High Definition Product Lifecycle Management (HD-PLM) Technology

The High Definition PLM (HD-PLM) technology framework, which will enable decision makers throughout the product lifecycle to make better informed decisions more efficiently and with a higher level of confidence has been released by Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Division.

Unveiled at The World Exposition Shanghai China 2010 (Expo 2010), HD-PLM will reinvent cross-domain decision making by uniting users with the people, tools and precise product-related information they need to intelligently evaluate decision alternatives. The users’ experience – delivered through a wide variety of supported devices – will be personalized by actively placing them into the digital context appropriate to their role. HD-PLM will proactively assist users in collaborative decision making, and information will be clarified and turned into knowledge through a highly intuitive visual presentation. Finally, HD-PLM will help users validate decisions against company best practices appropriate for the task at hand.

Harness data; add meaning; create knowledge; facilitate understanding
In today’s highly connected and competitive global environment, pressure is intensifying on companies to deliver more innovative, high-quality new products to market faster. This requires hundreds or even thousands of critical decisions to be made throughout the entire product lifecycle by different individuals from different disciplines all along the value chain. The quality and speed of these decisions can have a profound impact on the market success of a product. Yet each decision may be based on a vast and constantly expanding universe of distributed digital data stored in a wide variety of formats and originating from multiple disparate sources. Compounding this overwhelming challenge is the fact that many product related decisions rely on multiple areas of expertise that may be distributed across the globe.

The HD-PLM technology framework is designed to efficiently turn this massive, widely distributed and heterogeneous collection of data into knowledge, through a tightly integrated set of solutions that will permeate Siemens PLM Software’s entire suite of enterprise applications. These solutions will significantly enhance decision making throughout the product lifecycle by taking users into the realm of advanced data interaction that actively applies meaning to data and intuitively presents rich information in a way that facilitates understanding.

High definition decision making

1. HD-PLM is based on four basic tenets that define how the technology framework will help users make better decisions faster so they can spend more time innovating.
2. PERSONALIZE – Personalize the users’ experience by recognizing who they are and actively presenting them with only the information they need to perform their tasks.
3. ASSIST – Assist users proactively to make collaborative decisions, by aggregating, analyzing and monitoring information, notifying them when action is required and suggesting collaborators to aid in their decision making.
4. CLARIFY – Clarify the users’ understanding by presenting “rich” information in the most intuitive way and enabling them to navigate to associated data from different disciplines and sources.
5. VALIDATE – Validate user decisions against best practices, by applying analytical techniques to assess alternatives and capturing decision-making best practices for future reference.

An HD-PLM enabled system will, for example, recognize a given user as not just a CAD operator, but also a powertrain engineer or airfoil designer and automatically personalize the workspace to put that individual in the right context for the tasks being performed. The system will then proactively assist the user in accomplishing tasks by informing him or her of issues to be addressed, seeking out pertinent information to consider and individuals to collaborate with based on the activity being performed. Throughout the process, HD-PLM will help clarify information by presenting it in a visually intuitive way and making it easy to access further detail from a variety of disciplines.  Finally, through analytic techniques as well as evaluations based on domain, company and industry best practices, decisions can be validated by leveraging available knowledge. As a result, users will not only formulate more intelligent decisions, but they will make those decisions with a significantly greater degree of efficiency and confidence.

All of the pertinent information necessary to this process will be instantly delivered to the right people regardless of location via a wide variety of supported devices including smart phones and tablet computers. By intelligently navigating, integrating and applying meaning to broadly dispersed stores of heterogeneous data, and then leveraging state-of-the-art technology to efficiently act on and distribute this information in a visually compelling way, HD-PLM will help build shared knowledge within an organization and enable “high definition” decision making.

Building on a strong technical foundation
HD-PLM builds on Siemens PLM Software’s strong technical foundation established through more than 30 years of software innovations.  HD-PLM will expand on this foundation to deliver a consistent in-context decision support environment throughout a seamlessly integrated set of PLM solutions. Upcoming releases of NX software for digital product development, Teamcenter software for digital lifecycle management and Tecnomatix software for digital manufacturing will establish a cohesive and intuitive decision support environment throughout the product lifecycle and across the extended global enterprise. Users of these integrated enterprise solutions will have a network of cross-domain information to make decisions that are not only relevant to their work, but that take into account the impact on the other domains both upstream and downstream.