The saying, “time and tide wait for none” is prevalent and visible in the market today. With increasing competition in almost every product line, every business, and every service, you always need to be on top of your game to keep pushing out quality products at faster rates. With all the competition, the pressure to create innovative products is stronger than ever, but how will you make this happen?
Common Roadblocks
Throughout the journey of the product lifecycle, there are crests and troughs, times when processes work at full capacity and times when they don’t. The following three points form the crux of any issue that may delay your product development:
- Dependencies– As the team grows, you split the product and assign sub-teams to each part. Eventually, to get something done, teams need each other, and the coordination efforts slow can slow down production.
- Regressions– As the product grows, to add something new, you need further time to test that you’re not impacting other existing functionalities.
- Increase in Work In Progress– As both the product and company grow, so do the demands, and the majority of teams end up increasing the work in progress (WIP), which makes your product cycle and lead times slower.
- Poor Communication– Good communication keeps every development project moving along, right on schedule. Poor communication doesn’t only cause delays, but it can cause a complete breakdown in a project. If team members can’t communicate, or if there’s a communication issue between developer and client, it can put the entire project at risk.
- Not Setting Measurable Objectives– The only thing that’s worse than struggling with a project on your own is being part of a struggling team. It’s incredibly frustrating because no matter how much work you do, it feels like nothing ever gets done. Failing to set measurable objects can cause this feeling. When you don’t know what you’re aiming towards, it’s easy to go in circles forever, doing nothing at all.
Getting Over the Hump
PLM or product lifecycle management is an integral part of any business that deals with creating a particular product. It is software that allows everyone involved in the process to communicate and work together. The right approach to PLM can not only improve the product quality, but also speed up the manufacturing process and increase revenue. More and more companies from across different industries are studying the concept of PLM and finding new ways to apply it.
A new Airbus A380, for instance, contains approximately four million parts, which are sourced from over 1,500 manufacturers. One could imagine the difficulty of manufacturing a product without a well-defined set of processes for each stage of its production.
Choosing the right product lifecycle management software for retail, therefore, becomes critical for the success of your business.
What Does a PLM System Do?
PLM systems manage all aspects of the product lifecycle, from concept design to product retirement. PLM can be used to increase output with constant resources, to boost revenues, or to help reduce the resources used to produce a continuous output. This all helps to improve the bottom line.
PLM helps an organization to achieve this through:
- Efficiency improvements
- Improving development for new products
- Reduced costs
- Increase productivity
- Improved quality of products
PLM software can be used for regulatory purposes and quality assurance as well by supporting traceability, which is required in a wide range of industries. On top of this, a PLM system allows companies to reuse existing information.
Eight Benefits of Using PLM Software
- Development of customer-focused products leading to an increase in market share
- Retaining a product’s market share due to competitive pricing, traceability, and better quality
- Meet demand better due to improved efficiencies
- Design for ongoing revenue streams
- Development of new markets
- Realization of a price premium due to improved efficiencies increasing the profit margins
- Lower product cost due to the use of fewer resources, better efficiencies, and shorter time-to-market cycles
- Lower lifecycle cost
Is PLM the Right Choice?
According to a report published by marketsandmarkets.com, the global PLM market is expected to increase significantly in the next five to six years from a market size of $50.7 billion in 2018 to over $73.7 billion by 2024. The global PLM market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.8 percent from 2018-2023. This means that your competition might already be ahead of the curve and is preparing to go further. Catch up to them by making the right choice for your business and invest in PLM software.
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