PDM to PLM: Evolving to the Future
By: Ken Amann, Director of Research, CIMdata, Inc

1. Introduction
This paper describes the evolution of Product Data Management (PDM) into comprehensive Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the beginnings and growth of this important software industry and the extent to which PLM is being utilized today. Issues that triggered the initial investments in the industry and shaped its growth are discussed. Examining these issues provides insight into why PLM has evolved into the mission-critical enterprise solution that it is today.

While the industry started with CAD data management and then evolved to enterprise PDM, the evolution has continued and PDM is now considered a core component of all comprehensive PLM solutions. Managing the product lifecycle has been the basic vision of PDM for many years and that vision has evolved into today's PLM.

PLM business solutions are focused on solving specific business problems, such as "managing the change process across the intellectual supply chain of an electronics manufacturer" or "supporting the project management activities across the extended enterprise." These solutions are delivered through a combination of foundation technologies and core functions (e.g., PDM), enabling applications, established methods and processes, and implementation approaches

CIMdata defines PLM as a strategic business approach that applies a consistent set of business solutions in support of the collaborative creation, management, dissemination, and use of product definition information across the extended enterprise from concept to end of life - integrating people, processes, business systems, and information. PLM creates and manages the digital product or plant (i.e., a company's intellectual assets) and provides an information backbone for a company and its extended enterprise. It is composed of multiple elements including: foundation technologies and standards (e.g., visualization, collaboration, and enterprise application integration), information authoring and analysis tools (e.g., AEC, MDA, FEA, EDA, CASE, and technical publishing), core functions (e.g., data vaults, document and content management, workflow management, classification management, and program management), applications (e.g., configuration management), and business solutions built on the other elements (e.g., an automotive supplier solution or a plant inspection and maintenance solution).

2. Evolving From CAD Data to Lifecycle Management
PDM systems were first developed within large corporations as "home grown" systems used to manage CAD files related to product designs. In the early 1980's Control Data Corporation (CDC) released the first commercially available CAD file management system, EDL - the Electronic Data Library. The emergence of digital design systems created the need for systems like EDL. The change from designing product and plants using manual drawing boards to using a computer terminal or workstation and a CAD application resulted in an explosion of digital data. Because those design applications created many digital files, it became increasingly difficult to effectively capture, manage, and control the output of those systems. Users had more and more difficulty locating needed information and companies were losing control of the change processes associated with that information.

This problem become more widespread during the mid 1980's, as design systems became ever more comprehensive and complex, and more engineers began to use standalone workstations. More companies began to offer products to address these data management issues, including Sherpa, Computervision, and SDRC.

Originally, PDM was focused on solving the problems of CAD file management by providing a data vaulting facility, and was typically limited in scope to an engineering department or workgroup. These solutions were based upon foundation technologies that handled data and communications requirements. Additional functions were quickly added to this base, expanding the core capabilities of PDM systems. As the industry evolved, the scope expanded beyond engineering departments. By the early 1990's, industry demanded more sophisticated applications to address issues such as product structure, change control, configuration management, and others. A host of related technologies, such as visualization, began to appear and were quickly used to enhance the capabilities and value of PDM implementations

As this evolution continued, the term PDM also evolved. Users expected PDM to encompass more capabilities and functionality in support of product development. PDM, which initially focused on CAD and engineering file management, became a term that also included process management using workflow, and shared information using visualization and collaboration. Since each supplier used different terminology to describe the product space and their solution, users struggled to understand what these new management systems offered and why they should invest in deploying them.

Thus, throughout the mid 1980's to early 1990's, there was confusion as to what to call product-related information, particularly engineering information with confusing acronyms such as PIM, EDM, TIM, and TDM all in use. As the data came to be referred to generically as product data, the term product data management (PDM) emerged. Both users and solution providers embraced PDM and used the term for many years. In fact, PDM remains a foundation component of PLM. However, in the mid to late 1990's, new acronyms again created confusion in the market as people began to consider the product lifecycle and collaboration-PDM, cPDm, CPC, and others. These terms overlap and carry multiple meanings. However, with the start of the new millennium, PLM emerged as the generally accepted "term of choice" used to describe this market space. As with PDM, different solution providers define PLM differently. As described in Section 1, CIMdata defines PLM a business approach for the creation, management, and use of product-associated intellectual capital and information throughout the lifecycle.

Thus, there has been a continuous evolution of this industry; an evolution that has expanded the capabilities and lifecycle focus of the enabling technologies, methodologies, and processes.

3. The Change of Focus
Fifteen to twenty years ago, custom CAD data management system implementations focused on precise applications primarily wrapped around engineering design data, see Figure 1. In the late 1980's, the major emphasis was on how to manage engineering drawings, with limited scope solutions primarily sold to managers in engineering departments. Figure 1 illustrates the evolution of PDM technologies and focus to the PLM environment and solutions of today.

Figure 1. The Evolution of PDM Technologies and Solutions

The change in focus and scope of as PDM solutions evolved to meet customer demands for easier deployment, more business focus out-of-the-box capabilities that spanned a broader cross section of their business.

Custom implementations evolved into toolkits and generic applications that automated some typical functions, such as file check in and check out procedures. Custom implementation, toolkits, and generic applications helped reduce design and development costs and contributed to improved product quality. As the solution providers gained experience implementing their tools in different industries, their offerings evolved into delivering focused business applications which continued to address cost and quality and added a focus on time to market. These applications provided standard data models, predefined workflow templates, and other functions necessary to solve specific business problems. Today, the focus is on complete business solutions that address top and bottom line issues, and enable innovation. These solutions incorporate best practices to allow organizations to migrate their business processes toward de facto industry standards. This evolution has changed not only the level of managers that buy these solutions, but also the issues that are driving these investments and, more importantly, the manner in which these solutions are acquired and implemented.

As part of this evolution, the scope or definition of the "product lifecycle" has also changed. Fifteen years ago, the "lifecycle" focused on the design engineering activity, as the tools concentrated on CAD data management. In the late 1980's, that perspective began to expand to include workflow and processes across the product lifecycle, i.e., to share information and processes among different design activities. That expansion continues today with PLM solutions touching many different business functions and organizations beyond traditional engineering and design departments.

As a result of users understanding both the need and benefits available, first from PDM and now PLM solutions, they continued to invest and to grow their investments in these enabling technologies and solutions. As the scope of solutions has broadened, new suppliers continue to develop products and services for this market space, which in turn continue to drive user investments.

Over the past five years, visualization and collaboration solutions have emerged. These solutions have greatly expanded the number of users able to easily access and use product information that was previously available only to design engineers with access to high-end design tools. Adoption of internet-based technologies and computing paradigms has made PLM solutions easier to implement and deploy across distributed enterprises. While the need for services required to tailor or customize the base products has been reduced, other implementation services (e.g., integration with other business systems, and cultural change and business process re-engineering consulting) associated with deployment of new capabilities and working paradigms has increased the scope and effectiveness of PLM deployments.

Evolution of the PLM industry has been, and continues to be, driven by several factors. In the early days, as discussed previously, CAD file management was the initiator for the development of tools and applications to address the need to manage digital product design data. At the same time, electronic document management tools were also coming into common use. However, just managing digital product data, while providing benefits to departments and individuals, was not a compelling reason for companies to invest in broader lifecycle management solutions. Over time, as the solutions have expanded to meet the challenges and needs of businesses, PLM, and PDM before it, have demonstrated bottom line value for companies that deploy and utilize such solutions.

In response to the requirements of their customers, suppliers have continued to expand the scope of their product vision, putting much more emphasis on the concepts of collaboration and management of product definition, rather than on just managing product data. Solution suppliers have incorporated web and internet-based technologies and operating paradigms to create expanded solutions that are enabling increasing numbers and types of users to participate in both the definition and use of product and plant information. Entry of new suppliers, technologies, and solutions into the industry has continuously expanded the scope of lifecycle and business support, and the market for them.

Within a comprehensive PLM solution, PDM is a set of technologies and capabilities that support information management throughout the product/plant lifecycle and provides many of the critical core functions and foundation technologies. PDM includes the following basic elements of PLM solutions:

• Information and document vaulting
• Content and document management
• Workflow and process management
• Product structure management
• Configuration management
• Classification management
• Program and project management

PDM is an organized source for information and manages:

• Viewable versions of product/plant information
• Reviews, markups and decisions
• Provides data and process management
• Product configurations
• Release of product information to manufacturing or construction

Additionally, PDM enforces data access control, defines and executes workflow, and coordinates and integrates with other applications

PDM provides an application neutral environment for visualization and collaboration that enable personnel without access to, or knowledge of, authoring tools to view, comment on, and use product information created by those tools thus expanding the use and value of core product information.

The core of PLM is universal, secure, managed access to the definition of a product or plant and maintaining the integrity of the product definition and related information throughout the life of the product or plant. PDM delivers these core capabilities. PDM is fundamental to PLM because PDM has always focused on data and configuration management. PDM provides the infrastructure required to deliver the two fundamental characteristics of PLM:

• Providing universal, managed access to product and plant definition information (the intellectual assets via the "data vault" and role, organization user based security
• Maintaining product and plant information definition integrity through product structure management, configuration management, and workflow-enabled change management

4. Summary
Today, PLM is widely recognized as a business necessity. PDM was the genesis for PLM and continues to provide the core functions that are the foundation for creating and deploying successful PLM solutions; information access and sharing and configuration and information management and integrity. Ultimately, PDM and PLM enable companies to leverage their investments in product related intellectual and physical assets and are the vehicles to reduce cost, provide solid return on investment, and enable product and process innovation, thus delivering a positive impact on a company's bottom line

PDM evolved into PLM solutions that have become broader in scope and that affect more functional areas within a business. As they have expanded beyond PDM systems that originally were constrained within the walls of the engineering and design departments, PLM solutions are helping many more users from across more functions to easily create, capture, access, share, and use their extended enterprise's intellectual assets, and enabled businesses in multiple industry sectors to respond to market pressures in new and innovative ways.