EDMS : Concepts, Motivations and Basic Requiremes

The paper outlines the main concepts and motivations of the configuration management and the fundamental requirements of an engineering data management system (EDMS). The vendors of these systems have experienced a boosting demand from the industry practising product development and assembly based production. It is considered that better control of the documents related to company’s mental processes provide competitive advantage in a business environment with continuous pressures to innovate, diminish costs, improve quality and maintain tight schedule constraints. The paper discuss the industrial motivations to exploit EDMSs and studies the content and properties of the information to be stored in such a system. Yet before the system could be fully exploited the engineering change procedures must be well established and obeyed. This is the task of configuration management which is also discussed before outlining the basic requirements of an EDMS. Finally, by relying on the product life-cycle approach the paper draws conclusions on the value-adding benefits and services provided by an EDMS.