Data Management for the Masses: What's It Gonna Take?

Today's small- to medium-sized manufacturers can actually achieve maximum results with a minimum investment in basic data management tools. But this requires a careful selection process.

Product data management (PDM) solutions on the market today hold tremendous promise for large manufacturers looking to solve data management issues on a broad scale across the enterprise and beyond, through the supply chain. Vast in scope, these high-end systems can solve all types of problems - that is, for an elite class of companies that can afford the high risk and potential high reward of procuring, deploying, learning and integrating full-scale PDM solutions.

For the "masses" of small- to medium-sized companies out there today, it's not so simple. They face a dilemma. Should they continue to manage data and files in the age-old, time-intensive and error-prone ways of the past - with drawing trees and spreadsheets used to track drawing and document relationships? Or should they "bite the bullet" with a long-term investment in a full-blown PDM solution that's difficult to learn and use, and could take months, quite possibly years, to fully implement?

Faced with an all or nothing proposition, most are stuck with nothing.

Four Categories of PDM Solutions

One of the key steps for any company looking for a PDM solution is to make sure that they understand the scope of the problems they are trying to solve. Each of these categories - Document Management, Parts Management, Full PDM and Collaborative Product Commerce - has vastly different costs and complexity of implementation.

Document Management

This basic category offers many companies the greatest return and is generally the first to be implemented. With Document Management, companies store all of their engineering documents in a secure area on the network called a vault. There also is a relational database that records information about each file. This provides the capability to easily search for a file and to link related files to each other so that they are easy to find.

When working with 3-D CAD software, there is an additional requirement for Document Management. Typically, CAD systems store each part subassembly in different files. In order to view the top-level assembly, the user must have access to all of the part files. However, to avoid two users modifying the same model, the Document Management system needs to control which models a user can modify and which he can only view.

Because each CAD system manages relations between assemblies, parts, drawings and other data in a unique way, it is very important that the PDM system specifically supports the CAD system in use. For a robust integration, it is best if the CAD vendor also develops the PDM system. Otherwise, it is very typical that the PDM system won’t support the latest version of the CAD system or some advanced new features of the CAD system.

Parts Management

With the Parts Management extension, the PDM system not only stores information about individual computer files such as CAD models, it also stores the relationships between all of the parts that make up a final assembly. Therefore the PDM system must be able to create a structure for the bill of materials and then relate the CAD models to one or more part numbers in the BOM. Without this functionality, design engineers typically track the BOM for a product in a spreadsheet that is not associated with the CAD drawings.

Once the bill of materials is captured in the PDM system, it is very common to develop the capability to transfer this data to downstream manufacturing systems, such as an MRP or ERP system. A direct transfer of this information saves considerable time and of course greatly improves the accuracy.

Although engineering managers at smaller companies are well aware of the critical need to automate and streamline engineering processes to speed and simplify product development cycles, today's lavish PDM implementations are often overkill.

What they really want is to get up and running quickly with a flexible, scalable system that affords them basic product data management functionality on the desktop, while allowing them to add new, more sophisticated features over time. A PDM system well suited for the "masses" would be:

• Scalable
• Interoperable
• Easy to implement, learn and use
• Affordable

Scalable Functionality

Traditional data management solutions are modular in nature, but typically scale very well upward - not downward. For individual users or small engineering workgroups simply looking for ways to manage and track myriad files and documents needed for a full design spec, through release and beyond, traditional systems are too much too soon.

The most basic of functionality - document management - actually offers the greatest return on investment for companies, making it possible for designers and design teams to store all of their engineering documents in a secure "vault" on the network. An external relational database records information about each file, so it's easy to search for - and find - files and to link related files.

A key benefit of document management is that there's only a single master copy of all released documents available to everyone. Without this, it's possible for documents and CAD files to be copied onto multiple computers and modified. Even worse, when there's no system in place or rules for managing access to a master document, there's nothing to prevent two users from making modifications to a document at the exact same time. The user who saves his file last "wins" over the user who saves his file first, overwriting the original document. In this scenario, many hours and even days of effort and time are irretrievably lost! Another important benefit of document management is that designs and drawings from one design can be shared or reused in the next project. That means the company - and design team - can fully reap the benefits of their CAD investment many times over.

The next level of functionality companies typically need is parts management. Without this, design engineers typically track all of the information about individual files (CAD models, drawings and documents), and relationships between documents and parts making up a final product - or the bill of materials (BOM) - on a spreadsheet that's not associated with the CAD drawings. The relationships between CAD files rarely match the structure of the product as it is to be assembled. In fact, the CAD file names don't often match the actual part numbers in the manufacturing BOM. With a parts management system, this time-consuming and inaccurate process is completely automated.

Full PDM

When companies choose to implement a full PDM system, they add a few extra applications, but also tend to undertake a great deal of customization. This is because applications such as Workflow and Product Life Cycle are used to manage and automate unique processes within the company. Workflow applications can be used to automate the routings of Engineering Change Orders, documents for release, or purchase requests through many stages, such as Work in Progress, In Release, Released, In Modification and Obsolete.

Moving the PDM implementation to this stage offers great benefits. Instead of just storing and managing individual engineering documents, the PDM system now automates the flow and lifecycle of every document. Many companies find that the average time to execute an ECO is about 45 days. The time actually spent using the CAD system to modify the models and drawings might be five days of this. If the company purchased the best CAD system and fully trained their users, maybe it would only take three days to modify the models. However, the ECO would still take 43 days. PDM implementations at this stage try to reduce the red tape and serial nature of engineering processes to save time. For example, a properly installed PDM system for this company should be able to reduce the ECO process to only 10 days.

Additionally, fully implemented PDM systems tend to interface with other computer systems in the company. Besides sending BOM data to an ERP system, they can be set up to retrieve cost and availability data on parts. They can also be linked to sales, order processing, and even human resources.

Collaborative Product Commerce

A properly installed PDM system will manage and automate engineering documents and CAD models within a company or even several divisions of a company. In today's business environment however, this is sometimes not enough. Engineering projects often include people from outside a single company such as suppliers, customers and contractors. As CPC systems are typically web-based, they are not tied to the IT infrastructure of any one company, allowing different organizations to collaborate on a product design. However, similar to PDM systems, CPC can be implemented with different levels of sophistication. In simple systems, there may just be a common vault for project data available to anyone working on the project. In more complex instances it can manage product structure and workflow within the project. Typically the CPC system will need to tie into different computer systems residing in one or more companies, allowing it to collect and structure data from the different sources and present it as a single view of the project for the engineering team.

More sophisticated functionality for managing product data becomes important once CAD tools have been deployed more broadly across the company and the extended enterprise. That's when a scalable PDM system can be expanded to include tools for administering users at varying levels of authorization, for managing and controlling access to data in the vault (according to the various stages in the design cycle), and even automating the engineering change process or workflow. For example, once a file is tagged as "work in progress" an engineer may have change privileges, but once the file is tagged as "released," only an engineering manager may have change privileges.

Interoperable

A data management system must fundamentally be designed so that data can be easily shared among a variety of users and associated disparate PDM systems. This implies excellent web-connectivity, the ability to interface with enterprise PDM and MRP systems, and to manage data from a variety of CAD and other related applications, as well as scanned documents. It also means that the system users must have access to the engineering database without having to run the actual CAD application - an important requirement for managers and other consumers of data outside the engineering organization.

Easy to Implement, Learn and Use

Probably the single most troublesome aspect of most data management tools is the complexity of implementation - typically, a long, drawn-out process involving committees, database experts, consulting firms and, ultimately, millions of dollars! The result? After months, even years, companies can end up with an implementation that's so cumbersome that no one wants to use it!

The most innovative solutions today are nearly transparent to the end user. Engineering data and document relationships are automatically tracked and collected for retrieval in a fully scalable manner, over time. When the need arises, the data can be exposed and used to deliver all the functionality required, as the need arises for managing documents in a more sophisticated way.

Of course, full customization tools do become critical as deployment of CAD tools expands across the company. Today, most traditional PDM systems tend to be relational in nature with great performance. However, the customization tools involved can vary from either extreme. On one hand, a company may find them to be object-oriented with lackluster performance and scaleability. But, on the other hand, the tools also can be relatively easy to learn and use.

The most elegant solutions are designed to take advantage of the best of both worlds: the ease of use of an object-oriented environment with the scalability and performance advantages of a relational database.

Making the Investment

As with most complex computer systems, it is important to understand the scope of the requirements and the expected benefits before choosing a product or an implementation. Unfortunately, most PDM systems on the market today require a significant, company-wide investment in both dollars and time - the expectation is that everyone will jump on the bandwagon to install a full PDM solution, with extensive customization. Very often these implementations take many months with less than stellar results. The ideal scenario is a scalar type of implementation allowing companies to start quickly and easily with document management, so that everyone experiences the technology's benefits within several days. Over time, the company should be able to easily add new functionality.

Affordable

A PDM solution for the "masses" also must be affordable, so that every single person who needs access to the product data can quickly and easily have access to the appropriate level of information on their desktop. Just as with personal productivity tools like e-mail, the full power of PDM solutions can only be realized once it's been broadly deployed and everyone involved in product development is connected. Also, it's important to keep in mind that the total cost of a PDM solution encompasses the tangible (software, implementation services) and intangible (valuable time of internal personnel) resources required to get the system up and running. For small- to medium-size companies, simplicity's the key.

PDM for the "Masses," What's it Really Gonna Take?

Today's small- to medium-sized manufacturers can actually achieve spectacular results with basic data management tools - without "breaking the bank." But this requires a careful selection process. It's important to keep in mind that the right mass PDM solution isn't likely to come from any of the brand-name MCAD players anytime soon - their sights are squarely focused on delivering high-end PDM solutions to the largest, wealthiest manufacturers. More likely, it will come from a company focused on delivering 3-D design tools to the masses - a company squarely focused on ease of implementation and affordability - without sacrificing critical functionality.

For more information contact Rael Morris, director of marketing for think3 (Santa Clara, CA) at (408) 987-2200.