The impact of Cloud PLM on smaller manufacturing companies

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to understand how Cloud PLM will affect smaller manufacturing companies and the study aimed to achieve this by answering three research questions: • What product related challenges are smaller manufacturing companies facing? • How can Cloud PLM aid manufacturing companies in overcoming their chal lenges? • What manufacturing companies are likely to adopt Cloud PLM? To answer the research questions, a literature review, two series of interviews, and a survey was performed. The interviews where performed with experts and smaller manufacturing companies to gain qualitative data to compliment the literature re view and provide a background for creating the survey. The survey aimed to provide quantitative data which in combination with the qualitative data was utilized to an swer the research questions. The study found that the challenges for smaller manufacturing companies can be divided into three main categories being: External, Administrative, and Innovative. Cloud PLM systems can aid smaller manufacturing companies in overcoming most of their product related challenges yet depends greatly on the adoption rate within a company. The most likely company segments to adopt a Cloud PLM system are companies with highly standardized products and companies with 250-400 employ ees. The adoption likelihood is seemingly correlated to the amount of knowledge within PLM systems.