It is important that manufacturers or companies concerned with designing, sourcing producing and distributing products globally have a sole source that manages all of the essential data and processes. Having an effective product lifecycle management (PLM) system is one of the simple ways of making this work. Just implementing PLM alone doesn’t accrue you any real business gains. So what then do you stand to gain from having a PLM system? Find out below the main 7 business advantages that PLM can offer.

1. Accelerates Product Development

Centralizing control over data helps makes the product development process faster and quicker. Design teams can spend less time on tasks and also quicken the transfer of design data to production. In circumstances when you need things done fast, faster product development and a shorter time to advertise your product to your target market is essential to stay relevant in your industry.

2. Alleviates Compliance Issues

One of the major benefits of PLM is the ability to guarantee a single and authentic version for all product data. Companies have realized that to cut cost, expenses such as product recalls and legal fees must be avoided. This helps to reduce compliance risks.

3. Reduces Cost of Production

Harnessing the potential of a joint design process is a great way to cut down on both material and production costs. The design process determines the bulk of what the product would cost.

There are two major ways by which costs can be reduced; first, the reductions in scrap and prototyping expenses, due to PLM’s stand as the sole source of authority. And secondly by cutting down retooling costs, which is based on the amount of total product reuse.

4. Enhances production

Companies that do not presently have a PLM system, adopting one can eliminate time-consuming activities like repeating data across different systems, cross-checking data for errors and finding missing data. Another PLM business benefit is that for any product or development operation, the chances of encountering processing mistakes are very unlikely and hence the additional rework is avoided.

5. Increased Revenue

PLM has grown to a stage where its ROI potential offers real business benefits. There are basically only two methods of increasing profit. These include revenue growth and cost reductions. Revenue growth is highly regarded when compared to cost reductions with regards to contributions to earnings. With PLM, companies can easily manage cost control and cost reduction. Since the major reason for establishing a company is to make profit, implementing PLM is key to achieving your set objectives.

6. Drive Innovation

PLM system offers companies the ability to increase their innovation without jeopardising their flexibility. Irrespective of physical location, product team can work together to create high quality product designs. PLM solution also guarantees that the company can safeguard their intellectual property on the quest for innovation.

7. Increased Customer Satisfaction

Because PLM plays a big role in the control and management of data that affect the final product quality, manufacturers can effect all the correct steps required to maintain the overall product quality. This, on the other hand, will increase customer satisfaction. This is vital especially when teams are not in the same physical location to ensure that the product standard isn’t affected.