PDMGuru

Introduction I thought it would be interesting to look at why people and companies might consider changing PLM tool. You might not think it is usual but it can happen for a number of reasons. I'd like to make some comments and suggestions on how to do this. Why change Choice or necessity? Choice It might be that you realize that you made a mistake in choosing the current tool and/or it might not be fit for purpose. Clearly this is a big step and I would always suggest trying to avoid this. I'd recommend working with the current vendor to see if the situation can be remedied. It is very likely that your company has already made significant investments in the tool and training so to throw all this away should be avoided at all cost. I think most vendors would do all they could to help you in sorting out problems with the current system. It might be that there are irreconcilable issues between you and the vendor and their tool and you decide to move to another syst

Introduction I wanted to develop a white-paper with some comments about the small and medium sized business (SMB) view of PLM. The SMB space has some specific PLM offerings including ones from Siemens and PTC, but I wanted to discuss some topics I feel are pertinent to all SMB implementations . What is SMB? Defining an SMB is not easy; I would typify them by saying 1. They are usually privately owned companies 2. Often are suppliers to larger companies 3. Have small numbers of engineers who work on multiple projects and tend to be flexible in how they work 4. They probably manufacture things themselves Why implement PLM at SMBs? Understand problems to solve It is important to understand why you want to implement PLM at your business, there is a considerable investment in time and money to achieve this so insure you have a good problem statement. The most pressing issues for SMBs tend to be vaulting CAD data, managing change, bill of material management and consolidat