Why Do Manufacturers Need Parts Management? Part 3 – Protect The Company Treasure Trove

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

It’s the same old story you have heard since the first grade. “Just cooperate and things will go smoothly.” Or as your engineering manager might say “Just use the snazzy tools as a team and all will be fine.” So how does your PLM system really help your team to cooperate and to find parts for use in designs?

Let’s say you’re working on product assembly data on your desktop. The designer next to you has related files on his, and an engineer 500 miles away has even more. Without a proven data management system in place, headaches are just waiting to strike.

So the PLM system is the company’s treasure trove of intellectual property. It definitely is an aide to make the team work smoothly and reuse the existing company intellectual property.

As Billy Mays would say: “But wait! There’s more.”

The product you design consists of all kinds of stuff that you purchase. As a matter of fact, in a given product in the marketplace, 40% of the components came from a paper catalog on your shelf or a standards specification. It only makes sense. Don’t re-invent the wheel. Buy what you can and make the rest yourself.

Did I just say paper catalog on the shelf?

Without PARTsolutions Parts Management system, the designer is likely to draw up a part in the CAD system, fit it into the assembly and perhaps give it a company part number. Next thing you know, two designers have designed the same part with different part numbers and attributes.

Shiver-Me-Timbers! The treasure trove is getting cluttered!

With PARTsolutions, you find the part in the digital catalog. Export it into the CAD system. The PARTsolutions connection to your PLM system will double-check if the PART is already in the PLM and instance it from there (Voila, no clutter!).

Or, if the part has not been used by the company yet, the PARTsolutions connection will check a new one into PLM so the next designer references it from PLM. PARTsolutions has mapping rules for attributes and internal part numbering conventions so it all stays consistent.

No clutter, everything consistent. A clean treasure trove in your PLM system and an efficient tool for searching for vendor and standard parts in the bargain!

With over 500 commercial vendor catalog and 20 global standards avaliable. Why wait? Streamline your process and connect PARTsolutions to your PLM system today.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3