PLM for the masses, courtesy of Autodesk 360 Nexus

Every company, whether manufacturing a product, designing a building or providing a service (IT, consulting, etc.) has a concept, a plan, process or design reviews, and procedures related to the startup, production, management and pass-off or completion of their product, building or service. And all aspects of that lifecycle ideally should be documented and accessible (at various permission levels) throughout the entire organization.

Some of the traditional objections to implementing PLM have been the massive infrastructure and investment in costly programming needed to link disparate and non-communicative technologies. Try connecting Vaulted Inventor assembly data to an ERP system based on a "home grown" AS400 platform for example...it works about as well as Monty Python's Hungarian at the Tobacconist using an English phrase book. And if you don't know how that sketch ended, look it up on YouTube - not pretty!
This is where Autodesk 360 Nexus appears to have an ingenious way of clearing the hurdle mentioned above - by keeping the data inside the firewall and providing a Cloud based, zero infrastructure investment model whereby anyone collaborating or doing business with a company can view data about various stages of the lifecycle, from virtually anywhere.

When considering Autodesk’s diversification and continued gains in the markets as a software provider to the AEC, manufacturing and M&E (media and entertainment) segments, tight integration of Nexus 360 with their mature Vault and Buzzsaw product lines is a given.

So when you start hearing the term PLM, don't think that it's limited to manufacturing companies, or only Product Lifecycle Management. It is about to become whatever you need it to be...

Learn more at http://usa.autodesk.com/360-lifecycle-management-software/plm/, and sign up at the top right of the page for information as this exciting new offering from Autodesk takes shape.

Autodesk's 360 Nexus PLM solution - Changing the landscape for the SMB market

While en route to the first of 4 Innovation Forums at Autodesk University this year, there were 2 buzzwords that I knew I'd hear many times during the conference: "Cloud", and "PLM". And while the former certainly has multiple definitions, the latter has traditionally been defined as Product Lifecycle Management. However, with the launch of Autodesk 360 Nexus, PLM may soon be democratized and more accessible to SMB (small to medium sized businesses) than ever.

First, let's distinguish the differences between PDM and PLM. At it's core, PDM focuses on the data involved in the design and manufacture of a product, and therefore, is most important to those divisions of an organization. In more progressive firms, the data is shared with sales, marketing and ERP, though frequently as a non-collaborative, one way push. Many clients of ours have a PDM system courtesy of the Autodesk Vault, which is an engineering centric tool for data management.

But PDM, through Vault, DBWorks or even Windows Explorer (yikes) is merely one component of PLM, which focuses on the lifecycle of a product, from concept to retirement. With PLM, each division of a firm is a participant in the product, including
documenting its origin

• versioning its iterations 

• releasing the manufacturable content for build 

• itemizing the purchased and manufactured parts for accounting 

• creating service manuals, sales and marketing content 

• And finally, maintaining the product once sold in the field, until ultimately being withdrawn or replaced with a newer product line.

If you're in a manufacturing company that fits the criteria above, then the traditional PLM acronym certainly applies. But given that the "L" stands for lifecycle, if we consider the functions of non-manufacturing firms in relation to my laymans definition of PLM,, then why couldn't the "P" stand for "people", "project" or even "process"?

If this concept can gain traction in non-manufacturing firms, THIS is where Autodesk may revolutionize the PLM market.

Next time - "PLM for the masses, courtesy of Autodesk"