By Michael Engelman, Enductive Solutions Inc.

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Defined broadly, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is an information- driven approach to all aspects of a product’s life, from design to manufacture to deployment and maintenance, eventually ending when the product is removed from service and disposed. Imagine all of these steps enabled by a set of highly integrated processes, methods, and tools. PLM systems are really an outgrowth of product document management, or PDM systems, and are geared more toward CAD data than simulation data. In fact the volumes of data generated from transient 3D simulations create a real problem for most PLM systems.

Simulation Process and Data Management, or SPDM, is the application of information technology, especially in the areas of archiving and data mining, to both the engineering design and analysis processes and the data generated with today’s CAE tools.

The benefits are data mining, knowledge capture, protection of intellectual capital, and integration of simulation and virtual product development with the PLM environment. SPDM is essentially the glue that binds CAE tools to PLM systems.

A diagram illustrating the many stages of Product Lifecycle Management; CAE plays its most important role in the product engineering step of the cycle

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