PLM in the Automotive Industry

Today’s vehicles are highly advanced machines that offer unparalleled convenience. With just the push of a button, you can switch to self-driving mode, receive a massage, or make phone calls. However, this level of sophistication presents significant challenges for automotive companies. They are under constant pressure to design and develop safer, more complex vehicles at an accelerated pace in a highly competitive global market. 

Internally, automakers must focus on innovation, agility, software development, and building adaptable IT infrastructures. They must foster efficient collaboration to quickly respond to shifting market demands and regulatory changes and maintain sustainable, consistent, high-quality processes.

Externally, the industry grapples with many obstacles, including chip shortages, and persistent supply chain disruptions.

The current market landscape makes one thing clear: industry challenges are intensifying, and leveraging the right technology is essential for survival and success in this rapidly evolving environment.

The need for an efficient solution

Automotive manufacturers increasingly recognize that digital transformation is critical in managing processes and product data. This wave of technology and process adoption focuses on streamlining collaboration across various disciplines, enhancing product quality and safety, enabling faster time to market, and boosting new product output.

By automating or eliminating traditionally manual tasks, companies can ensure that data-intensive design and production activities are handled efficiently, helping them stay competitive and responsive in a fast-changing industry. In this challenging race to the top, a product lifecycle management (PLM) solution can accelerate product development from initial concept to full-scale production.

How is PLM used in the automotive industry?

PLM serves as the core product information backbone for the enterprise, providing comprehensive, interconnected, and traceable data the user can trust. It empowers globally dispersed, multidisciplinary teams to collaborate seamlessly and securely with partners and customers, using rich product information to accelerate product development.

With PLM, users can customize and automate standard processes, leveraging reliable data to enhance supply chain agility and ensure business continuity.

Here are some key ways automakers are using PLM in the automotive industry:

• Design and Development: PLM supports the entire design process, from initial concept through engineering. It facilitates creating and managing 3D models, CAD drawings, and design documents, ensuring all team members work from the most current versions.

• Collaboration and Integration: Automotive projects involve multiple teams and departments, including engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain management. PLM provides a centralized platform for collaboration, enabling seamless integration and communication across these diverse groups. This helps streamline workflows and reduce the risk of errors or miscommunication.

• Configuration Management: Managing various vehicle configurations, options, and variations can be complex. PLM helps track and manage these configurations, ensuring all components and features are properly documented and aligned with customer requirements and regulatory standards.

• Change Management: The automotive industry frequently undergoes design changes due to new regulations, market demands, or technological advancements. PLM enables efficient change management by tracking revisions and approvals and ensuring all stakeholders are informed of updates. Change management also helps resolve quality issues and implement cost-reduction initiatives.

• Quality Management: This capability is critical for maintaining product standards and compliance. It involves robust processes like corrective and preventive actions (CAPA) to address and prevent defects, supplier corrective action requests (SCAR) to manage supplier-related issues, and the handling of non-conformances to identify and resolve deviations from quality standards.

• Regulatory Compliance: The automotive industry is subject to strict regulatory requirements and standards. PLM assists in maintaining compliance by providing tools for documentation, traceability, and reporting, helping manufacturers meet safety and environmental regulations.

• Supplier Collaboration: Automotive manufacturers often work with numerous suppliers for parts and materials. PLM helps manage suppliers, review approved vendors, gain partner visibility, and securely collaborate with real-time data.

• Manufacturing and Production: PLM integrates with manufacturing systems to streamline production processes. It helps create and manage traceable manufacturing BOMs, quality control, and resource allocation, ensuring that manufacturing aligns with design and engineering specifications.

What challenges do automotive manufacturers face when implementing PLM?

PLM in the automotive industry boosts efficiency and product quality throughout the development cycle. It helps manufacturers achieve better conformance and compliance. However, the implementation of PLM frequently encounters a few challenges:

Cost

PLM offers significant advantages to automotive manufacturers by enhancing revenue potential, reducing costs, and improving efficiency across engineering, manufacturing, and service. When selecting a PLM solution, it’s key to consider factors beyond just the implementation cost. While initial expenses are a consideration, the numerous benefits of PLM in driving efficiency should be a primary focus.

Evaluating your current processes and understanding the potential costs of operating without a PLM solution is essential. Without PLM, manufacturers may face a range of cost-generating issues that, when combined, can become quite costly:

• Inefficient Data Management: Without a centralized PLM solution, managing product data across multiple platforms can result in data duplication, inconsistencies, and errors. This inefficiency can lead to increased time and resources spent correcting mistakes and re-entering data.

• Extended Time-to-Market: The lack of streamlined processes and collaboration tools can delay product development cycles. This extended time-to-market can result in missed opportunities and lost revenue as competitors launch similar products sooner.

• Higher Error Rates and Rework: Without robust version control and change management, errors in design and documentation are more likely. These errors can lead to costly rework, recalls, and warranty claims.

• Increased Development Costs: Disjointed workflows and poor team collaboration can lead to redundant efforts and duplicated work, driving up development costs. The lack of a unified system can also hinder efficient resource allocation and project management.\

• Regulatory Non-Compliance: Managing product data manually or through disjointed systems increases the risk of non-compliance. This can lead to costly fines, legal issues, and the need for corrective actions.

• Poor Quality Management: Without a PLM system, tracking and maintaining product quality across various stages can be challenging. This can result in inconsistent product quality, customer dissatisfaction, and costly recalls or repairs.

• Ineffective Collaboration: The absence of a unified platform for collaboration can lead to siloed practices, miscommunication, and delays between teams. This can cause project setbacks and inefficiencies that impact productivity. 

Complex implementation

The PLM implementation process can be particularly challenging for large automotive manufacturers with complex product portfolios and global operations. It is key to consider scalability to ensure the solution can accommodate future growth and adapt to evolving business needs. Implementing PLM software can be quite complex due to several factors:

• System Integration: Integrating PLM software with existing systems (such as ERP, CAD, and supply chain management tools) can be challenging. Ensuring seamless data flow and interoperability between these systems requires careful planning and technical expertise.

• Customization: PLM solutions sometimes need to be customized to fit an organization's specific needs and processes. This customization can involve modifying workflows, data structures, and user interfaces, which can be time-consuming and require specialized knowledge.

• Data Migration: Migrating data from legacy systems into the new PLM solution can be complex. Ensuring data accuracy, consistency, and integrity during the migration process is crucial to avoid operational disruptions and errors.

• Organizational Change Management: Implementing PLM software involves significant changes to existing processes and workflows. Managing these changes and ensuring that employees adapt to new ways of working can be challenging.

• Training and Adoption: Users need to be trained to effectively use the new PLM solution. Ensuring widespread adoption and overcoming resistance to change is essential for realizing the benefits of the software.

• Vendor Support: Choosing the right vendor and ensuring they provide support throughout the implementation process is crucial. This includes addressing technical issues, customization needs, ongoing maintenance, and offering expertise. 

What are the benefits of PLM in the automotive industry?

PLM enhances various aspects of the product development and manufacturing process, offering automotive manufacturers a range of benefits. By integrating data, processes, and collaboration across a product’s entire lifecycle, PLM helps companies improve product quality, increase efficiency, and enable seamless collaboration. These advantages are crucial for staying competitive in a rapidly evolving market and meeting the demands for high-quality, innovative vehicles.

• Improved Product Quality: PLM systems enhance product quality by centralizing product data, reducing errors, and ensuring all teams have accurate information. It supports rigorous quality control, tracks compliance, and helps identify issues early, resulting in higher-quality, reliable vehicles.

• Increased Efficiency During Product Development: PLM streamlines development by automating processes, centralizing data, and enhancing team collaboration. This reduces manual work, speeds up development, and improves resource use, leading to faster innovation and shorter time-to-market.

• Enable Seamless Collaboration: PLM software boosts collaboration across teams by providing a unified platform for data sharing and communication. It breaks down silos, improves coordination, and facilitates real-time updates, leading to more agile, effective, and responsive teamwork.

How will PLM transform the automotive industry?

PLM is a transformative tool for addressing disruption and challenges within the automotive industry. It streamlines development processes, allowing manufacturers to accelerate the creation of next-generation EVs while enhancing team collaboration across software, mechanical, and electrical engineering—critical as software becomes key to vehicle innovation. By improving workflows, PLM supports higher product quality and more efficient operations, enabling automakers to respond with agility to supply chain disruptions. Furthermore, as competition from Chinese automakers intensifies, PLM boosts innovation and helps manufacturers stay competitive. The software also empowers sustainability efforts by optimizing designs for greener solutions and reducing waste throughout the product lifecycle. Together, these benefits drive the automotive industry toward a future of smarter, faster, and more sustainable vehicle production.

Windchill PLM software by PTC can help you realize value quickly with standardized, out-of-the-box functionality that’s optimized to support your organization and external partners with a high degree of automation for cross-discipline collaboration. Your enterprise teams can maximize revenue, reduce costs, and drive efficiency with solutions that address challenges in engineering, manufacturing, and service.