Overview

In today’s manufacturing environment, accelerating product development cycles can be your single greatest competitive advantage. The biggest obstacle? Manual processes that keep valuable design data out of the hands of key players including manufacturing, purchasing, and external suppliers who need it the most.

With better data management, you can drive design reuse and maximize your return on investment in design data. You can use design data across the manufacturing process to drive smarter business decisions by all team members, automate the key processes that drive product design and manufacturing, and achieve maximum product visibility and collaboration with suppliers and customers. As a result, development cycles speed up and products get to market faster.

Smart business decisions start with smarter data management.

To achieve these goals, some manufacturers turn to Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions. However, not all manufacturing companies need the end-to-end process reengineering demanded by PLM. You also don’t need the business disruption that comes from implementing a highly customized PLM installation. You need a modular solution that can be implemented incrementally, on your timeline without disrupting existing business processes. That’s where Autodesk has taken a practical approach to data management. Comprising several powerful Autodesk software products and services, includingAutodesk® Vault, Autodesk® Productstream™, and Autodesk Streamline®, this modular, easy-to-implement solution enables manufacturers to accelerate product development cycles while avoiding the complications and expense of a high-end PLM installation.

Autodesk Vault

The foundation of Autodesk’s data management solution is Autodesk Vault. Providing a single, secure repository for design data, Autodesk Vault is tightly integrated with all Autodesk manufacturing design software products. By storing designs in a centralized location, engineers can find, reference, and reuse that design data. The best part? If you’re a user of Autodesk® Inventor® Series, Autodesk Inventor® Professional, AutoCAD® Mechanical, or AutoCAD® Electrical software, you already own Autodesk Vault.

Synchronize Your Design Team

As your product design evolves, more people contribute to the data, increasing the chance that work in progress will be inadvertently overwritten. Autodesk Vault software’s version management capability protects work-in-progress data, minimizing the risk of overwriting work. Engineering team members can instantly access the most current design data. Design efforts are synchronized, and costly mistakes are reduced.

Autodesk Productstream

Getting to market faster means not only sharing your design data, but also maintaining control of it as it moves downstream. When you’re ready to do both, you’re ready for Autodesk Productstream. Extending the power of Autodesk Vault, Productstream automates the release management process by managing engineering changes and bills of materials. Because it’s built for engineering, you maintain control over the design data until it goes into production.
Internal members of the extended team, from manufacturing to purchasing, can access, review, and add supporting data without overwritingthe design data itself. With lifecycle state control, you can identify exactly where the project is in the design and manufacturing cycle. The result? Better information transfer, more accurate designs, and smarter business decisions.

Automate Release Management

Autodesk Productstream automates the release management process so you can perform change impact analyses at any time to reduce costly mistakes and delays. Increase efficiency by eliminating the manual data entry and hand-offs between departments that can introduce errors.

Track the Change Order Process

Stay informed about engineering changes. Use Autodesk Productstream to facilitate design review and obtain feedback from extended team members. Track and record approvals and change histories, and respond to change requests from manufacturing more quickly.

Link Design Data into ERP Systems

Open-standard interfaces enable you to transfer BOM data directly to many popular supply chain and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, including Microsoft® Business Solutions. This integration helps eliminate manual data entry errors while providing much-needed advance information for planning.

Autodesk Streamline

For maximum project visibility, you need to share your design data outside the firewall. With Autodesk Streamline, you can easily and securely share design information with your entire supply chain and customers worldwide—all at minimal complexity and cost. Autodesk Streamline provides a web-based, hosted project environment where customers and suppliers can access appropriate, up-todate project information. Integrated with Autodesk Streamline, Autodesk® DWF™ Viewer software enables extended team members to easily view your most current design data.