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This chapter introduces the concepts underlying a PLM product. The topics discussed include: § What’s in this Manual § What is 4G:PLM? § Settings |
PLM Software is used by manufacturing companies to manage the product development process (the product Lifecycle). It manages three broad areas: 1) The Bill of Material (BOM) that is the official product definition; 2) the supply chain or partners used to produce the product and; 3) The work processes used to communicate product information and to capture the approval of this information.
4G:PLM is an application that facilitates information sharing and management of the Engineering Change process between customers and corporations in a secure Internet environment. 4G:PLM provides users throughout the extended enterprise secure access to critical product lifecycle information. Regardless of the end user’s location, within 4G:PLM they have a virtual network environment that provides them easy access to product and part information/content, engineering change items and processes.
The items below can be grouped into these three areas:
· Managing Items, Parts, Suppliers’ Information, Manufacturers’ Information, and Bill of Materials (BOM), Lifecycles work Processes, Change Requests, Change Orders, etc.
· Managing Drawings associated with Parts as attachments, etc.
· Managing changes to Parts, BOMs, Items, ECO, ECR, etc. Work Process.