A blog by Oleg Shilovitsky
Information & Comments about Engineering and Manufacturing Software

Future CAD won’t require PDM

Future CAD won’t require PDM
Oleg
Oleg
13 January, 2015 | 2 min for reading

on-shape-pdm-1

Let’s be honest. Engineers hate data management. This is something that stands between their engineering creativity and formal configuration control. Check-in/check-out are two most painful functions for CAD users when it comes together with PDM. I recall my very old blog from 2011 speaks about the notion of “invisible PDM”. Navigate your browsers to PDM. Pre-configured? Painless? That was my conclusion back four years ago:

Engineers normally dislike PDM functions. They are trying to avoid it as much as possible. Therefore, PDM systems are not as popular when it comes to implementations. It requires time, cost and affect CAD functionality. However, the industry perception is that you need to have PDM to control your data. CAD vendors are trying to embed PDM functions into CAD packages and improve vertical integration between CAD and PDM packages. Can it be completely pre-configured and painless? I’m not sure. I think, the best PDM engineers can think about is the “invisible PDM”.

Solidsmack article about OnShape new CAD system put an interesting perspective on future PDM option for CAD:

We tried with traditional PDM, but fundamentally the architecture of copying files around, to and from servers and desktops, is just not a good basis for solving version control and collaboration problems. We think we have a better way to solve the problems, and no PDM system is needed.” Mac, Windows, phone or tablet. No PDM system needed. The files stay in one place. Different UI look. Now those sound like interesting and wonderful things. We’ll continue to anxiously anticipate what they have planned and what you have to say about it.

What is my conclusion? Cloud is changing paradigms and we are going to see a different user experience appears in engineering software – CAD, PDM and beyond. It can shift the way people are collaborating and eliminate the need for painless check-in/check-out functions that are moving files between servers and desktops. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

picture credit OnShape

Disclaimer: I’m co-founder and CEO of OpenBOM developing a digital cloud-native PDM & PLM platform that manages product data and connects manufacturers, construction companies, and their supply chain networksMy opinion can be unintentionally biased.

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
15 July, 2019

Terminology in the industry is a beast. Earlier today, I exchanged comments with Chad Jackson after watching his “database-less” Solid...

14 April, 2009

I want to ask a straightforward question – how is user experience important for building a successful enterprise application (such...

9 March, 2018

One of the advantages of living in Boston area is to be surrounded by CAD and PLM companies. Long time...

8 June, 2012

Earlier this week, Kenesto – new outfit of Mike Payne announced about general availability of their cloud based business process...

17 February, 2017

Nobody ever got fired for buying from IBM. That was the story of enterprise PLM software for many years. PLM...

27 July, 2010

I read Jim Brown’s Can Siemens Make More Fun with HD-PLM? Jim is writing about the future of PLM experience. I...

29 February, 2016

Entrepreneurs are taking manufacturing by storm. Recent HBR article –Entrepreneurs Take On Manufacturing by Mark Muro gives you an interesting perspective on...

14 March, 2014

We are really bad about managing ourselves. The natural people behavior is to create mess. Life is getting more dynamic...

28 September, 2009

Interesting post few days ago. What is very annoying is the number of buzzwords growing in the enterprise system world....

Blogroll

To the top