A different view on Product Data Management/Product Life-Cycle Management and its future potentials

Systems for Product Data Management (PDM), sometimes in a more or less extended form addressing Product Life-Cycle Management (PLM), are increasingly establishing themselves as a 'master system' not only for the handling of data throughout the whole development/design and engineering process, but also for the control of workflow. In this paper, at first a new approach to modelling products and product development processes is presented (Property-Driven Development/Design (PDD)). The core of this new theoretical approach is a clear distinction between characteristics and properties of a product. The authors claim that a formalized representation along these lines, which also includes formalized interdependencies and external conditions, may significantly improve product and process models in computers. One of the objectives of the PDD approach is to give new insights into the role and potentials of computers supporting the engineering process. Accordingly, in the second part of this paper, based on the PDD concept, ideas, concepts and guidelines for the development of an advanced kind of PDM/PLM system are drawn up. The authors claim that a formalized representation distinguishing between properties and characteristics, which also includes formalized interdependencies and external conditions, may significantly improve the capability of PDM/PLM systems to control and speed up development/design activities by making them more transparent.