Product Life Cycle Support
My company provides products which are complex and have long lives, during which they are subject to change of configuration and modification. It is in both my and my customer’s interest to maintain good records of each delivered product and its history. However, the data is collected in too many places and nowhere is it brought together. As a consequence we do not get the feedback we need to improve our product or the support systems.

Collaborative projects
My company is involved in collaborative projects. The partners have a mix of IT systems (Design, Product Data Management, etc.) and different approval processes and stages. We have to deliver the project on time and need to have a consistent view of the product data for the project across the partners. The collaboration needs to be set up fast which is a major challenge.

System change or upgrade
We are changing/upgrading the systems that manage our product data. Yet we want to maintain a consolidated view of project data we share with customers and partners at the same time as making the changes internally. It would help too if there was a way to minimise the impact when partners change their systems. We cannot afford for such changes to delay collaborative projects.

Offset contracts
My company has or is competing for export contracts with substantial offset elements. To satisfy the contract terms we have to collaborate with new companies in other countries but we do not want to or cannot give them access to our in-house systems. Some of the companies are small and lack sophisticated systems to match ours. We have to be able to work effectively with these other companies.

Managing design change through life
My company buys major sub-assemblies or components and related spares from suppliers whose products are (like ours) subject to continuous improvement and change, some of which we instigate. The business of tracking which is the right spare part to order and use is difficult due to these changes. The design and support arms of both my company and our suppliers seem to work at different speeds and the risk of being out of sync is high, leading to unwanted costs. Because several organizations are involved, we cannot achieve the potential savings.

Outsourcing
My company would like to take advantage of manufacturing in other countries but we are concerned about controlling access to our design information. We want to share sufficient data with other companies while we keep the bigger picture and control who has access to what data. Our customers share this concern too.

Internal PDM investment
My company has implemented a PDM system and/or ERP system. We have invested a lot of effort to ensure that our internal processes are supported by PDM/ERP. We have to use our internal systems as-is and at the same time participate effectively in collaborative projects where we know the partners will not adopt our processes or systems. We do not want to incur delay and repeated cost to adjust our internal systems for each new collaborative project.

Access control by individual
My company works with American and other companies whose export controls require us to control access to information by individual. We also have to apply this policy to personnel from our suppliers. We have to know who has access to sensitive information on designs, manufacturing facilities and projects.

Going downstream
My company provides support services for our products. We need to track the individual configurations and service activities for products in operation. Poor control of this information is a barrier to effective support and limits our return on support services. In some cases the relevant work is being done by our customer or a third party and we need them to be able to access and input data in a controlled fashion.