“Product data management is the use of software or other tools to track and control data related to a particular product. The data tracked usually involves the technical specifications of the product, specifications for manufacture and development, and the types of materials that will be required to produce goods. The use of product data management allows a company to track the various costs associated with the creation and launch of a product. Product data management is part of product lifecycle management and configuration management, and is primarily used by engineers.” (translated from Wikipedia).
PDM systems, as their own type of software, have their origin in the shortcomings of simple drawing management found within CAD data management systems. The reason: Plants and machinery simply cannot be represented by technical drawings alone. They need to be complemented by every piece of information that accompanies and documents a product across every stage of the development and manufacturing process. One of the most pressing problems of simple CAD model or drawing management was the drastic increase in product data volumes.
What’s more, as the products grew more complex so did the product data networks, which made it imperative to come up with new concepts on how to manage these massive amounts of product data.