PROLIM: Spearheading PLM Implementations For Manufacturers
Prabhu Patil, President& CEO
PLM today has evolved as an all-encompassing approach for innovation, new product development(NPD)and product information management, from ideation to the entire product lifecycle. As the single source of truth for managing all aspects of the product, PLM systems are being sought after by manufacturers to not only help automate processes and provide a central repository for product-related data but also to aid them in combating the increased competition and time pressure,as well as to meet the increasing demand for innovative smart products. Corroborating this fact are leading market research studies which forecast the global market for Product Lifecycle Management(PLM)to grow to a staggering USD 65.8 billion by 2022. Organisations, not only large enterprises but also SMBs are thus adopting PLM, often in regulated environments, to attain similar speed and control over new product development and launch processes.
Furthermore, those that already have these systems in place are looking to move up the value chain and establish a matured enterprise-wide PLM process that will include customers, suppliers and partners in the ecosystem with PLM extended connectivity. However, despite the uninterrupted innovation, product integrity agility and cost optimizations offered by PLM, adopting these systems into organisations is no easy task as they are faced with organizational resistance to change as well as implementation complexities involving data migration, customization, integration and the inability of staff to resolve PLM issues when they arise. Perfectly understanding these challenges, Michigan headquartered PROLIM steps forward to address them with its end-to-end PLM and Engineering Solutions, to help organizations increase their efficiency and profitability.
Since its inception in 2005, PROLIM, a global company, has been helping organizations accomplish their PLM business goals with strong PLM Technology and R&D capabilities. The company has been focused on product innovation by leveraging IT and PLM technologies. In order to accomplish this, PROLIM has set up a Product Lifecycle Management(PLM)practice which is powered by a team of consultants who provide comprehensive, end-to-end service offerings. The company also boasts of a PLM Center-of-Excellence(CoE)that enablesits customers to design and build innovative solutions for the most pressing PLM challenges.
Supported by the right skills, resources, technologies and methodologies, this CoE works on developing customized solutions to help customers better manage their entire product lifecycle. “With PLM having emerged as a key enabler of innovation, enterprises today are left with no option but to undertake their PLM journey, to stay relevant in this increasingly competitive era of Industry 4.0,” opines Prabhu Patil, President & CEO. “PROLIM is strategically positioned in this domain as a one-stop shop for PLM and Engineering Services as we offer a gamut of products and services from implementation to consulting, tech support and training for our PLM customers,” he goes on to add.
"Prolim is strategically positioned in this domain as a one-stop shop for PLM and engineering services as we offer a gamut of products and services from implementation to consulting, tech support andtrainingfor our PLM customers"
Over the last decade, PROLIM has built up extensive PLM expertise and has serviced over 1000 companies across the segments of Automotive, Aerospace & Defence, Medical devices, Consumer products, Marine, and Industrial Machinery,throughout the world. The company also serves as a global systems integrator partner for Siemens PLM around their Product Lifecycle Management-based offerings. Leveraging this alliance, PROLIM provides optimized PLM software as well as best-in-class consulting and implementation services, to help customers derive more business value from every product.
The company’s expansive portfolio of offerings includes PLM Solutions and Consulting Services, PLM Advisory and Training, Cloud Infrastructure, IoT solutions, Engineering Design, CAD/CAM services, IT Consulting, Data Migration and Project Management.
Unique Approach to PLM Implementation
With Product Lifecycle Management(PLM)being both an enterprise software solution as well as a key business strategy that manages all of the critical product information and business processes that go into bringing successful products to the market, organizations are in need of solution partners that possess a good understanding of both implementation processes and the challenges that accompany them. Meeting this need,PROLIM brings to the fore its unique implementation approach that involves developing a deep understanding of the customers’ business objectives, factors impeding their growth and the areas that can be corrected with PLM. The company not only recommends technologies that can help customers become more competitive, but also renders implementation services, delivering the PLM platform in the shortest possible time. This is accomplished through PROLIM’s end-to-end PLM advisory and implementation services which combine deep experience in strategy, process Improvement, digital technologies and organizational effectiveness with expertise in PLM technology deployments for all of the
leading PLM software solutions. The company also focuses extensively on analysing the current product processes, industry benchmarked/ canonical business processes and clients’ business strategy to develop a robust PLM roadmap. In addition to this, PROLIM also dedicates Presales and Sales teams to offer PLM Software Solutions, PLM Consulting Practice, CAD/CAM and IOT Development and Delivery Services, 18 x 7 Tech Support, and training Centres for Onsite, Offsite and Online.
"Prolim’s “Customer-Delight” Culture, Faster Gtm For Plm Services, Competitive ROI For Customers, PLM Advisory Capabilities And The Depth Of Plm Expertise From Our Coe, Make Us Unique Among Key PLM Players"
Post-delivery, the company also engages with its clients to ensure that the adoption and organization’s acceptance of PLM increases with time.Commenting on the company’s USP, Prabhu says,“PROLIM’s “Customer- Delight” culture, faster GTM for PLM services, competitive ROI for customers, PLM Advisory capabilities and the depth of PLM expertise from our CoE, make us unique among key PLM players. We have also successfully won bids against Tier-1 System Integrators for PLM services from OEM manufacturers on multiple occasions.”
Enabling Seamless Data Migration
Furthermore,recognising that PLM implementations often fail due to challenges around data migration, PROLIM has developed a Data Migration platform - “Diaspora” which provides answers and solutions to some of the failures that repeatedly occur in various PLM migration projects. Developed by the company’s PLM CoE team based on a decade of implementation experience in PLM migration, this platform enables customers to handle data quality issues prior to migration and provides configurable reconciliation mechanisms to check migration success. Additionally, Diaspora Data Migration also provides interoperability between various data sources and target stacks such as CAD, RDBMS systems, PLM systems, and Package applications.
Facilitating Innovation in Engineering Design
Integrated CAD/CAM systems provide one complete system for tool design, machining, and quality inspection, based on one 3D master model, thereby ensuring less data transition and a smarter connection between applications. Endeavoring to bring these advantages to its customers, PROLIM in association with Siemens PLM software offers its NX CAD/CAM solutions. The company’s NX CAD (formerly Unigraphics) is a robust 3D solution that provides fast and realistic concept design and modeling, setting new standards for performance speed and ease-of-use. As a very intuitive product design, product engineering and product development tool, NX CAD makes team-designing possible for Automotive OEMs and Suppliers, Equipment makers and organisations in Industrial Machinery. NX CAD in association with PLM also aids in knowledge management to ensure that the business of product development is risk-free.
Moreover, in addition to designing,PROLIM also ensures flawless tooling and machining operations to realize the designs,through NX CAM. A global leader in Computer Aided Manufacturing, NX CAM provides a complete set of NC programming capabilities in a single CAM system as well as an integrated set of manufacturing software applications that facilitate part modeling, tool design and inspection programming. With the ability to recognise machining features, NX CAM not only helps to reduce programming time but also allows its users to build the correct process from a library of operations and use the PMI model data to drive machining process selection.
Driving Automation with IIoT and Industry 4.0 Technologies
Having rendered several successful PLM implementations as well as Design & Engineering capabilities across different industry verticals, PROLIM has emerged as a distinguished solution provider in the PLM domain and is widely commended for its valuable contributions to this realm. As a testament to its PLM/ CAD/CAM capabilities, the company has been a part of several global teams to design and engineer various product development programs including the Indian Defense Surface to air missile programs as well as the US, Japanese and European Automotive and Aerospace programs. Moving forward, the company intends to further improve the manufacturing space with significant investments in Industrial IoT, collaborative robots and digital twins. Having partnered with Siemens PLM IOT platform – MindSphere, PROLIM has been working on building an IOT solution that will enable digital twin solutions for connected devices, thereby paving way for more product innovation.“IIoT and Industry 4.0 technologies will serve as major assets in driving transformation and bring with them the promise of improved business outcomes,” signs off Prabhu.
Boosting Operational Efficiency through Business Process Automation
With over two decades of PLM knowledge and implementation expertise, PROLIM has several success stories under its wing, one among which is its work with a leading automotive manufacturer in the US. The company which looked to improve the business processes of new model purchasing; faced several challenges including tedious and time consuming manual processes and paperwork in the absence of automation. Moreover, the data associated with new model purchasing also existed as disparate information distributed across multiple systems/environments with no effective collaboration between suppliers and OEMs. Understanding these concerns, PROLIM helped the company address them with its configured PLM solutions that enabled streamlined and automated business processes for new model purchasing. With this solution, the company was also able to acquire a centralized database of product information which not only facilitated effective information sharing between stakeholders but also helped the manufacturer to increase their productivity and operational efficiency.
"Prolim’s “Customer-Delight” Culture, Faster Gtm For Plm Services, Competitive ROI For Customers, PLM Advisory Capabilities And The Depth Of Plm Expertise From Our Coe, Make Us Unique Among Key PLM Players"
Post-delivery, the company also engages with its clients to ensure that the adoption and organization’s acceptance of PLM increases with time.Commenting on the company’s USP, Prabhu says,“PROLIM’s “Customer- Delight” culture, faster GTM for PLM services, competitive ROI for customers, PLM Advisory capabilities and the depth of PLM expertise from our CoE, make us unique among key PLM players. We have also successfully won bids against Tier-1 System Integrators for PLM services from OEM manufacturers on multiple occasions.”
Enabling Seamless Data Migration
Furthermore,recognising that PLM implementations often fail due to challenges around data migration, PROLIM has developed a Data Migration platform - “Diaspora” which provides answers and solutions to some of the failures that repeatedly occur in various PLM migration projects. Developed by the company’s PLM CoE team based on a decade of implementation experience in PLM migration, this platform enables customers to handle data quality issues prior to migration and provides configurable reconciliation mechanisms to check migration success. Additionally, Diaspora Data Migration also provides interoperability between various data sources and target stacks such as CAD, RDBMS systems, PLM systems, and Package applications.
Facilitating Innovation in Engineering Design
Integrated CAD/CAM systems provide one complete system for tool design, machining, and quality inspection, based on one 3D master model, thereby ensuring less data transition and a smarter connection between applications. Endeavoring to bring these advantages to its customers, PROLIM in association with Siemens PLM software offers its NX CAD/CAM solutions. The company’s NX CAD (formerly Unigraphics) is a robust 3D solution that provides fast and realistic concept design and modeling, setting new standards for performance speed and ease-of-use. As a very intuitive product design, product engineering and product development tool, NX CAD makes team-designing possible for Automotive OEMs and Suppliers, Equipment makers and organisations in Industrial Machinery. NX CAD in association with PLM also aids in knowledge management to ensure that the business of product development is risk-free.
Moreover, in addition to designing,PROLIM also ensures flawless tooling and machining operations to realize the designs,through NX CAM. A global leader in Computer Aided Manufacturing, NX CAM provides a complete set of NC programming capabilities in a single CAM system as well as an integrated set of manufacturing software applications that facilitate part modeling, tool design and inspection programming. With the ability to recognise machining features, NX CAM not only helps to reduce programming time but also allows its users to build the correct process from a library of operations and use the PMI model data to drive machining process selection.
Driving Automation with IIoT and Industry 4.0 Technologies
Having rendered several successful PLM implementations as well as Design & Engineering capabilities across different industry verticals, PROLIM has emerged as a distinguished solution provider in the PLM domain and is widely commended for its valuable contributions to this realm. As a testament to its PLM/ CAD/CAM capabilities, the company has been a part of several global teams to design and engineer various product development programs including the Indian Defense Surface to air missile programs as well as the US, Japanese and European Automotive and Aerospace programs. Moving forward, the company intends to further improve the manufacturing space with significant investments in Industrial IoT, collaborative robots and digital twins. Having partnered with Siemens PLM IOT platform – MindSphere, PROLIM has been working on building an IOT solution that will enable digital twin solutions for connected devices, thereby paving way for more product innovation.“IIoT and Industry 4.0 technologies will serve as major assets in driving transformation and bring with them the promise of improved business outcomes,” signs off Prabhu.
Boosting Operational Efficiency through Business Process Automation
With over two decades of PLM knowledge and implementation expertise, PROLIM has several success stories under its wing, one among which is its work with a leading automotive manufacturer in the US. The company which looked to improve the business processes of new model purchasing; faced several challenges including tedious and time consuming manual processes and paperwork in the absence of automation. Moreover, the data associated with new model purchasing also existed as disparate information distributed across multiple systems/environments with no effective collaboration between suppliers and OEMs. Understanding these concerns, PROLIM helped the company address them with its configured PLM solutions that enabled streamlined and automated business processes for new model purchasing. With this solution, the company was also able to acquire a centralized database of product information which not only facilitated effective information sharing between stakeholders but also helped the manufacturer to increase their productivity and operational efficiency.
