PLM based solutions for extended entreprises

Digital engineering for product development, industrialization, manufacturing and product services is booming and has enabled costs to be reduced and technologies to move forward in many industrial sectors. The management of data, knowledge, business processes, competences and feedbacks related to these new uses are key factors for business competitiveness and innovation. The problems to be addressed are difficulties in managing the various versions and configurations of products with the constraints related to subcontracting and simultaneous engineering and services, notably while developing strongly integrated products such as complex mechatronics products.
In order to address these topics, companies including original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and parts/systems and services providers need to have their information system and processes developed in order to take account of the entire Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). PLM has already been put in place in large companies and more specifically in those of the automotive and aerospace sectors. On the other hand, the cost, complexity and management of the competences associated to implementing and using tools combining PLM and CAD make small to medium enterprises (SMEs) difficult to use. This talk will focus on the requirements, problems and benefits of the PLM-based solutions for extended enterprises including SMEs and OEMs in terms of competitiveness and competences management. We will talk on modelling various business processes and interactions between processes when developing innovative products, notably by studying the links between CAD tools and PLM tools in extended enterprise context.