How would you like your PLM ecosystem

Note: This blog post was first published on www.plm-blog.com

Every time you introduce a PLM system, you need to think about what kind of IT infrastructure you really need in the organization? Simply installing the PLM system and making changes after the fact in this productive environment is a very bad idea. And in some regulated industries like the medical device industry, it is not even allowed.

This setup of different environments is not only needed once during the initial introduction. Each PLM system manufacturer delivers new major releases of its software at intervals and sometimes it is necessary to install service packs or hotfixes. And then, of course, there are the most common changes due to user requests, either developed by their own implementation team or made externally by a service provider.

Therefore, when choosing a PLM system, it is worth taking a critical look at these technical and more operational use cases. However, my experience shows that unfortunately not enough attention is paid to it and many are surprised by the cost of operating the PLM system. A PLM system is never really "done" and changes to this system are a common task. And if they follow an agile project management approach, this transfer and change between environments is common daily task.

But which environments need such a PLM implementation now?

The development environment:
As the name suggests, this is the environment in which each developer works and programs separately. Of course, this includes first tests. After these have been successfully completed, the changes to the source code and configuration of the PLM system are transferred to the integration environment.