What’s the right amount of PLM for small to midsized manufacturers? We had a briefing with Office PLM to understand their offering. I spoke with Philip Thurman and he explained that Office PLM has all of the features a PLM system needs, but is affordable and installs in a couple of hours. I’m sure we could all have a long discussion about what features PLM “should” have, but what I saw meets what we call “Extended PLM” that goes beyond managing CAD to cover core revision, BOM, configuration, and engineering change functionality with a configurable workflow. They have a goal to simplify PLM and I suspect that their scope hits the sweet spot for a lot of manufacturers that don’t have time to implement a more complex application. Their integration with SOLIDWORKS and should also appeal to many smaller manufacturers. They offer a lot of educational information about PLM as well to help get their customers up to speed. Smaller manufacturers and suppliers should include Office PLM in their research if they’re looking for a lightweight PLM system. Thank you Philip for taking the time to get me up to speed on Office PLM. I look forward to learning more.
