I want to talk about PDM today. Product Data Management is not a new topic. Companies are using PDM many years. However, here is a deal – after many years of PDM deployment, customers are still trying to avoid to implement PDM. You may think it is mostly small and medium companies, but it is not true. I’ve seen many large companies that are using files and folders structure to manage their design files and revisions.
You may think PDM overkill? The issue of “sizing” of PDM and PLM isn’t new as well. Navigate to one of my previous posts about that – PLM: Rightsizing vs. Wrongsizing Debates. My conclusion there – size doesn’t matter. Two major aspects of PDM/PLM deployment – user experience and cost of ownership. PLM needs to focus on these sooner than later.
I wasn’t alone in the discussion about PDM for SMB and rightsizing. My industry friends Chad Jackson and Jim Brown captured this topic in their regular talk show – Tech4PD. Navigate to this link to read more – Is Product Data Management Overkill for Small Design Teams? If you have few minutes watch the video.
The discussion made me think about two significant issues where PDM brings overkill to engineers. First and most important – nobody likes data management. If you are in a big company and your boss will tell you to use PDM, you do. However, if you have even a chance not to use PDM, you won’t miss that opportunity. Design is cool, but data management is boring stuff. So, if it is an absolute need, then you agree to use it. However, here is where the second question is coming – cost! The issue of cost is coming faster than you expected. It is not a cheap job to deploy PDM even for small company with 5-10 users.
What is my conclusion? Last 15 years of PDM didn’t solve the problem of user experience and cost for PDM. We still see high cost of PDM systems and user experience coming from last century. Customers are demanding new type of tools even going beyond what mainstream PDMs (eg. SolidWorks Enterprise PDM and Autodesk Vault) are capable to provide. The time for innovation is coming. Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg
