Transforming Product Development with a Platform-Based Approach to Product Lifecycle Management

The advent of EVs, ride sharing, global events such as the pandemic, chip shortage, and increasing dependency on suppliers are just some factors reshaping the automotive business. Consumer sentiment moving from product to experience resulted in more variants being launched at a record pace. Consequently, product development processes need to be more agile and yet more rigorous while bringing about cohesion and alignment across cross-functional teams to launch vehicles on time, on quality, and in budget.Automotive companies have been using Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions for years to manage CAD, change, and BOMs. With changing business scenarios and increasing complexity of products, the sphere of influence of PLM solutions has expanded significantly over the last decade to manage all aspects of product development.Traditionally PLM software focused on integrating with different authoring tools and managing data in a central repository. The PLM solution had multiple such repositories to manage different types of data—CAD, manufacturing, simulation, requirements, engineering changes, and the like. This resulted in additional overhead of synchronizing and replicating this information across these repositories. This approach is not scalable to meet the dynamic needs of product development today. With a significant increase in the scope of PLM, a platform-centric approach that aims to eliminate rather than integrate silos is essential to the successful adoption of PLM software. The answer is next-generation PLM software such as DASSAULT SYSTÈMES ENOVIA PLM on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform that takes a platform-centric approach to managing data, people, and processes. ENOVIA PLM differentiates by being data-driven, eliminates silos, and models business processes that connect the dots throughout the product development process. Dongfeng Automobile Corporation realized 30% efficiency in the design process and 70% decrease in design problems when designing a van with design software and ENOVIA PLM on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform 1.