The Benefits of PLM Integration with Other Applications
A PLM system plays a crucial role in the IT infrastructure of an industrial enterprise. When a company starts using PLM solution for the first time, it doesn’t replace any old system but brings new value to the infrastructure. The new possibilities, capabilities, and properties that the PLM solution brings enhance this value. PLM converts many of the old manual processes into electronic processes.
Systems that play a crucial role in product data management possess many features and functions, particularly designed to manage documents and items. Some examples of these systems are CAD and ERP. Contrary to that, the PLM system doesn’t include many ERP system properties. It means ERP and PLM are not cooperatively exclusive. They supplement each other. However, the exact role of each system is decided on a case-by-case basis.
It is vital to decide what type of data needs to update in each system in a PLM project. The product information should update in one place consistently. Other systems should be able to read the information directly from the PLM database if it is necessary. The required data can replicate on the databases of other systems.
Why Is Integrating PLM With Other Applications Beneficial?
Integrating product data is sometimes challenging, even for the most proficient companies. If you choose a PLM system to centralize your data in one place entirely, it prevents the future viability of your PLM. When you limit your end-users to just one tool, the productivity indeed suffers, and it might need cumbersome manual integrations. If you have to duplicate data throughout different systems, unsynchronized processing time and compatibility issues occur.
Nonsynchronous and incompatible data leads to instability in the product development process, and the team might need to rework incorrectly manufactured parts. The additional work means that you’ll need to spend more time, resources, and money on integration.
Benefits of PLM Integration:
PLM integration offers enormous benefits to the business, including quicker and more efficient product development. PLM integration with other systems offers a better view of product lifecycle across all relevant disciplines and domains. It ensures that your product data is up-to-date and visible across your entire organization and your external development partners and vendors.
Integrating PLM with other systems enhances data accuracy and availability, with intelligent and optimized flow between PLM and other business systems. It eliminates the need for redundant and manual data entry and reduces data errors with validations. Moreover, it helps in monitoring, transaction prioritization, and error handling.
A reliable integration solution adds value to your business and enhances product profitability. By PLM and ERP integration, companies can ensure the elimination of errors within the development process. When everyone in the team and externally has access to the up-to-date data, the manufacturing process will become more efficient.
Regardless of the systems, you are using, PLM integration offers a better view of your product lifecycle development. Integration can vary in terms of complexity, but you can easily manage them with the right software tools and with vendors who understand the criterion for successful data integrations. One such organization is Xavor Corporation which has designed its own xEngine add-on that facilitates PLM integration with other systems.
Conclusion:
Xavor offers integration solutions to a wide range of industries, and based on our expertise, we have come up with an integration solution, xEngine. xEngine syncs BOMs, parts, and documents from the PLM system with SAP, EBSs, or other systems. It offers bi-directional synchronization features. It means that you can sync cost information from EBS to PLM and sync parts from PLM with EBS.
