PLM as support for global design reuse - Long term benefits and immediate drawbacks

Abstract

To stay competitive, a large company must make use of its size and gain economy of scale, one way being through reusing designed parts and technology knowledge globally throughout the organization. This paper describes a case study performed at a company that is implementing a new Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system, globally across several different divisions, to be able to reuse design across the organization. The study shows that though global design reuse is the final goal, the way there is long. The true benefits are still in the future, but there are issues with the PLM solution on the designer level. To prevent such a situation in the future, the authors suggest that benefits shall be defined for all phases in the PLM implementation, not just as high business goals for the final stage. That way, you keep momentum in the change effort and keep all parties motivated. © 2012 International Federation for Information Processing.