Decoding PLM - What's a "data driven architecture"?

Don’t be scared off by the title of this post, it sounds complicated but it really isn’t that bad. Let me explain using movie rentals as an example. We used to roam the video store to find one we wanted to watch and hope it wasn’t checked out already. In the really old days, we had to “be kind and rewind” before racing back to the video store 5 minutes before they closed to return the movie the day it was due back to avoid penalty and those shaming looks from the clerk.

Today we stream movies directly from their source and have eliminated the need for getting the physical file on a tape or disc. We watch whatever we want, when we want, on the device we want. Streaming movies is an example of a data-driven experience. The movie file on a tape or DVD is just like the ones we create in CAD, Excel, and Word that are used to run millions of businesses. To work on those files you have to get the file make changes and put it back (well hopefully you put it back). With a data driven system like ENOVIA PLM only the CAD users, touch the part, drawing and assembly files. Everyone else in the enterprise such as Project Managers, Quality, Purchasing, etc. interacts with the data from those files, not the files themselves. So all the users in various roles can get the data they want, when they want it, delivered to the device they want it on, and yes I mean Apple products. Since the enterprise is using a single source of data, in real time, there are fewer delays, mistakes and reworks due to incorrect or outdated information. And don’t even get me started about re-entering information in different systems, those days are so VHS tape. See, that wasn’t so hard.

Now back to our movie.