Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) 

involves managing the product from concept till the end of life. In this journey, we do create lots of document. Most of them are single file documents like MS Word, Excel sheets, PDFs, Presentation, reports etc. There are a few document which had references/relations with other document and it become challenge to open if link between is broken. Organizations cannot think of launching product to market without having this. Yes, I’m taking about product design files generated using CAD applications.

Managing the single file is much easier hence they do not have interdependency amongst themselves. When we talk about CAD documents this involves assembly, Part, Part Families, Drawings etc. All of these have their dependency on each other. Part can be referred into Assemblies and drawing. Assemblies may referenced into other assemblies, drawings. To manage the relation between these files PLM do have Bill of Materials (BOM) as a separate module. This maintains the complete relationship of components involved in the product assembly. This might get you some relief, we can manage our product assembly easily with the help of BOM Management feature in PLM Application. I’m also agree to this if you have small assemblies around 20-30 component, But the process of creating BOM into PLM application may becomes another project if you have a complex product assembly also need additional efforts to fill information for each BOM line like quantity, find number, units etc. There are a few challenges from CAD applications too i.e. manually update the metadata like item number, revision, status etc. Generate neutral file format locally and upload into PLM software.

Knowing this fact we cannot think product without design, product lifecycle without design documents. We must manage the CAD documents into PLM software. To manage CAD documents using Out Of The Box (OOTB) PLM software feature as discussed becomes another project. Integrating CAD applications with PLM software will makes this easy also reduces lots of duplicate efforts while managing CAD document into PLM software.

PLM software do have there standard integrations available in market with the additional cost. These integration do serve the purpose of most organization. A few organization do ready investing in developing their own CAD integration considering the complexity across the different teams, heavily customized PLM software and available integrations are not up to the mark for their requirement.

A good integration tool must have key features

BOM Management

CAD bill of materials (BOM) is a comprehensive list of parts, assemblies, subassemblies, drawings, and other materials required to create a product. The BOM can be thought of as the recipe used to create a finished product, presented in a hierarchical format. Integration must be able to synchronize the BOM generated in the CAD with PLM software.

Synchronization involves maintaining the complete structure, also properties of each bom line quantity, units, item number etc. BOM must be driven by the CAD Applications. Any change done in CAD related to BOM should be reflected into PLM on a click.

Attribute Syncing

Attributes plays an important role in managing any data, how cad document could be an exception. Lots of attribute collectively defines a part e.g. part number, revision, status, name, description, approvers, creation date, dimension, density, volume etc. List will continue with a few more attributes/properties. All these properties must be synced across the application. Apart from syncing we must be able to configure these whether property/attribute driven by CAD application or PLM or both.

Manage Document

Managing document involves different feature lets see one by one

• • Create New – Integration must provide an option to create new document into PLM, associate this with the CAD document.

• • Search & Open – Search existing document should be available to quickly find already uploaded document into PLM. Searched document should able to easily load into CAD application.

• • Upload Updated – No good design is complete without any modification. Every newly created or modified document into CAD application can be easily uploaded into PLM application.

• • Neutral File Conversion – Making CAD model into neutral file format makes it lighter and easy to load. Neutral files can be easily viewed in opensource application. This helps organization to keep design data secured from vendors. Integration must have option to perform conversion as well upload under respective document into PLM.

Manage PLM Application Session

To maintain the data security every PLM application has user login this further defines access for the documents in system. Integration should allow user to login to PLM application with credentials as well logout after performing hi work from CAD applications itself. It must restrict to perform any activity within PLM application unless used is logged into the PLM application.

We do discussed about the key features of any CAD integration tool lets look at Challenges, Benefits about integration tools.

Challenges

• • One integration application suits to all the product development organizations.

• • Implementing CAD BOM Configurations

• • User acceptance with new system

Benefits

• • Effective utilization of PLM System

• • Documents can be managed smoothly

• • Eliminates manual data entry

• • Reduces errors in the system

Conclusion

Knowing this fact PLM without CAD integration makes a PLM implementation a time consuming over the time saving system. Prioritizing the CAD-PLM integrations project will definitely benefit most of the organization. Before thinking of PLM implementation organizations must think about CAD integration. This will be really a cherry on top also lead to effective way of using PLM System.