MUMBAI, INDIA: This report provides companies a guide to the best approaches for integrating disparate PLM applications within the enterprise and the extended PLM ecosystem, thereby deriving maximum value from their investments.

Jim Brown, vice president and group director, Global Product Innovation, Engineering and Manufacturing, Aberdeen Group said, "Our report analyses the current level of PLM integration across organizations within the PLM suite as well as with the relevant enterprise-wide applications like ERP, Quality Management Systems, and others.

The results indicate that PLM is maturing from its original role as an engineering tool to become a key foundation in the enterprise system environment, therefore increasing the need for companies to adopt PLM and integrate their PLM ecosystem"

"Globalization and the imperatives of innovation are driving engineering and manufacturing companies to move toward fully integrated PLM systems in order to enable seamless collaboration and information management.

It is clear that there is no panacea for integration, and companies have to contend with a high degree of heterogeneity in their enterprise systems. Specialist solution providers like Geometric, with a well defined suite of innovative interoperability and integration solutions targeted at this problem, can help companies achieve their goals in product realization," said Dr. Ravi Gopinath, CEO and Managing Director, Geometric Limited.

The Aberdeen Group surveyed over 270 manufacturers about their PLM integration plans, and evaluated them based on six key performance criteria: product launch dates,  product revenue targets, product cost targets, product development budget, quality targets and life cycle cost targets.

According to the report, the need for integrating within the PLM suite and externally with the enterprise applications is primarily driven by pressures of streamlining the PLM process, while reducing the product's time-to-market. While effectively releasing the product for manufacturing is the most common reasons for integration, the Best-in-Class companies are increasing their focus to include quality management, sourcing and costing function into PLM. They are expanding the scope of PLM to manage all product data making it the primary System of Record (SOR).