Why should you purchase a product data management (PDM) solution? Because you heard it could save your company 10 to 20 percent of revenues annually? It might. Because its the latest, new technology? It isn't really. Or should you purchase a PDM solution because it will change how your company manages and uses information? Bingo.
Product data management solutions relate all, not just part, of the data relevant to a particular product. It does this using a product point of view. This approach to product data enhances a company's ability to perform tasks related to using this information. This product centered paradigm is unique.
Traditional document and electronic document management systems (EDMS) have a document or image-centered focus. Market analysts have tried to delineate the differences between PDM and other document management systems by pointing this out. They go on to explain that while product data management abandons a document-centered focus its only distinguishing feature is that it adds robust configuration management capabilities. But PDM is much more than just adding configuration management to an already existing set of tools, as we shall see.
It's true that product data management solutions use many of the technology tools currently available. Tools like GUIs, e-mail and file routing via networks. They also include electronic document and data management features that are popular today. Like many other data management products, they define powerful rules-based systems that control access to documents and data. These computerized processes, often referred to as workflow, automatically track documents, notify players of the next task to be done, route and distribute files and record "electronic" approvals -- all without the rustle of a single piece of paper. As most experts have noticed, this unique combination of technology results in powerful systems that manage files, images and data, while defining the processes that control them and maintaining the relationships between them. But these tools by themselves or used together do not fundamentally change how information is managed or used.
Product data management, however, does change how data is used. Its product-centered and task-enhancing approach to data requires a serious re-thinking of how tasks are accomplished. PDM's paradigm asks how data can best be used to empower users and then goes on to continually answer the question in ways previously unavailable. In concert with its suite of technology tools, PDM enables companies to link existing technologies, re-think information relationships, re-engineer procedures, empower employees and continuously improve processes.
How is this product centered, task enhancing paradigm different from other data management paradigms?
To begin with, most data management solutions perform the same functions inherent in manual systems, only more quickly. They don't introduce a new methodology at all. The computer industry we have today was built on the ability to process information in much the same way it is processed manually. We humans have not fundamentally changed the way we process information for thousands of years. Even with computers, we still process information in the same old way, only faster. No real innovation. No real improvements.
This shouldn't surprise us. After the invention of the steam engine, many mill owners used the new steam engines to pump water into their existing water wheels to grind grain just as they had for centuries. In much the same say, businesses today use computer systems to simply do the same old jobs faster. Think to yourself, how many computers are just powerful, expensive typewriters? Just like the millers of yesteryear, it hasn't dawned on us to connect the steam engine to the grinding shaft directly. Using our computers, we are able to produce data more efficiently and in greater quantities than eve before. but, does computerizing the individual tasks result in increased overall productivity?
No, says Harvard economist, Gary Loveman. After U.S. business spent a whopping $1 trillion on information technology in the 1980s, he stunned the business world by announcing that he could find little evidence of a substantial productivity increase resulting from this investment in information technology. Other studies have reached similar conclusions.
The verdict is in. Dramatic productivity increases are not achieved by simply automating or computerizing manual tasks. Companies have realized only localized productivity increases from installing bigger computers, fancy CAD/CAM systems, relational databases, and other whiz-bang technologies. National productivity rose a meager 1 percent per year. But in 1992, productivity jumped to 3 percent. Why this sudden increase?
Researchers attribute this rise to a relatively recent exercise known as "process re-engineering." Re-engineering questions traditional assumptions and procedures and then starts over. Often, this means breaking down traditional walls between groups, a sure fire way to boost productivity. It's believed that re-engineering, combined with old and new technology, is fueling the fires of productivity, even in the face of extensive downsizing.
But re-engineering alone is not enough to significantly increase overall productivity. A fundamental change in how we relate to and use data is needed to realize lasting increases in productivity. Product data management systems and their underlying paradigm provide that fundamental change.
To illustrate how this comes together, lets consider how an engineer might revise an already existing design using PDM. First, the designer accesses the design by opening an electronic folder. The system allows or refuses her access based on the folder's status in the release process and the roles she plays in that process. Once she has "opened" the design folder she is able to access all the information related to the design. For instance, she is able to look at changes pending against the design. She can also view relationships to understand what other designs or documents might be affected by her proposed change. From this same interface she can look at CAD files, markups, comments and text files. When she is ready to make a change, she opens a markup tool, enters her comments and sends the folder to be automatically routed. From their terminal they are able to view other data linked to the system. When she is finished, her work is accepted, protected and routed to the next players automatically. Administrative tasks, once consuming most of her work day, have been automated. Others, whose work depends on hers, have access from terminals on their desks to that information much earlier in the process.
This sharing of information as early in the cycle as possible is extremely important. Studies have shown that changes made to designs early in the development process cost less and improve quality.
Scenarios of information sharing like the one cited earlier, could be constructed for every kind of user in any organization. In addition, with a PDM system, other concurrent tasks are easily accomplished boosting overall productivity. The manufacturing engineer is notified of a designer's change and has access to the design before it is actually released. Manufacturing work instructions are related to the design so when the designer proposes changes she will know manufacturing may have to change the work instructions. The system automatically notifies the manufacturing engineer of any proposed changes. Quality and safety are able to view the design from their desktops and approve them electronically. Likewise, purchasing views dynamic bills of materials that are linked to products actually in the process of being designed or built on the manufacturing floor. The disposition of materials affected by proposed or pending changes is automatically updated so that waste is minimized. The field engineer getting ready to upgrade a customer's system is able to log onto the enterprise system and know exactly what is needed and be able to order parts. The list of applications is endless.
This new way of looking at things, this paradigm, may seem trivial, but it is the most significant contribution PDM makes to productivity. It results in virtual information. This paradigm is poised to change the information processing world as we now know it.
But the change in philosophy and practice is painful. To avoid the political and cultural pitfalls to such a radical change, companies and consultants have tried to develop ways to minimize the pain while maximizing the benefits.
One such approach is to implement PDM in technology {modules." These modules are generally divided into four groups -- electronic vault, process control, structures and configuration management -- VPSC for short. To minimize the cost and risk, many implementations begin with an electronic vault. Doing this allows an organization to ignore the product centered paradigm and the pain associated with it. Unfortunately, such an implementation will most likely miss most of the potential benefits of PDM. It is well known that most of the PDM solutions implemented in this way have not yet expanded beyond the electronic vault or process control.
Those organizations who have embraced the PDM paradigm and implemented a complete VPSC solution have seen radical changes in their cultures as a result. Companies who thought they were simply installing a new technology were shocked to find that this paradigm actually caused them to re-engineer their processes. Most now realize they were unprepared by their vendors or the industry for such sweeping changes. In spite of this, they remain convinced that the benefits are worth the difficulty so they meet the challenge head on. These companies are willing to change paradigms, often the more painful choice, over simply adding more technology. Clearly, the future of business is not investing in more technology, but embracing new paradigms.
Christopher Williams is president of Summit Source Consulting Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif. His past includes eight years in the aerospace industry at Morton Thiokai and almost five years at a PDM vendor