Key Benefits of PLM Software for Product Development

The New Product Introduction (NPI) process is filled with numerous challenges. According to LNS Research, only 56% of new products achieve “success” as documented in the original vision document.

What are some of the common reasons for failure? Based on our discussions with product and quality leaders we’ve culled out a few:

• Lack of collaboration between quality and product/design teams
• Changes are often made across the product lifecycle, but there is a serious gap in how management of change gets implemented
• Lack of data visibility and inadequate documentation results in nonconformance
• Design control and design quality are best managed with world-class automation. Often, design and development teams think they can manage this with spreadsheets, word docs, and email, but it does not work
• Last but not least, there needs to be a robust "coming together" of people, processes, and systems. These systems need to be audited periodically and continuous improvement is critical

Key Benefits of Automating the Product Development Lifecycle

According to McKinsey, using the right PLM software will have a direct, positive impact on key metrics:

• Increase revenues by up to 10%
• Accelerate time to market by 50%
• Improve product quality by 25%

At an operational level, streamlining the PLM process with the right digital tool will enable the following:

Real Collaboration - Purpose-Built for Complex Product Management

With PLM software that comes with integrated capabilities for BOM Management, Engineering Change Management, Manufacturing Process Design, Master Parts/Items Lifecycle Management, and CAD Integration, the process of integrating diverse teams becomes extremely efficient. It is critical that a PLM is purpose-built to manage complicated product development, especially in cases where there are numerous master parts and change requests.

Product, Quality, and Risk Data - All in A Single, Unified System

At the first level, it is crucial to implement a PLM that makes data management intuitive and seamless. But it's not only about product data. It must be easy for decision-makers to look at PLM metrics in sync with quality and risk metrics.

Better Design Control with Quality at the Core

Always up-to-date design files (which are sharable) are at the heart of a good design process. Design control integrated with a modern quality management system will certainly make life easier not only from a compliance perspective but also from a product design/development standpoint.

Management of Change becomes Data and Document Driven

There are several reasons for “change” in the PLM process, but they can broadly be grouped into two buckets - internal triggers and external triggers. Ironically, the biggest problem with change management happens because “someone forgot something”. This should be avoided at all costs. The goal is to “implement change right, and implement it fast”. And, the only way to do this is to integrate change into the PLM automation process.

Next-Step Planning and Actioning Becomes Quicker, Reducing Time to Market

We often hear the phrase 'time-to-market' and how important it is to get a product out to the market as quickly as possible. But, we certainly don't want to get a product out to the market only to receive a lukewarm response. For a product to be successful, we need to get Quality, Cost, Delivery, and Performance (QCDP) right. One step in the right direction is to ensure that decisions are data-driven – and implementation of "next steps" is automated and system-driven.

At ComplianceQuest, we’ve built a modern, next-generation PLM Solution to automate the end-to-end process from vision to production. For more information, visit here: https://www.compliancequest.com/product-lifecycle-management-plm/