to get a working system capable of meeting the requirements of the technical task within the specified time and for adequate money? There is no unequivocal answer to it yet, but there is hope that the joint efforts of suppliers and customers will solve this problem.