It’s All About Togetherness

This article focuses on various features of product data management system (PDM). A PDM system manages all forms of product data; that is, computer-aided design or text files, or anything else concerning product development. PDM systems also ensure that bills of material are generated on the design side. The bill of material describes exactly what parts will be used in each manufactured product. Using the bill of material (BOM), a manufacturing engineer determines the most efficient set of operations to manufacture a product and may request a design modification to streamline production. BOM development should logically take place in the PDM system at the same time the product is being developed and then should be released to the enterprise resource planning system—and thus to the manufacturing side—when the product design is complete. An enterprise-resource planning system is a company’s operational, planning, and control system used to manage the resources of the manufacturing part of the operation.