#PLM > Managing Projects with PLM

The PLM has been brought on the market by CAD vendors. By extension, it became not only the management of product data but also the management of the process that drive the product definition.

Some will use Microsoft project (or similar tools like PSNext), some will prefer excel (the most extreme case I have seen is managing project plans with PowerPoint presentation...).
Project process that involves only the engineers. Marketing, Sales, Suppliers, Quality,... all the department of the company can be concerned.

How PLM would help?

1 - Have a centralize information
"The single version of the truth".... the motto of PLM consultant. This is the first key. Find the right information and easily.

2 - Gather Project Document
Your PLM implementation should allow you to have a workspace for the project team. This workspace should be controllable in term of access. Globalized team love that...

3 - Manage Tasks and people
Of course, you need to be able to define tasks. But more than the definition, you should be able to distribute the work and follow the advancement of each task. How? Not by simply giving the approximative percentage of completion but with a standardize life cycle (i.e. In Work -> Review -> Complete).
Assigning people the task and identifying the responsible with allow you to have a smother process.

4 - Manage Deliverable
In a company I see 3 types of documents:

• Product Documents: Valid all the life of the product (specifications, user guides, ...)
• Project Documents: Valid only during the project phase (Expenses, Project Finances, ...)
• Enterprise Documents: Separated from the rest, they define the way the company operates (Quality, Process documents, norms,...)

Deliverable are of the two first kind. Product Document will be related to the product structure, Project to the workspace structure, but both need to be attached to the task in order to facilitate the review and the search for documents.
With the usual tools this is what you cannot do.

5 - Manage the risks
Managing a project without a strong management of risk... is a big risk :). Having the risk management very close to your project allow you to have a better identification of what may go wrong. It ensure you to track the risk mitigation.

6 - Review Dashboard
With all the information in one system (or several, from the moment your PLM implementation gets the information it needs), you can get very easily consolidated dashboards.

I think these 6 points justify the need for a centralized data. system. Of course you can extend that view to Project Quality (6-sigma), to Project Financial, to manage resource, to enter actual hours, have project templates... but that's another story.

Project management is a great entry point for a PLM approach. Because it involves everyone. Because you can limit the change and then the reluctance to change.