Architecture Matters                                                                                                                                               A superior product development system must be based on leading technology that tightly links footprint and architecture. A comprehensive set of capabilities on an inadequate architecture, or a great architecture that lacks critical capabilities, does not deliver an effective product development system. A comprehensive footprint must offer the capabilities necessary to improve product development processes. These processes involve the entire enterprise and are further extended to include supplier, partner, and customer participants.
The footprint of PTC's Product Development System provides five essential capabilities:

• Create detailed digital product information (MCAD, ECAD, Software, Documentation)
•  Collaborate with distributed project teams, customers, suppliers, and partners
•  Control content and automate processes
•  Configure content to match products and services
•  Communicate via dynamic publications

But this footprint of capabilities must align on a sensible system architecture. Without an integral, Internet-based architecture that knits together these five interdependent capabilities - create, collaborate, control, configure and communicate - manufacturers cannot effectively optimize their product development processes. Therefore, leading technology must ensure that the footprint of capabilities are built from the ground up on an optimized architecture that addresses the needs of the digital product value chain, what PTC calls the "3 Is". The architecture must be

• Integral in the sense that it shares a common database schema, common business objects, and a common Web-based user interface,
•  Pure Internet in the sense that it deploys seamlessly across existing Intranet and Internet infrastructures to accommodate a distributed value chain as well as provide a seamless user experience across applications, and
•  Interoperable in the sense that it integrates easily with other systems (ERP, SCM, CRM, as well as a variety of MCAD/ECAD and software applications) using standard protocols and integration approaches.

The emerging need of a PLM system today is to have a very strong capability to define and automate processes, and not just tie those tools together which help engineers create a product with a set of capabilities. A competitive value can emerge when organizations focus on not just "what" they develop, but "how" they develop. Examples of processes involved would be Concept development, change management, Quality management, manufacturing process management, component sourcing - to name a few. PTC's PDS has the ability to help manage the various processes involved in the course of product development.

In general, the goal of lean techniques is to define processes, which allow people - individuals, functions or organizations- to operate as one entity to create breakthroughs in a continuous value stream to raise the whole chain to a higher level. PLM system is the technology that ties the people and processes across the supply chain to help create winning products.

The author is Vice President and Managing Director, PTC Software (India) Pvt. Ltd.,