Small & Medium Enterprises-Their Views of Product Data Management Tools

Abstract

This study was conducted as a means to discover common traits associated with small and medium manufacturers, especially ones who have adopted product data management (PDM) systems as a method to control engineering design and manufacturing data. After qualitative interviews were conducted with leading experts across industry sectors, a survey was developed and sent to small and medium manufacturers in the United States. The study concludes a number of interesting findings about the state of PDM usage within various segments of the industry, including general uses for engineering design systems, level of data exchange with customers and suppliers, and satisfaction levels with information querying, concurrent engineering contributions, and imposed restrictions. The study concludes that there are a few major factors that determine a company’s success with using design and data management systems, including frequency of data exchange, data reuse, digital data formats used, and employee counts and locations.