Playing King of the Hill with ERP and PLM

January 16, 2012

Lately with all the talk in regards to big data and different types of data some misconceptions have been popping up with frequency. One issue which troubled the Arena blogger, Alyssa Sittig, is the misuse of PLM and ERP software as discussed in the article, Cutting Corners 101: Forcing ERP to do PLM’s job.

To make sense of the article a basic understanding of PLM and ERP is due. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) refers to the managing of all design functions and data whereas Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) manages business functions. These two obviously overlap making the integration of the two necessary to a good data management system. Some PLM and ERP systems, independently, claim to handle both functions with one software program.

It is tempting, explains the article, to fall into the trap of cutting corners to maximize savings and use a PLM or ERP program expecting it to do both, but the article reminds the business owner, make sure it is done right. As the article summarizes,

“ERP and PLM systems provide the highest level of efficiency when integrated together. Because PLM is intended to manage the development of your product and ERP is intended to manage the resource planning of your finalized design, it makes sense to start with a PLM system. After all, it’s a waste to plan out the resources for a product design that is still undergoing revisions.”

This article gets at the root of an even deeper problem afflicting companies – competition between departments (and software) for reasons other than the betterment of the company and definitely not in the spirit of cooperation. To compete in today’s market companies need new data management solutions that eliminate redundancy and waste.

Catherine Lamsfuss, January 16, 2012

Comments

One Response to “Playing King of the Hill with ERP and PLM”

  1. Slot Playerz on January 20th, 2012 4:21 am

    I always spent my half an hour to read this webpage?s content daily along with a mug of coffee.

  • Archives

  • Recent Posts

  • Meta