PDM Assistance

My company is looking for a Product Data Management system but I need some help narrowing down all of the choices. The company has about 125 employees with approximately 100 million in sales annually -- we custom engineer/build process equipment for the pharma industry. We are looking for a system that will manage our Autocad and Inventor drawings, as well as PLC program files, HMI files and all Word documents associated with a project (Functional Specifications, etc.). We need to institute standards and be able to track changes per revision. I'm looking into AM Meridian, GE Proficy Change Management and Autodesk products, but would like a few more choices -- any suggestions?

• Both your business and functional needs (these need to be balanced).

  
  

• Number and distribution of users.

  
  

• The type and distribution of data and applications to be managed.

  
  

• The security required.

  
  

• How well a solution works in your environment (architectural and technology fit).

  
  

• The licensing model and both the initial cost of acquisition and deployment and the continuing cost (support, upgrades, administration, etc.).

You may also want to review some of the hosted solutions (several suppliers provide this type of approach).

Editor's note: You may want to search the MA.com product directory for PDM packages that meet your requirements. GE Proficy is definitely in our directory.

For more granular results, you can filter the search parameters by company size and platform support by using our Advanced Search capability.

Or, you can use our Comparison Tool to do a side-by-side evaluation of each product's high-level capabilities. You can also drill down into those product features and functions that are most important to you.