Making and extending access to product data (also known as data accessibility) is exactly what can put you ahead, especially if your organization has anything to do with product development.
This article explains how to make product data accessible, as well as why product data access is a trend that many organizations are beginning to pursue.
Product data is vital to organizational success
In business and engineering, product development refers to bringing new and existing products to market. During this process, your product data is everything.
Your organization’s product data likely includes computer-aided design (CAD) data, 3D models, parts information, standardized work instructions, product requirements, notes, documents, and more.
This is why your organization’s product development success starts with… you know it… product data.
The reality is, the product data that may only be visible to engineering or management teams is exactly what your entire organization could leverage to make better-informed decisions.
Product data is vital to organizational success because it helps identify business opportunities, predict future trends, and most importantly it is exactly what allows you to generate more revenue.
Why is data accessibility important?
Data-driven business decisions make or break companies. This is exactly why your product data should be accessible to anyone within your organization who needs it.
People across multiple departments often need to input data into business systems, especially in larger organizations.
If different employees throughout your organization input slightly different information, use non-compatible formats or simply don’t have access to each other’s data – confusion and miscommunication can occur.
These situations lead to mistakes, unnecessary costs, and lost revenue. All of which (I’m going to assume) your business is trying to avoid.
There are many reasons why access to data is important, but let’s address data access methods and tools your organization can use to help extend and make your product data accessible.
The first step to making product data accessible: System integration. System integration is an ever-popular topic among the IT savvy.
Integrated systems streamline processes, increase efficiency and productivity, reduce costs, and reduce manual entry errors. This is why organizations take steps to integrate business and enterprise systems used throughout their operations.
Integrating your business systems helps keep everyone on the same page by ensuring all staff has access to the same data.
This is especially important when tracking product changes, and I’ll explain exactly why.
Let’s assume an engineer needs to make a last-minute one design adjustment to a product. This is a situation when it is crucial to inform affected departments and stakeholders of product changes as soon as possible.
When system integrations and PLM/ERP tools are in place, everyone throughout your organization (who would need access to specific product data) can access up-to-date information!
Not only does this keep people up-to-date and informed, but it also allows people throughout an organization to compare and contrast the evolution of your products.
Why is that so important?
A cross-functional team’s ability to evaluate the history of product changes through the lens of each individual’s respective discipline will provide a better idea of the impact of product and process changes over time.
By encouraging information-sharing and communication between departments, system integration can inspire collaboration between departments and lead to unexpected business improvements.
When one department gains access to information they didn’t have before, it can help them understand the role in the company better as well as the overall operation of the business.
This knowledge can help them improve performance and productivity, as well as, allow them to make better, more informed decisions.
Recognizing & responding to multiple data user’s product information needs
Although product data management tools (such as PTC Windchill) help organization’s collect and manage data, many enterprise solutions (such as product lifecycle management systems) fail to build user interfaces that non-technical staff can actually understand.
PLM systems can quickly become too complex for many roles across an organization. This can make it hard for users to navigate the system, find information, and ensure they’re getting the right information.
Oftentimes the sole users of PLM enterprise systems tend to be engineers and product designers who create the information. This means other roles are requesting information from the authors, whether they are designers or engineers.
When this happens, users lose time waiting for the person who created the information, and they take time from the designers and engineers that should be focused on designing and developing products.
The solution: System integration that is focused on data visibility and data accessibility
By integrating your enterprise systems with a focus on data visibility and data accessibility, your organization ultimately supports communication and collaboration across the entire enterprise and value chain.
For instance, product data management tools (such as PLM applications or plugins) can collect and transform your product data. These same product data access tools can also provide a data output with meaningful content, assisting any role (such as accounting, purchasing marketing, etc.) to make smarter and faster decisions which can directly impact your bottom line.
An easy solution to extend product data access
Our company, EAC Product Development Solutions, designed an easy solution to help organizations (like yours) easily extend access to accurate product data.
Our solution is our EAC Productivity Apps.
Our PLM EAC Productivity Applications deliver role-based data mash-ups, that provide just the type of product information that is needed by a particular role.
Our PLM plugin technology works in the back-end to bring together product information stored in multiple enterprise systems (such as ERP, ALM, PLM, QMS, etc) to deliver product data to users in a way that can be easily consumed.
This enables an entire enterprise to get valuable product data and information in just the way that they want it when they need it.
Our Productivity Applications also eliminate time wasted waiting for authors to collect and redistribute product information.
Our EAC Productivity Applications help deliver on the promise of Product Lifecycle Management.
Want to learn more? Let’s have a conversation.
Why is it important to manage your product Bill of Materials (BoM) in a PLM (Product Lifecycle Management)? This is a tough question to answer across the board for every company, but this article breaks down what you need to know.
The level of BoM management in PLM can be dependent on your companies’ products, downstream systems, and product development processes.
With that in mind, here are some general benefits and reasons to manage the creation of your product BoM in PLM.
The benefit of bill of materials management in PLM
PLM in nature is meant to be a tool to help engineering manage their production date while allowing dynamic collaboration and change control throughout the product development cycle.
The data managed in a product lifecycle management system includes CAD and BoM information, as well as additional supporting product information and documentation.
PLM functionality typically allows an organization to store any and all product information in a structured manner. The structured manner is what properly represents the product within all stages of the product’s development.
This includes everything from initial design requirements, to manufacturing requirements and process plans, to quality assurance documents- all linked to a single product structure.
This gives you the ability to graphically see a truly complete representation of any and all products managed within the PLM system.
In addition, many of the top PLM systems (such as PTC Windchill) give you the ability to manage different views of a single bill of material.
For instance, you could see the design or engineering view of the structure and all design information needed for that BoM product structure.
You would also have the ability to look at a manufacturing view that has the structure defined in a way to support the best possible manufacturing process, while it also links to any supporting information and work instructions.
Additionally, you could see a service BoM that represents exactly what is on-site or on the hands of a customer, with linked product information specifically related to service or support (such as a service repair or product manual).
These systems focus on tracking and managing all cost and profit throughout the process.
Because of this, changes are tightly controlled and require significant steps to ensure proper applications across the system.
There are also few systems that allow for full product representation inside of ERP or MES as outlined above. Nor do they fully support many different views of the same BoM.
ERP tends to only manage what is required to properly manufacture or sell a product, which does not always represent the full product design or its full breadth of supporting information and documentation.
There many impacts on these fundamental differences.
When to use PLM for BoM Management
Here are some general concepts as to when to use PLM for BoM management.
When your product development is in the dynamic phases that require many changes and updates at each phase gate, your bill of materials should be primarily managed in PLM.
If your product requires specific requirements management, detailed manufacturing, quality work instructions, or an intensive manufacturing process, it’s in your best interest to use product lifecycle management for your BoM.
At the very least, all of your product information should also be managed, or linked to your product lifecycle management system to ensure full accountability to all information updates required in the instance of change.
Integrating ERP and PLM
At a minimum, if you have an ERP system it’s important to integrate your system together with PLM.
It’s essential to establish key integration points between your enterprise systems that send needed information back and forth to your enterprise resource planning solution. This will help you properly execute new product releases and changes.
By integrating your systems, your ERP processes will ensure all proper tasks and functions are executed in your ERP or MES systems.
From there, your ERP to PLM system integration would send information back to your PLM system to close the loop.
These are our best practices to help you get ahead and to take product data further. We would love to hear about your thoughts about this topic and answer any additional questions you might have. Feel free to drop a comment below or leave an inquiry under let’s talk.
Looking for an easy way to quickly assess your bill of materials and ensure projects stay on-time and on-track?
Here’s why every manufacturing company should be considering product lifecycle management applications.
Expand PLM software usage throughout your enterprise with PLM apps
Let’s face it, no company uses a single product data management system (PDM) or a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system for ALL of its organization’s needs.
Your organization likely uses an abundance of different technology software to collect and store data. These technologies can include customer relationship management (CRM) systems, quality management system (QMS) software, enterprise relationship planning (ERP) systems, application lifecycle management (ALM) systems, and so many more.
If your organization currently uses a PLM system, odds are you most likely paid a pretty penny for it. So why not make the most of that product lifecycle system investment and use your system’s complete functionality?!
Product lifecycle applications support, enable, and enhance the value and footprint of PLM software. PLM Apps go a long away to assist and ensure consistent access to up-to-date product data. They can help expand controlled access to valuable content and give functional groups a single simplified view of files, data, and content all within a single browser-accessible screen.
You’re going to want to invest in these kinds of advanced technology solutions that simplify data gathering processes and expand the value of your PLM investment. PLM apps are meant to help you find data easier which reduces user frustration and helps take productivity to new levels within your organization.
PLM applications, also referred to as PLM system plugins, deliver on the dreams of many organizations. They are a simple solution that drastically increases enterprise PLM usage.
PLM apps integrate siloed data from disparate systems
With the use of multiple complex enterprise systems, your organization’s data is most likely held captive in siloed systems. Many PLM applications help connect these disjointed enterprise systems using common application programming interface (API) connection abilities.
PLM apps simply pull data from other enterprise systems into a new user-interface through API integrations. They don’t rely on interface features from other enterprise platforms or systems (besides the data and information they extract), therefore, they are less likely to be affected by a new release of the underlying enterprise systems!
PLM apps simplify searches for the occasional PLM software user
PLM apps change the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) of your PLM system so that it’s easier to use. This can be useful for occasional or novice users who can feel overwhelmed by the complexity of their PLM system compared to those that use their PLM system on a daily basis.
PLM applications offer user-friendly interfaces that simplify the complexity of PLM systems and make it easier to search, find, locate, and understand product information. In fact, many of these tools even allow organizations to adjust settings for specific users (such as purchasing, marketing, accounting, etc.) so they can access the direct information they need.
PLM apps Many customers we work with use complex product lifecycle management systems such as PTC Windchill or Siemens Teamcenter. Due to the robust capabilities of these enterprise systems (and other PLM systems), many users find product data hard to navigate – especially if they aren’t daily users within these systems.
PLM apps speed up product development processes by providing users with complete access to real-time complex enterprise data.
Product lifecycle applications really do make PLM easier – see it for yourself by watching this short PLM applications video.
Customize PLM apps without disrupting your PLM software
PLM applications and system plugins offer simple and easy ways to customize enterprise product data systems. A PLM Administrator can customize the apps to conform to their company’s goals and prioritization of tasks without disrupting the PLM software itself.
Time after time, we see organizations add PLM customizations to their mainframe PLM software, only to wind up facing dozens of challenges as new system software versions get released. Because PLM apps are an extension of PLM software systems, they are minimally affected by upgraded software versions and updates (if at all).
PLM apps provide organizations with the ability to easily custom tailor simplified product lifecycle management interfaces or mashups. This functionality provides additional value and integration capabilities with other enterprise systems.
PLM Applications offer a brand-new UI for your intricate product data management system; enabling a fresh and simple user experience. They also have started to help organizations solve problems easier and faster with direct, accessible, and instantaneous insights from data.
Your systems are only as good as how you use them. If employees struggle to navigate your product lifecycle system interface, PLM apps are definitely something you should be looking into!
How PLM apps drive flexibility within your organization
PLM applications provide access to PLM information to employees outside of engineering such as marketing, sales, finances, and procurement.
Access to PLM system data provides another way for teams to identify the broad scale of their day to day activities and information. This can help teams understand and prioritize tasks to be more efficient and productive.
This flexibility allows teams to work the way they want. By enhancing a complex system and tailoring each end-user experience, it’s easy to see how these PLM system plug-ins can drastically improve productivity and drive value across an organization.
What is better than providing every department with product information that they want and need to do their job?!
Want to learn more about PLM Applications and how they could pair up with your current enterprise systems? Let’s have the conversation!
If you have Windchill, a PLM (product life cycle management system from PTC), odds are it’s where your organization stores a lot of really great product data and information. It also means there’s a high likelihood many employees in your organization need access to that valuable product information.
But what happens when people within your organization need to access valuable product information, but they aren’t necessarily veteran Windchill (or PLM system) users? What happens when your ‘casual Windchill users’ only want to quickly get to the information but simply don’t want to be “Windchill users”? 90% of the time this scenario involves your experienced Windchill users being disrupted by requests to pull product information.
Right at this point – exactly when people in your enterprise need access to information in systems they don’t use on a daily basis – is when you lose efficiency, productivity, and revenue. This cross-departmental disruption leads to wasted time, and wasted time leads to wasted money. PTC realized these challenges and created a solution to combat complicated enterprise system interfaces, varying user needs, and disparate enterprise data sources – It’s called ThingWorx Navigate.
To make Windchill PLM, or any PLM information more accessible and solve disruption challenges, PTC designed ThingWorx Navigate role-based applications (apps) that allow users to easily access and consolidate information from secure systems like ERP, MRP, CRP, and PLM systems like Windchill. For instance, by using these applications, a tool designer could call up drawings without having to go through the whole interface of Windchill. The applications pull up windows to look directly into systems, without forcing a user login in and navigate complex product design or enterprise planning systems.
For example, by using PTC’s ThingWorx solution, a tool designer could simply type in a drawing number he or she was looking for on the PTC ThingWorx Navigate application, and the drawing files would pop-up instantly on the screen. These simple product data navigation features also work with product information that purchasing, quality, or any other departments might need access.
PTC’s ThingWorx Navigate applications make it easy for anyone…ANYONE in an organization to obtain product information without having to be a Windchill system expert. One of the great things about these role-based applications is – depending on who you log in as – the apps can be set up to determine what type of information access someone has, as well as what types of product info an employee can access.
For instance, someone on a shop floor could access ThingWorx Navigate applications, and with a simple click in a window would display all the information they need about a drawing. Or perhaps someone only needs to see bills of materials, they could do that in one location by accessing a ThingWorx Navigate application. Just like PTC Windchill, PTC Navigate is a web-based application. This means all an organization really needs is a web browser and a login and instantly anyone can start working.
ThingWorx Navigate applications are also completely customizable. This allows your organization to control exactly what displays on the search screens, as well as, how that information would be delivered to your users. In fact, PTC even created a Thingworx Navigate Productivity calculator to demonstrate how much money enterprise collaboration can save a business. It even lets you estimate your exact company’s potential annual productivity savings!
Bottom line, there really are a lot of great benefits that come along with being able to easily deploy Windchill access throughout an enterprise in a unique and stress-free way. And remember, ThingWorx Navigate also integrates with other enterprise systems, not just Windchill.
But wait…there’s more!
You can make the user experience even better by implementing ThingWorx Navigate and extending functionality and configurability with EAC Productivity Apps. In case you are not familiar with us, our company (EAC Product Development Solutions) specializes in transforming the way companies design, manufacture, connect to and service their products.
One of the ways we do this is through implementing, maintaining, and helping customers with PTC Windchill product lifecycle management systems. Being the Windchill experts that we are, with extensive years of experience (over 23 years to be exact), we work with hundreds of organizations and their PLM systems. This is precisely how we know the need many manufacturing organizations have to extend enterprise system data and capabilities even further!
Working with our Windchill customers over the years, we recognized patterns of system requests and capabilities that just didn’t seem to be specifically addressed by existing solutions. We recognized and researched system challenges that many organizations tended to face with their PLM systems and realized the need to help organizations quickly deploy Windchill, increase user adoption, and capitalize on system functionality. After all, we live in a world obsessed with speed and efficiency. So, to quote the wisdom of Daft Punk, we needed to make complex PLM systems Better, Faster, and Stronger.
Furthermore, we realized valuable data our customers acquired from their other disparate enterprise systems never seemed to be tied together with product data from PLM systems. This was increasing our client’s risk of transferring obsolete inaccurate data. With that knowledge, we knew our solution needed to be able to connect multiple streams of data from different locations and enterprise systems, and even different databases.
All these reasons drove us to develop what we refer to as EAC Productivity Apps. They help organizations quickly advance and capitalize on Windchill PLM capabilities. Although EAC apps are different from Navigate applications in many ways, what I believe really sets them apart is how they use and leverage the concept of data mash-ups. Multiple sources of information brought together to simplify a role-specific workflow.
EAC productivity applications take product data and information from a variety of different systems and transform that data into an easily consumable visual dashboard for any user. Essentially, our apps create a way for organizations to easily connect data from multiple enterprise databases, bring it into one accessible location, and tailor it to the needs of a specific user. This allows any user to easily have all the information he or she could desire with a few simple clicks.
EAC apps also help users access product information, search for information, get bill of material reports, create and manage other related documents, and look at associated parts.
Data Visualization and system integration tools are shaping the future of business and I am going to explain exactly why.
First, it is essential that you understand the impacts of technology and data today.
The impacts of big data
Humans collectively produce approximately 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day and this number is only increasing with the acceleration of the Internet of Things (IoT). These already astonishing statistics are growing at an ever-increasing rate as our world becomes even more digitized and data-centric.
Due to this overwhelming growth, businesses have begun facing challenges with data capture, analysis, distribution, storage, and visualization. In fact, big data has started to become so large and so complex that businesses are even finding traditional data processing techniques to be inadequate. This is exactly why system integration and business intelligence software have become essential components for successful business data management strategies.
System integration and system integration tools
Enterprise application integration software combine components of sub-systems together into one centralized system. Essentially, system integration applications ensure all business systems function together as one.
For instance, integration applications (such as EAC Productivity Apps) connect existing systems and enable seamless data to flow from various systems into role-based dashboards or “mashups.”
By using applications that integrate all of your business systems, your organization opens up a clear, efficient path, for information to travel from one application or system to another. The process of linking together different computing systems and software applications opens up an organization’s ability to easily collect, aggregate, and share data.
Business intelligence
The trend towards business intelligence (BI) has driven many companies to evaluate technology-driven processes for analyzing data and presenting actionable information.
Common functions of business intelligence technologies include reporting, analytics, data mining, process mining, business performance management, benchmarking, predictive analytics and prescriptive analytics.
BI technologies can handle large amounts of structured and sometimes unstructured data to help
System integration, Bi, and data visualization
Tools and applications that integrate business systems incorporate oftentimes incorporate data visualizations, also known as data dashboards.
Data visualizations deliver graphical representations of data or information, often in the form of a chart, diagram, picture, or any other visual illustration. Visual representations of data and information help humans understand the significance of data by transforming it into information placing it in a visual context.
Human visual processing is efficient in detecting changes and making comparisons between quantities, sizes, shapes, and variations in lightness. When properties of symbolic data are mapped to visual properties, humans can browse through large amounts of data efficiently.
If considering the way the human brain processes information, using charts or graphs to visualize large amounts of complex data is much easier than attempting to analyze multiple different spreadsheets or reports. By using visual elements like charts, graphs, and maps, data visualization tools provide an accessible way to see and understand trends, outliers, and patterns in data.
The impacts of data visualization
Data visualization enables executives, managers, and other corporate end users, to easily digest huge amounts of data by displaying visuals.
These data visuals encourage decision makers to compare sizeable amounts of information while data is being revealed beneath several levels of detail. This encourages the natural eye to compare and contrast different pieces of data, that may have otherwise been lost within reports.
System integration tools that collect data from internal and external systems and aggregate it into data dashboards, enable organizations to reason quantitative information. This helps executives, managers, and other corporate end users to better understand trends, patterns, and possible correlations. Data visualizations can also allow decision makers to make better business decisions.
Visual data representations of information assist decision makers in the absorption of information in new and more constructive ways. They encourage a user to think about the substance of the data rather than the methodology.
With the ability to manipulate and interact directly with data, organizations visualize relationships and pattern between operational and business activities. This allows them to identify and act on emerging trends faster, as well as, identify areas that need attention or improvement.
By using system integration business intelligence tools and applications, organizations can collect data from internal and external systems, prepare it for analysis, develop and run queries against that data, and create reports, dashboards and data visualizations to make the analytical results available to corporate decision-makers, as well as operational workers.
Think data visualization and system integration could be what your organization needs?
We offer EAC Productivity Apps as
What are PLM Apps?
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Applications (Apps) take data from your product lifecycle management software and combine it with data from your other enterprise solutions to create a single, accessible dashboard view (of all your data), that can be customized for any role within your organization.
Essentially, PLM Apps offer a comprehensive, basic IoT scheme to connect to your equipment, collect data, begin data/alert/notification workflows, deliver role-based dashboards, and more.
Here are four ways that PLM system applications could benefit your business.
PLM Apps, Systems, and more
Odds are, if your business is currently involved with the creation or production of any sort of product, you have likely heard of (or you might already be incorporating) product lifecycle management practices within your business. For those of you who are newer to the concept, product lifecycle management (PLM) often involves implementing software solutions referred to as product lifecycle management software, or systems.
Product management software systems (such as PTC Windchill, SAP PLM, Oracle Agile PLM, Teamcenter PLM, Autodesk Vault, Centric Software, Aras, etc.) are designed to manage your product’s entire lifecycle from ideation through engineering, design, manufacturing, service, and even the disposal of your manufactured products. Oftentimes, PLM software systems are implemented with the intention to integrate product data with other business processes such as manufacturing execution systems (MES), enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and many other enterprise solutions. However, the reality turns out to be much more complex.
PLM systems are complicated. These systems are complex due to their sophistication and immense capabilities.
In fact, due to the intricacy built within PLM, many companies commonly face challenges with PLM solution interfaces, features, integrations, data sharing, reporting, navigation, and user adoption. Soon enough the PLM technology lives in a ‘vacuum’. Sales and quality managers who don’t use it daily may find it difficult to use.
Other employees might avoid using the PLM systems entirely, and even those who do access the product lifecycle systems daily may find it challenging to coach others who have minimal exposure to these tools. This is exactly why we hear many companies who are not fully entrenched within their PLM systems claiming, “PLM systems don’t deliver on business requirements” or “PLM functionality you expect doesn’t work”.
The reality is – people and departments cannot perform their tasks in isolation. This is exactly where PLM apps add value to your business and streamline workflows.
1. PLM Apps promote cross functional alignment
Traditionally, functional areas within our businesses such as sales, marketing, finance, and operations specialize in different portions of organizational planning activities, which result in conflicts over expectations, preferences, and priorities.
Think about it for a second.
Organizations tend to have isolated departments focused on different business objectives. They often use different data collection systems to accomplish unique tasks. While organizations may consider their teams to be functional, they may fail to recognize the efficiencies they could drive with full cross-functional alignment between and across teams. That or the cross-functional alignment that organizations initially targeted with product lifecycle management didn’t work out as well intended.
This is just one of the reasons PLM Applications are a game-changer. PLM Applications break departmental silos by providing semantic interoperability, ultimately enabling cross-functional alignment.
I know what you’re thinking. “That’s great.. but how exactly does that work?”
Or perhaps, “That’s exactly what I was told my PLM software was supposed to do” just came to mind. The reality is – PLM systems are completely capable of doing everything you had purchased them for, but training everyone in these complex systems is more than a chore. PLM Apps take the foundational features and functionality of your PLM systems and make them easy.
The biggest advantage of these applications is that they actually motivate your siloed departments to utilize the technology investments you’ve already made. PLM Applications extract data from your existing enterprise software systems (such as ERP, MRP, PLM and more), combine that integrated data into easy-to-use interfaces, and enable role-based data access to any user who needs it.
Check out a real-life example of how a fast-moving apparel industry made the product development process exponentially faster and more efficient with the use of mobile apps.
For example, purchasing departments spend most of their time within Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems creating purchase orders, checking stock levels, scrap/rework, etc. They commonly face challenges retrieving engineering data (such as PDF’s, DXF’sand IGES) that are contained in systems controlled by engineering or IT. PLM system applications create self-serve user-based environments that integrate combined enterprise data into consumable interfaces for any end-user or role.
Essentially, PLM applications build user interfaces that non-technical staff can actually understand. PLM Apps can also act as an extension to your existing engineering system, allowing your departments to retrieve drawings without having to ask or burden an engineer. In fact, PLM application interfaces can even be adjusted to display key purchasing information. They have the ability to retrieve all documents (such as PDF’s, DXF’s, IGES, and more) that are associated with a specific order or drawing file.
Creating a self-service business environment for your departments allows purchasing to retrieve the correct drawings (PDF, DXF, IGES) without having to rely on engineering or configuration management.
This is just a few of the ways that PLM engineering applications can enable cross-functional alignment throughout your organization.
2. PLM Applications simplify communication among distributed teams
Forget the need to run around and collect information from multiple departments in order to collect the data a business division needs to do its job. The infrastructure within PLM Apps allows for access/permission controls and change management.
This means you no longer will need to disrupt other departments or coordinate schedules just to exchange information. Plus, by providing everyone with instant access to relevant and up-to-date product information all teams will be on the same page.
3. PLM Apps optimize all aspects of the manufacturing process
Once your siloed teams start to align, the communication between distributed departments becomes more efficient. Your business will be well on its way to optimizing your overall performance. By centralizing all aspects of your product data, your organization will notice relevant common grounds and establish open communications about areas for continuous improvement.
PLM Applications make it easier to view and understand product data within one simple interface gather information from many systems; ultimately enabling your teams and your organization to make better and faster decisions.
Your team’s alignment and enhanced communication will create opportunities for action and better execution. Being able to access accurate data helps everyone maximize output, reduce costs, increase product quality, and get products to market faster.With actions that lead to better execution, your organization will see more success.
4. PLM Apps drive accurate data
According to the Harvard Business Review, workers waste approximately 50% of their time locating data, finding and correcting errors, and searching for sources to confirm the accuracy of data.
Can you believe that?! 50 percent! In addition to wasted time; inaccurate data inevitably leads to redundancy and inefficiency.
Let’s put it in perspective.
Essentially, we are talking about approximately half of the time and salary we are paying managers, decision makers, data scientists, and knowledge workers – gone because people have a hard time accessing data. This scenario makes it easy to see how bad data and complicated interfaces can cost an organization big – time, money and possibly reputation. PLM Applications can help protect you from the negative impacts of bad data. PLM applications can help everyone access to one centralized data source – quickly, and easily.
That’s right. One.
By using only one source for data, your information will be easier to maintain and keep clean. You can be sure everyone is accessing data that is accurate, verified, and up-to-date. Besides, let’s not forget, data drives decisions. By using PLM applications to access and collect your data, your organization can be confident that the data you use for your day-to-day operations is data you can trust.
Overall, PLM applications greatly promote cross-functional alignment throughout organizations, eliminate communication complications between distributed teams, optimize performance aspects within manufacturing processes, and centralize data to ensure accuracy. Think PLM applications could improve the way your business operates? Check out how EAC’s custom PLM applications – EAC Productivity Apps – connect all aspects of your organization.
