Aims and Scope

The IT market provides a multiplicity of solutions and products that are absolutely essential for normal development and competitiveness of a modern enterprise. PLM and ERP cover the major part of real-life demands for software applications; the difficulties of applying them successfully in the Russian industry can probably be explained by three reasons:

• Enterprise's infrastructure is not ready (if not contradicts) to IT scenarios and procedures,
• Enterprise suffers from a serious deficit of (financial) resources, and
• Enterprise lacks for reliable and full enough information about a spectrum and comparative characteristics of solutions offered by the market.

Under these conditions, enterprises cannot afford expensive experiments with installments of newly encountered fragmented solutions but are strongly interested in

• Finding a systemic, long-term integrated solution, which enables
• Building an affordable and optimal scenario for a step-by-step installations of that solution, and
• Obtaining capabilities for effective reaction to market demands and proposals that will inevitably appear in the future.

A recent report of CIMdata says that "The integration of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) significantly improves the productivity and effectiveness of users and organizations working with product and plant related information. These two enterprise domains encompass many of the critical functions required to develop, test, manufacture, deliver, use, and support a product throughout its life, and integration of PLM and ERP can deliver significant benefits for companies of all sizes"

The isicad-2006 Forum "PLM + ERP: Informational Environment of a Modern Enterprise" is organized in order to give industry (first of all, in Siberia) a concentrated opportunity to

• Learn about the main current and future solutions directly from the presentations given by the leading providers and compare their advantages,
• Obtain consulting - probably from alternative providers,
• Become acquainted with the newest offers including purchasing data and training opportunities in the related domains.

Analysts believe that future progress in such science-intensive domains as PLM and ERP will depend more and more on the investments into research and innovations. Intensive contacts between scientists and designers of new solutions will therefore facilitate accelerated application of research findings into software development practice and also will enable to more precisely formulate new research topics in order to meet the market demands.

PLM and ERP are actively and successfully developed in the market, however these domains still have not been fully appreciated by society. They are still being shaped, they highly need users feedback, and they should be strongly supported by science and technology. Also those domains would benefit from more promotion by mass media and understanding by state agencies and society. That is why bringing together representatives of all parties interested in use, delivery, development, and promotion of PLM and ERP is so important and useful.