Preface

This book is the first (at least in the Russian language) encyclopedic publication, presenting focused, core information about PLM and ERP that form the basis of the information environment of a competitive manufacturing enterprise. PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) — is a modern business strategy, involving coherent and consistent use of compatible software and hardware to support all stages of a product lifecycle: from a new product conceptualization to its design, engineering, manufacturing, sales, after-sale services, recovery and disposal. The software for PLM includes well-known computer-aided design systems (CAD) and related products for engineering analysis (CAE) and manufacturing (CAM), as well as specialized tools for product data management (PDM) and collaborative work at an extended enterprise (comprising geographically distributed design, manufacturing and marketing departments, including suppliers, business partners and customers). ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) covers many related areas of production scheduling and planning, including financial management, enterprise asset management, human resource management, logistics and supply chain management, customer relationship management, etc.

As any well-developed industry on the modern global market, PLM and ERP have a wide range of competing products and solutions offered by reputable software development companies and their business partners, strong professional mass media, consulting and research organizations, and, certainly, — established concepts and terms that determine its contents and specifics. We strive to represent all these features of PLM and ERP in the Encyclopedia.

Introduction, written by Kenneth Amann — the Research Director of the CIMdata consulting and research firm, — gives you a general profile of the PLM industry and its main concepts, describes PLM evolution and its relationship with ERP, and suggests possible scenario of its future development.

The main body of the book has two parts. The first, entitled «From the First Person», consists of articles provided directly by vendors; these materials render detailed characteristics of products and solutions, present companies? approaches to work with their customers, give examples of successful manufacturing applications, useful information from the companies? background, etc. The second, reference part of the book has three sections, tentatively named «What Is This» (terms and concepts), «Who Makes This» (vendors, service providers and their products) and «Who Writes About This» (media and analysts).

Although the quality of the vendors? articles, included in the book, is not 100% equal and does not always reflect the relative importance of the companies who presented the materials and their products, the position «from the first person» should always be taken into consideration by any serious researcher of PLM and ERP. Also, the Encyclopedia is not a directory of numerous product distributors: such information can easily be found on the web sites of all reputable companies.

In general, the Encyclopedia?s focused, broad and essential reference information as well as other materials allow forming an informed judgment about the products and solutions, and compare them. Therefore, we believe that the book is useful to all specialists of modern industrial enterprises, involved in design, manufacturing, sales and support of the products. Specialists responsible for IT development on manufacturing enterprises will appreciate the reference materials presented in the book. Enterprise top managers must be fully conversant in a great variety of solutions, products, approaches and technologies of this intensively developing important field. The Encyclopedia is also recommended for the universities and business schools that provide state-of-the-art specialist training in mechanical engineering, technology, management, etc.

While working on the book, several companies and experts suggested that such a publication should be annual or bi-annual. Indeed, the PLM and ERP market is developing intensively, which gives enough grounds to work on further versions of the Encyclopedia: vendors continuously please us with new opportunities and organizational novelties, while customers consistently insist on high standards and increase their purchasing ability. We hope that the original edition will become a good experience for all project participants and stimulate creative contributions as well as other investments in further development of our series PLM + ERP Encyclopedia.

Publishing the Encyclopedia — is a project of the isicad community, which has been organized, supported and advanced by the LEDAS Group of companies since 2004. Two other isicad projects are organizing multi-vendor forums in Novosibirsk on «PLM + ERP = informational environment of a modern enterprise» and publishing the e-media isicad.ru and plmnews.ru, that present most topical news and analytical information regarding PLM and ERP. We are grateful to all authors of the texts, which made this book, and company representatives with whom we have maintained «day-to-day interface». We would very much appreciate every comment, criticism as well as suggestions as to how we can make our publication even better.