ABSTRACT
Effective product design and development is required to support the strategy of quick response to the market. This overall process has been rolled into Product Life Cycle Management (PLM). The concurrent and collaborative design process dramatically reduces the overall time to market. Concurrent engineering uses various computer tools to aid in the design process. The development and use of these computer tools has evolved quickly during the past few years. More importantly these tools are now enabling collaboration on designs across several links of the supply chain. No longer is it necessary to build physical prototype parts to test for fit and interference. Building physical prototypes is extremely demanding on both time and expense. Complex assemblies can be put together directly on the computer without ever building a physical part through the use of computer-aided design (CAD) systems. The use of an effective Product Data Management (PDM) system facilitates the design release, distributes the design data to multiple manufacturing sites, and manages changes to the design in a closed loop fashion. PDM provides the vault infrastructure that controls the design cycle and manages change.
