PLM Solutions Meet the Need for Efficiency and Productivity
The Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) market totaled almost $9.4 billion in 2008, with the first two quarters of that year representing some of the best quarters historically for some PLM companies. Unfortunately, the last two quarters of 2008 signaled the beginning of a global economic downturn, with the third quarter slowing considerably, and the fourth quarter making precipitous drops in revenues for most PLM suppliers. Based on the declining economy growth forecasts, the 2008 PLM market going forward will be more conservative with a project growth rate of 6.7 percent for the forecast period.
Demand for increased efficiency and productivity, a continuing need for collaboration across a global manufacturing
lifecycle, the rapidly growing need for product re-invention and innovation, the continued growth of manufacturing in emerging economies, and expanding adoption of a more holistic end-to-end PLM solution set are all contributing to growth in the worldwide PLM market.
While enterprise business solutions like ERP, SCM, and BI remain essential to most companies, the expanding PLM solution set across the design/build/support/ maintain domains has enabled companies to manage the end-to-end process of product development much better and more productively. Additionally, top executives in the manufacturing sector are refocusing the strategic direction of their companies toward innovation and new product development to gain market share and grow top-line revenues.
Strategic Issues
Manufacturers are focusing more on their core competencies and keeping as much of their process knowledge and intellectual property intact as they possibly can. Knowledge capture and reuse methods will be more important than ever as a critical element of an end-to-end PLM solution set. This has given rise to the expansion of PLM applications well beyond the traditional product authoring and testing applications (CAD/CAM/CAE) to a much broader scope of the product lifecycle. These PLM solutions now include the manufacturing processes, new product introduction, content management, product support and maintenance, and expanded service offerings.