PLM platform: integrated support of the enterprise digital chain for Collaborative Product Development

Nowadays, manufacturing companies need to improve the efficiency of their product development process (PDP) and to better adapt their product and production regarding the customer needs. Since about 30 years, a lot of IT-based software are developed to help companies to manage the amount of data generated by new computer-aided x (CAx) systems. Product lifecycle management (PLM) appears like a new way to manage information within the digital chain by integrating software, application and other IT-based software. Leading to a deep business process re-engineering and a new configuration of the enterprise information system (IS), their deployments are often difficult and rarely issue in a full, continuous, integrated, and associative digital chain. The paper presents general concept and functionality useful to structure information flow in the digital chain. Then a future application case of a PLM and ERP implementation is presented followed by a preliminary proposed approach to solve this issue.