Industry Update

Confused about PLM, Digital Prototyping and Digital Manufacturing?

Read our other articles!!

Find out how Lattice Technology 3D Technical Documentation and Digital Mockup tools help manufacturers worldwide

Add materials to parts quickly and easily, in XVL Studio

Multipart makes creation of high quality technical illustrations direct from 3D data fast, quick and easy

New XVL Converters, updated XVL Web Master and much more during our busy summer months!

www.lattice3d.com

by Rachael Dalton-Taggart, Director of Marketing, Lattice Technology

You are not alone if you feel that the endless phrases to describe the process of product design-to-manufacture are confusing and contradictory. Even after a decade of having the PLM term in the industry, definitions by vendors are often quite different, and even now industry journalists still haggle over the meanings. Some vendors often use completely different terms to describe their own vision of the same, or similar, process, and there is no one term or definition that seems to be acceptable to all.

It is important for manufacturers to understand these terms, but you also should understand that these kinds of terms simply describe a strategy (and the technology and processes therein) being adopted within a manufacturing organization. The software you choose to implement has to support your unique needs with a specific aim in mind for your operation – be it an increase in productivity, less waste, or more profit.

What is PLM?
PLM or Product Lifecycle Management, is a term that came of age in the late 1990s and was eagerly adopted by many major MCAD vendors to help explain the technologies for integrated design-to-manufacture of products. Of course, in the process, each of those vendors applied their own unique twist to their definitions of PLM, making it yet more confusing for end users.

That being said, there are some sensible definitions of PLM available and one can be found here at PC Magazine’s encyclopedia as follows:
“(Product Life cycle Management) A comprehensive information system that coordinates all aspects of a product from initial concept to its eventual retirement. Sometimes called the "digital backbone" of a product, it includes the requirements phase, analysis and design stages, manufacturing, product launch, distribution, quality assurance, in-service maintenance and spare parts provisions.”

Some vendors have adopted the term to describe a complete end-to-end IT infrastructure that relates to and works alongside other IT backbones such as ERP and integrates the product design data with BOMs, inventory, accounting and so on. When many people think of PLM, they also think of major, complex integrations. It doesn’t need to be, but that is how it has been positioned by many vendors.

What is Digital Prototyping?
This term has been around for a couple of decades but was recently revived by Autodesk, which eschewed the PLM term in favor of something more straightforward. Autodesk describes Digital Prototyping as follows:

"Digital Prototyping gives manufacturers the ability to virtually explore a complete product before it is built-so they can create, validate, optimize, and manage designs from the conceptual design phase through the manufacturing process. By using a digital prototype, manufacturers can visualize and simulate real-world performance of the design with less reliance on costly physical prototypes."

What is Digital Manufacturing?

This is a term preferred by Lattice Technology to describe how our technologies fit into a manufacturing enterprise. However, it doesn’t mean that Lattice Technology’s products don’t work in a PLM or Digital Prototyping strategy (they do), but rather that we feel that Digital Manufacturing best explains what our technologies deliver, while allowing manufacturers to be able to define for themselves what their strategy is, based on their unique needs and requirements.

The best definition of Digital Manufacturing that we have found has been coined by CimData, an industry analyst company, as follows:

"Solutions that support manufacturing process planning collaboration among engineering disciplines, such as design and manufacturing. Digital manufacturing solutions incorporate best practices and allow access to the full digital product definition, including tooling and manufacturing process designs. Digital manufacturing is an integrated suite of tools that work with product definition data to support tool design, manufacturing process design, visualization, simulation, and other analyses necessary to optimize the manufacturing process."

And Who Cares Anyway?

The vendors, industry analysts and media all care about these terms. If you compare all the definitions above, they are all quite similar. Users, however, tend to create and implement their own strategies that often just happen to be identifiable as falling within one of these definitions, or use technology that is positioned within one of these terms.

It is important for manufacturers to remember that their needs and desired end-results are always unique to them. Technology brought in to assist with delivering on those needs have to be flexible, scalable and easy to use. Lattice Technology’s Digital Manufacturing solutions have been created with those requirements in mind, and are used by hundreds of manufacturers to achieve their end targets – be it greater productivity, better efficiencies, better products and greater profit through using 3D data throughout the enterprise.

You can find out more at: http://www.lattice3d.com/products/products_understand_DM_3d_software.html

Is your Maintenance contract expired? Renew it now. Call your local reseller, or call +1-415-274-1670, select 1 for Sales, and we will be happy to assist.