Seamless Integration into ERP and MES Systems Drives Growth in the World Product Lifecycle Management Solutions Markets.

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c49124) has announced the addition of Frost & Sullivan's new report: World Product Lifecycle Management Solutions Markets to their offering.

This Frost & Sullivan research service titled World Product Lifecycle Management Solutions Markets provides critical insights into the market including industry challenges, market drivers and restraints, and revenue forecasts. In this research service, Frost & Sullivan's expert analysts thoroughly examine the following markets/applications/technologies: authoring and analysis tools, collaborative product definition management, software, services, automotive, aerospace and defense, hi-tech and electronics manufacturing, fabrication and assembly, utilities and process industries, pharmaceuticals and food and beverages industries, consumer packaged goods and other industries.

Market Sectors

Expert Frost & Sullivan analysts thoroughly examine the following market sectors in this research:

By PLM Application Sector:

- Automotive

- Aerospace and Defense

- Hi-tech and Electronics

- Fabrication and Assembly

- Consumer Packaged Goods

- Utilities and Process

- Pharmaceuticals and Food and Beverages

By Technologies:

- Mechanical Computer-Aided Design (MCAD)

- Electronic Computer-Aided Design (ECAD)

- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

- Supply Chain Management (SCM)

- RPM

- Collaborative Product Definition Management (cPDm)

Technologies

The following technology is covered in this research:

- Product Lifecycle Management (PLM): PLM solutions provide the necessary requirements and capabilities companies need to successfully manage information and facilitate communication and collaboration across the entire product lifecycle from idea through retirement.

Market Overview

Open Architectures for 3-D Visualization Increase Adoption

In the last five years, open architecture has become a keyword across industries, not just in product lifecycle management (PLM), but throughout the automation industry. In keeping with this trend, customers within end-user industries are shunning legacy systems for solutions that can be easily integrated with other systems. Open architecture for 3-D visualization has increased the adoption of PLM across all industry verticals that depend upon authoring and analysis tools for manufacturing. The authoring and analysis tools segment accounted for around 64.5 percent of the total PLM solutions markets in the year 2005, and the use of open architecture is expected to further encourage the growth of this sector in future.

However, home-grown solutions employed by major end users remain a critical challenge for the industry, thwarting penetration rates. Several end-user manufacturers still use their own home-grown PLM solutions that are not entirely capable of solving real-time and real-world challenges such as collaboration, information sharing, and enterprise wide content management. Since most of the suppliers and original equipment manufacturers (OEM) within the automotive, consumer packaged goods (CPG), and fabrication and assembly industries have their in-house solutions, PLM providers find it difficult to penetrate these markets, notes the analyst of this research service. Nevertheless, with the advent of open platform based PLM and manufacturing execution systems (MES) suites, end users have increasingly begun to realize the advantages of implementing open architecture based PLM and MES solutions.

Seamless Integration into ERP and MES Systems Drives Growth

For years, end-user industries have borne the brunt of home-grown legacy systems, which were incapable of being integrated with enterprise software, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer resource management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), and other domains. However, most modern-day MES, and ERP solutions support seamless integration with other enterprise software solutions. In capitalizing on this opportunity, PLM solution providers are beginning to integrate their solutions with enterprise software such as MES, ERP, CRM, SCM, and others. This has lead to an increased adoption of PLM systems by end users that want enterprise wide visibility of information. Subsequently, the number of PLM seats installed by end users has shown a remarkable increase and this has primarily driven the tremendous growth of collaborative product definition management (cPDm) solutions.

With respect to the leading end-user segments, the automotive and transport sector contributed to 21.6 percent of the total revenues in the PLM solutions markets in 2005, followed by the aerospace and defense sector with 15.0 percent, and the hi-tech and electronics manufacturing industries with 10.0 percent. Overall, increasing end-user awareness has led to better growth opportunities in the PLM solutions markets and end-user forums and trade shows organized by leading PLM providers across the globe have helped spread awareness among several end-user verticals, says the analyst. However, the existence of a number of similar solutions could confuse end users and PLM providers will have to work toward defining industry standards for various solutions that comprise cPDm solutions.

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Source: Frost & Sullivan