PLM for Electronics: The Complete Guide to Product Lifecycle Management
In the world of electronics, the journey from a brilliant idea to a market-ready product is riddled with complexity. Regardless of the electronic product that you are developing, the margin for error is razor-thin.
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) for electronics acts as the backbone of a product’s development journey. It enables product teams to take a strategic approach to product development that integrates people, data, processes, and business systems.
In this guide we cover everything you need to know about using a PLM for electronics product development.
What is PLM in Electronics Manufacturing?
PLM in the electronics sector is not just about managing the journey of a product from its inception through to its eventual disposal. It is about managing a multidisciplinary ecosystem of hardware, software, and firmware.
Traditional PLMs often have a focus on the mechanical attributes of a product such as the components that are used to make a hand whisk or a bicycle. In the electronics industry, this is simply not an approach that is complex enough.
Key Challenges in Electronics Product Development
Electronics PLMs must be able to integrate with Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools in order to manage schematic captures, report on integrity data, collate PCB layouts, and more. Connecting to a traditional CAD software is not enough.
There are key challenges in electronics product development that a PLM must be able to handle.
Component lifecycle management and obsolescence
Electronics products contain numerous components with many products consisting of hundreds of tiny commodities. The best PLM for electronics companies will allow for a heavy focus on Electric Component Management (ECM).
ECM is extremely important for electronics product development, due to rapid innovation cycles within the industry.
Electronics chip manufacturers such as NVIDIA and Intel are constantly creating new improved chips on a 12 to 18 month basis. This results in older chips becoming obsolete more quickly, pushing them into the end-of-life phase of product development much faster than before.
There is also the issue of market dominance to contend with. If one of your products uses a component that an international phone manufacturer stops using, your supplier may stop making it altogether, leaving you with a big problem if you are not prepared.
A PLM for electronics will flag these changes to a component before it becomes an immediate issue. This enables you to solve the problem proactively, without disrupting the product development timeline.
Regulatory compliance and certification requirements
Regulatory compliance for electronics companies is a complex moving target that can vary dramatically by country or region. Failing to navigate this landscape doesn’t just result in fines; it can lead to total market exclusion and very expensive product recalls.
The landscape is constantly changing too with requirements such as Digital Product Passports (DPP) becoming mandatory in the EU.
There are already several regulations that originated in the EU that have been adopted by nearly every major economy too:
- RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances)
- REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals)
- WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment)
Adherence to these regulations and any further emerging regulations is paramount to ensuring that an electronic product is market ready. If a PLM can’t manage this constantly changing data, it will not be viable for use with electronics product development.
How PLM Solves Electronics Industry Challenges
There are 3 big challenges that product development teams within the electronics industry face:
- Friction between teams
- Volatile global supply chain
- Bottlenecks and delays
Using a PLM for electronics can help to solve the 3 big challenges challenges in the following ways:
Reducing team friction
Friction between teams originates from different teams working in silos. This results in physical issues with a product only being uncovered when the first physical prototype is built. This results in lost time and unnecessary cost due to wasted materials.
The best electronics PLMs catch these issues early by allowing ECAD and MCAD data to be synchronised. This allows for virtual checks of a prototype with AI-driven validation to flag any issues before any time or money is spent on physically creating it.
Supply chain visibility
Without good supply chain visibility, an engineer will solely base their choice of components on technical specs. This can lead to them choosing components that are nearing the end of their lifecycle or that have an extremely long lead time.
A good PLM will connect directly to EPR systems or a global component database to provide real-time risk scoring for all components of a product that is in development. This enables engineers to take component risk levels into account when designing a product.
The inclusion of approved manufacturer lists and approved vendor lists within a PLM can help to navigate supply chain issues too. If a primary supplier fails, the procurement team can switch to a pre-approved alternative without the need for approval from engineering.
Engineers spend up to a third of their time on non-value-added tasks that can be automated with PLM.
Source: https://resources.sw.siemens.com/en-US/video-what-are-the-main-business-benefits-of-plm-and-roi/
Removing bottlenecks and delays
The main cause of bottlenecks and delays in any product development process is the approval process. If approvals are handled through email chains with no audit trail, things can get missed and the development process can grind to a halt. The longer these delays take, the more likely it is that a product’s development will be abandoned altogether.
A PLM takes care of the approval process without the need for external communications between teams. As soon as approval is needed at any stage in the product development process, the right stakeholders are notified immediately.
They can then either provide approval or leave real-time comments about requirements for approval which will be available to the entire product development team. This reduces approval timelines dramatically and results in fewer abandoned projects.
IBM reduced the number of abandoned projects from 25 percent to just one percent over an eight-year period using PLM.
Source: https://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/plm/uk/electronics_en.pdf
Essential PLM Features for Electronics Companies
For a PLM system to be effective within the electronics industry, it must have the following essential features.
Multi-domain BOM management:
The Bill of Materials must include and integrate hardware, software, firmware, and packaging data.
Component library:
Enabling engineers to reuse pre-approved components with known footprints and verified symbols.
Design verification:
Scan a design for common design or development errors.
Component lifecycle alerts:
Warning if a part is not recommended for new designs or at the end of its life.
Component risk scoring:
Capable of flagging components with high lead times or limited available suppliers.
Automated compliance & sustainability:
The system must automate the generation of technical files for multiple international regulations, and include substance tracking and carbon footprint tracking.
Flexible access rights:
vendors and suppliers should be able to access the parts of the PLM they need without gaining full access to your internal IP.
Loved by product people, trusted by..
“As a forward-thinking business, we always seek solutions to boost efficiency and ease workloads. A PLM system was the logical choice for managing data in creating a Digital Product Passport. Switching to PLM brought big changes, but our team embraced it because Bombiix provided solutions that fit our processes—and most importantly, they wanted to use it.”
Lucy Gledhill
Founder, Joanie Ltd
Bombiix has been a game-changer for Fimex—it just works with us. In a fast-paced environment where things can get hectic, Bombiix is always there, and a reliable single source of truth for our business.
It’s the perfect tool for our teams across the factory, sales, merchandising, and design, giving everyone seamless access. I’d have no hesitation in recommending Bombiix—it’s an excellent solution that truly supports our workflow.
Caroline Davies
Chief Executive Officer
One word that I would use to describe my experience with Bombiix is fresh. Everything about the system and interface looks fresh and clean, but also the way the system is operated, the human touch. All of that is very fresh for me in the world of PLM. Bombiix is not just a software-driven computer robot system that looks like it’s from 1995.
Michaela Silverman
Design and Buying
” Running a production agency used to be chaos until we found Bombiix. It’s intuitive, tailored to our industry, and backed by a team that truly gets fashion (and isn’t afraid to customise where needed). Finally, a system that speaks our language and a joy to work with, too.”
Fazane Fox
Managing Director
Why Traditional PLM Systems Fall Short for Electronics
Most traditional PLM systems fall short for the electronics industry due to their rigid design. They are much more effective at managing the development of simpler products such as valves and heavy machinery.
Legacy PLM systems simply aren’t agile enough to keep up with the fast paced world of electronics product development.
Bombiix: PLM Built for Modern Electronics Teams
While legacy PLM systems were built to manage mechanical parts and static files, Bombiix was born out of a different reality. Our founder, Lucy Blackley, built this platform after years of frustration with disconnected systems, outdated spreadsheets, and “robotic” software that hindered rather than helped the creative process.
Our platform is designed specifically with product teams in mind. It is developed to work alongside your existing workflow seamlessly. You don’t have to change your approach to fit our software. It changes to fit your approach.
Bombiix is intuitive, visual, and mirrors the actual creative flow of electronics development. We focus on reducing “busywork” so your engineers can focus on innovation.
DPP focus
With the EU’s Digital Product Passport requirements now in full effect, Bombiix automates the collection of sustainability and material data, making compliance a seamless part of your workflow rather than a last-minute hurdle.
No legacy limitations or hidden costs
Unlike traditional PLMs that often have costs hidden behind invisible tiers and success metrics, our solution has a number of transparent subscriptions to choose from.
We don’t punish you for success by massively increasing our prices when you add a certain amount of SKUs to your PLM software. Our solution grows alongside your company.
Learn more about PLM sectors
Implementation and Getting Started
Legacy PLM implementations can take more than 12 months due to dev reliance and old-fashioned data importing. With Bombiix this is not an issue.
Our platform is cloud-native and designed for rapid onboarding. We typically get teams up and running in a matter of weeks rather than a matter of months. Our onboarding process is supported through direct face to face calls with real people and real-time chat too. You won’t be left waiting on a support ticket that has no connection to a real person.
FAQs
What makes PLM different for electronics vs other industries?
A PLM for electronics has to be able to manage the hugely complex nature of electronic products. Unlike in other industries, it can’t simply focus on the mechanical design of a product, it must take electronics components into consideration too.
How long does PLM implementation typically take for electronics companies?
PLM implementation for electronics companies can take over a year when trying to set up a legacy system. However, an agile PLM like Bombiix can be up and running within a matter of weeks.
Can PLM integrate with existing CAD and ERP systems?
When it comes to the Bombiix PLM, it can absolutely integrate seamlessly with existing CAD and ERP systems. This is not always the case for traditional PLM systems that take a legacy approach.
What's the ROI timeline for electronics PLM implementation?
With an agile PLM implementation, you can see a clear return on investment in between 9 to 18 months. This is because it improves operational efficiency by up to 30%, accelerates process timelines by as much as 80%, and allows strategic growth through component reuse and supply chain resilience.
How does PLM handle component obsolescence management?
An electronics PLM handles component obsolescence management by using ECM to flag changes to a component before it becomes an immediate issue. This allows a product team to proactively replace a component before it becomes obsolete.