Finding new ways to innovate and optimize core business processes is critical for organizations to maintain a competitive edge and drive growth in today’s increasingly complex business environment.
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) offers a critical framework that fosters this innovation journey, allowing organizations to optimize resources, streamline processes, and quickly bring high-quality products to market. Among the leading providers of PLM solutions, Oracle PLM stands out by providing a comprehensive suite of tools designed to empower efficiency across business teams.
Read on to learn more about Oracle PLM and how our senior-level Oracle consultants can help your organization make the most of your technical investment.
What is Product Lifecycle Management?
In simple terms, product lifecycle management (PLM) involves strategically managing all phases of the entire product lifecycle, from initial ideation and development to creation, service, and discard.
When Can PLM Be Used?
Here are a few common use cases of PLM solutions in core product development processes:
Accelerate innovation to launch
Create a more intuitive innovation pipeline driven by a consistent stream of high-level ideas. Effectively plan, create, and manage new engineering modifications and product launches.
Unify product data
Utilize a single, comprehensive business product record that comprises data from all key applications to deliver the speed and durability required to support complex business transformations.
Lower the cost of quality
Encourage internal quality management initiatives to foster quicker, more successful decisions with traceable audits and real-time visibility.
Maintain up-to-date technology
Gain automatic value from embedded artificial intelligence (AI), predictive analytics, machine learning (ML), IoT, and virtual assistance tools that turn data into relevant insights.
Unify the product value chain
Simplify processes on a single data model to accelerate decision-making, from ideation and development to product and service commercialization.
Why Do Traditional PLM Systems Fall Short?
As innovation initiatives continue to develop and customers expect experiences aligned with evolving business needs, organizations often try to create complex customizations and institute extra manual controls to keep up. This approach typically comes with higher IT costs, increased complexity, and less-than-optimal physical business improvements.
The issue lies in the fact that early PLM solutions weren’t made to handle the digital demands of today’s innovative business landscape; as a result, they perform poorly in international product launches and don’t support full-service offerings like “Product-as-a-Service” (PaaS) systems.
Organizations need PLM software that seamlessly integrates with their supply chain processes and is designed to support critical business processes as operating models grow and change. For example, PLM software allows organizations to transition from software facilitating item selling to embedded software solutions that drive the end-to-end product lifecycle.
Top Benefits of Oracle Cloud PLM
- Allows for more intelligent innovation by providing enterprise-class functionalities that simplify, translate, optimize, and carry out a well-balanced portfolio and deliver services that align with growth plans. Connected IoT and embedded analytics enhance traceability and drive quicker decision-making across teams.
- Standardizes master product data management to accelerate commercialization and improve data accuracy. Oracle PLM capabilities allow companies to create governance and release product master data for omnichannel sales and multinational production initiatives. Organizations can seamlessly associate data with relevant markets and applications through a single multi-domain solution, providing reliable and monetized product data.
- Speeds up the process of developing new products and managing engineering change requirements. Improves the accuracy of product records by managing product items, approved manufacturer lists (AMLs), bills of material (BOMs), changes, and supplier cooperation documents.
- Ensures product designs meet all qualifications by leveraging a dynamic, guided configuration and selling tool to model multi-option, customizable, and configurable services and products.
- Reduces the cost of quality with an internally embedded quality management solution (QMS) that defines, recognizes, evaluates, and fixes quality events, boosting the profitability, safety, and effectiveness of services and products.
Features of Oracle Fusion Cloud Product Lifecycle Management
Here’s a look at the key features of the Oracle PLM solution:
Product Development
Reduce design costs
With more effective collaboration between design partners and internal networks, you can retrieve feedback quicker to avoid expensive rework. Tracking product iterations in real time gives you total visibility into product evolution over time.
Quickly create and launch products
Oracle PLM enables companies to unify conventional, disconnected engineering and manufacturing operations and create a comprehensive enterprise product record.
Limit supply risks
With Oracle PLM, users can maintain a single view of qualified suppliers and parts across the product framework. This way, companies can limit risk across the supply chain and monitor part preferences for manufacturing during each design stage.
Boost change management
Through a collaborative change management approach, Oracle PLM enables users to oversee and model change iterations efficiently. Companies can leverage intuitive PLM tools to set up structured workflows that offer adaptability for adjustments, minimizing repetitive tasks and reducing turnaround times.
Implement product compliance
Oracle’s Product Lifecycle Management tools help companies ensure compliance with product regulations and systematically track changes across product lifespans, allowing quick adaptation to evolving requirements and trends. Users can leverage the PLM solution to effectively handle engineering documentation and create compliant end products through proactive compliance management initiatives.
Innovation Management
Generate ideas from anywhere
With Oracle PLM, users can generate ideas inspired by new markets, customer experiences, services, or products. They can also turn new ideas into core business initiatives by analyzing each proposal in a single, comprehensive solution.
Quick, profitable innovations
Oracle Cloud PLM facilitates the maintenance of a profitable innovation pipeline driven by a continuous flow of relevant ideas and innovative processes for sustainable expansion.
Incorporate flexibility into innovation portfolios
Users can leverage Oracle PLM to manage a blend of core, adjacent, and transformational innovation projects, aligning resources, risk management, and budgets accordingly. PLM also helps companies employ best-practice evaluation methods to choose an innovation portfolio that aligns with their strategic and financial goals.
Manage ideas and requirements
Oracle PLM helps organizations document, prioritize, and reach agreements on requirements when formulating innovative ideas. This way, companies can make the most of their existing resources, track requirements throughout the design process, and verify critical fulfillment initiatives to mitigate risks associated with new products.
Quality management
Reveal data-driven insights
Oracle Product Lifecycle Management leverages a predictive, integrated perspective to enhance decision-making speed and accuracy and improve product quality while minimizing risk across the supply chain.
Quality Feedback-Loop
With Oracle PLM, organizations can identify and address quality issues and establish continuous feedback processes spanning design, procurement, inventory, manufacturing, and field service. This allows users to enhance the efficiency and profitability of critical operations and products.
Unified issue management
Issue management features in Oracle PLM allow companies to enhance operational efficiency by maintaining a standardized view of quality processes. Users can gather and consolidate product data and conduct root-cause analysis for quality concerns developed from various channels, such as field service and IoT.
Centralized document management
Oracle’s PLM functionality helps organizations effectively manage standard operating protocols and regulatory requirements through a centralized repository and integrated document handling, training, and change management processes. This ensures consistency and alignment across compliance, process enhancement, audit readiness, and other critical operations.
Simplify preventative actions
Through internal corrective action processes that integrate with product development, enterprise change, document management, and inspection protocols, users can quickly address customer concerns and resolve issues as soon as they arise.
Product Master Data Management (MDM)
Item mastering
Adaptable attribution and change management functionalities and advanced product information management (PIM) processes enable users to maintain accurate and synchronized item master data across various applications, data pools, and collaborators.
Commercialization of products
By sharing the product details for marketing, supply chain, sales, and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) procedures, Oracle PLM enables users to commercialize new products and services efficiently.
Omnichannel commerce
Oracle PLM allows organizations to distribute consistent product details across teams while effectively managing product data within backend supply chain management (SCM), ERP, and order fulfillment systems.
ERP consolidation and migration
With the Oracle Cloud PLM solution, users can streamline data integration from multiple ERP systems and maintain a single source of truth for critical product data.
Unified collaboration for external users
Oracle PLM enables organizations to implement automated processes, consistently validate business rules, and verify data. It allows global contract manufacturers and suppliers to access precise information and authenticate data regardless of their location.
How We Can Help
Whether you need help enhancing your organization’s existing product lifecycle management plans, implementing a new Oracle product, or integrating new products with your existing Oracle ecosystem, Surety Systems has you covered.
Our senior-level Oracle consultants have the functional knowledge, skills, and experience to lead your organization to understand your complex project needs and ensure long-term success.
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Interested in learning more about Oracle PLM and how our Oracle consulting services can help you maximize your existing technology investment?
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