PLM SOLUTIONS: AN EMERGING TECHNOLOGY FOR PRODUCT DATA INTEGRATION ACROSS ENTERPRISE

Product lifecycle management (PLM) offers a major opportunity to manufacturers looking to enhance their business performance. Successful companies are increasingly taking on new business models and business processes as an ongoing way to outmaneuver their competition. There is a growing awareness that product and process innovation is a critical element of business success. This executive-level awareness is fueling investments in collaborative initiatives that are at the heart of PLM. The product lifecycle management (PLM) revolution is driven by the aero and auto (A&A) industry and its evolving need to become more collaborative, adaptive, flexible and responsive over last few years. Automotive and aerospace, the experts say, are the PLM bellwethers for the rest of manufacturing. The most desired tools, the web services, Java 2, Enterprise Edition and XML have provided the cheaper means for trading partners to make use of ED!, proving to be a catalyst for change. This paper reviews modern and changing trends in manufacturing industry with special reference to PLM solutions. What PLM solutions signify and how it solves known integration problems of enterprises. what is its architecture and how industry and vendors are shaping with this new concept is the topic of discussion. Finally what conclusion can be drawn about the future PLM solution offerings?