Chapter 8: PLM Justification and Implementation

Title: Lessons from implementing PLM in a formula student design team

Author(s): Henk Jan Pels

Address: Faculty of Technology Management, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Postbus 513, 5600 MB, Germany

Reference: International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management 2009 pp. 402 - 411

Abstract/Summary: Theories and methods about implementing PLM systems tell a lot about strategic aspects, software selection, implementation preparation en then they say 'install the system'. Very little is said about specifying how to configure the system, and how to tune the design process to the PLM system. In practice this is left for systems integrators and very little is documented about it. This paper describes how these problems are solved in the case of a formula-student racing team, that designs a new racing car every year with a engineering team, populated with students who stay on average two years. The experiment shows that defining an approach to operate the PLM system is one thing, but configuring the system so that it really supports that approach is a different challenge.

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