Accelerating Your Business's Forward Movement

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)

By implementing Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) efficiently and rigorously, companies achieve growth, agility, and competitive advantages. To enable this, valantic serves as the link between your product-related business processes and their implementation through tailor-made PLM solutions. As a system-agnostic service company, valantic understands PLM as a strategic core competency, ensuring that all information and processes surrounding a product are effectively managed and optimized – from the initial idea to recycling.

Group of hikers on a mountain. Woman helping her friend to climb a rock. Young people on mountain hike at sunset.

valantic’s consulting approach is product-neutral and precisely tailored to your company. As navigators for our clients in the PLM sector, our aim is to identify and implement the ideal solution which meets your specific requirements. We are able to support you as strategic, system-agnostic advisor and as well as practical implementer. We stand firmly behind the developed concepts and actively support you on your journey.

With a comprehensive and manufacturer-independent perspective on the entire product lifecycle, we provide maximum support to teams and customers at every stage of development. Our goal is not simply to sell a particular software solution to our clients, but to work closely with your PLM community to find and implement the most suitable and value-enhancing solution.

The valantic expert team impresses with diverse PLM competencies across various industries—whether in discrete manufacturing, process production, the food industry, consumer goods and even in strictly regulated markets, we are at home. With industry-specific templates and proven methods, valantic starts where you stand and leads you efficiently to your individual PLM goal.

The Seven Steps of the valantic PLM Consulting Approach

Introduction and Initial Assessment of Currently Existing PLM Processes

Analysis and Optimization of Your PLM Processes

Careful Selection and Evaluation of PLM Providers

Ensuring Your Investment through Post-Implementation Support of Existing Solutions

Integration of Heterogeneous System Landscapes

Development of a Future-Proof PLM Architecture and Strategy

Implementation and Ongoing Operation of Your PLM Solution

The unique Advantages of PLM

Collaborative Product Development

PLM promotes collaborative and interdisciplinary product development for you, emphasizing innovation and sustainability, thereby increasing customer satisfaction and strengthening market position.

Faster Time to Market

PLM accelerates your product’s entry to the market through streamlined business processes and intuitive PLM solutions, allowing you to capture new markets more quickly than the competition and solidify existing markets.

Increased Product Appeal

Enhance the agility and attractiveness of your product range through structured and transparent organization of all product-relevant information and processes.

Flexibility in the Product Lifecycle

Respond flexibly and promptly to changes in the product lifecycle by making current information available across the company at the right place and time. This ensures that all stakeholders are always up to date.

Compliance and Documentation

Seamlessly meet constantly changing regulatory requirements and audits and always ensure access to all necessary evidence and documentation.

PLM at the Heart of a Modern Enterprise Architecture

PLM is a crucial component of a state-of-the-art enterprise architecture. As a strategic core competency, PLM deals with everything that makes your products unique, essentially the heart of your business value creation.
The interplay between Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Enterprise Resource Management (ERP), and Manufacturing Execution System (MES) forms the supporting pillar of industrial product creation—the “magic triangle” of corporate IT infrastructure.

Synergies of PLM, ERP, and MES for the Optimization of Business Processes

These systems complement each other and must be finely coordinated to optimize their respective tasks:

PLM focuses on the (constantly changing) product and its characteristics at every point in the product lifecycle. The approved artifacts that result from this process (e.g., documents, code, geometries) are fed into other business processes and influenced by them.
ERP manages transactional business processes such as finances, bookings, suppliers, and logistics. It involves activities such as planning, creating orders, and recording their completion.
MES organizes production orders and manufacturing processes. This ensures that the manufacturing of industrial products is handled specifically by each factory, achieving the desired product quality. In the process industry, the interaction between MES, Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS), and Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) is particularly significant.

Together, PLM, ERP, and MES create a holistic system where information flows seamlessly, enhancing efficiency, consistency, and quality across all stages of product creation and business operations.

Rocks in a river; Product Lifecycle Management with valantic

European Parliament
Report on the implementation of the Ecodesign Directive (2009/125/EG)

”Especially when manufacturing a product, while the technical possibilities are greatest, it is important to act. 80% of the environmental impact and 90% of the manufacturer's costs are currently generated in the design phase of the product.“

Integrated Product Development: From Market Needs to Customer Service

Product development does not occur in a vacuum. Rather, it is intricately linked with Manufacturing Engineering (or Production Engineering) and Service Engineering. Everything is based on market requirements, trends, and desires, aiming to generate competitive advantages.

Here, too, a number of systems are used that work closely with the PLM system:

To enable companies to offer their customers personalized products successfully and with an appealing customer experience, the PLM system works closely with Product Information Management (PIM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), or Configure-Price-Quote systems (CPQ).
By bridging the gap between Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) – also known as “Shop Floor to Top Floor” – the products offered can be produced or manufactured flexibly and sustainably. The goal here is rapid product changes with the highest quality instead of lengthy retooling times.
The close interaction of the PLM system with Service Lifecycle Management systems (SLM) enhances the customer experience and ensures ultimate customer satisfaction and long-term customer loyalty.

Sand dune; Product Lifecycle Management with valantic

PLM as a Catalyst for Tailored Business Success

With a smooth integration into your enterprise architecture, PLM, with its product-related data, becomes the fuel that gives your corporate rocket impressive thrust! This integration creates maximum added value, and your investments pay off with greater business success. There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution because every company and industry operate differently and has its own culture.

At valantic, specialists work in all the markets and areas of expertise mentioned in digitalization. They are well-versed in the possibilities and limitations of various solutions of the market leaders and have valuable industry insights. Respectful partnerships with leading PLM vendors ensure that our customers’ interests are always at the forefront. Thus, we bridge the gap between your business processes and a system landscape tailored to your needs. Valantic supports its customers through their individual PLM transformation process while always keeping an eye on adjacent disciplines.

Above all, we aim to inspire and excite you and your colleagues with the many possibilities of the latest digitalization technologies – because at valantic, the focus is always on people. Take off and leave your competitors behind!

Start your PLM project now

Florian Bischof
Manager Customer Experience Applications, Trelleborg Sealing Solutions

”valantic plays a crucial role in our global PLM strategy, roadmap, and implementation.“

The Four Steps to your Optimized PLM Solution

As a link between your business processes and the implementation of a holistic PLM solution, valantic has created a proven framework and approach that systematically takes into account the four core components of “people, processes, systems, and data.” As a result, we can reach our goal faster together: Your optimized PLM solution.

Explore PLM
Plan PLM
Build PLM
Operate PLM

If you are interested, please contact us.

Step 1

Explore PLM Strategic PLM-Consulting

The foundation for PLM success is as comprehensive a capture of the current state as possible. After all, your company already successfully develops products. Consequently you already practices a form of Product Lifecycle Management. The question is how you handle PLM currently and whether there are potential improvements which could make your company even more successful or catapult it to the top of your market segment.

Using industry-specific templates as a framework, we analize the current PLM practices in place at your organization together with your subject matter and process experts. We draw upon a selection of up to 80 functional and non-functional topics, then focus on the essentials.

This approach ensures that nothing is overlooked, while also avoiding excessive effort. By communicating with your internal stakeholders, we form a PLM community in this early phase, thereby initiating the very important change management. PLM experts from valantic use a combination of exploratory workshops, interviews, and document reviews to fully understand where your PLM currently stands and where it could potentially be in the future.

We analyze the results systematically and prioritize the issues together with you, working towards a possible future vision. The PLM maturity level is assessed using a recognized process maturity model. This provides you with a clear reflection of your current situation.

You will receive insights and recommendations from our experts to prepare the next steps for you:

Insights into PLM to raise awareness among your stakeholders
Highlighting challenges and complexity
Pointing out potential pitfalls and risks
Support in better understanding the expectations and needs of your organization
Summarizing requirements, risks, and impacts
Scoping and target formulation for a future PLM

The results of the “Explore” phase become the basis for all subsequent steps. Often, PLM projects fail because this crucial foundational phase, where the course is set, does not receive the necessary attention. However, the comparatively small investment here in this phase can save considerable effort and frustration in later activities.

The scope and effort of this phase can, of course, be flexibly and incrementally designed, depending on how clear your ideas already are.

If you already have a PLM program running and are questioning whether the investments have been correct, a retrospective “Explore” phase can provide clarity and, if necessary, initiate supplements, readjustments, or a realignment. It is not uncommon for us to find situations with clients where a PLM system exists but is scarcely or incorrectly used. While this could indeed be due to the software, it is more likely due to an inadequate or missing “Explore” and “Plan” phase.

An “Explore” phase can also be very beneficial for a possible planned consolidation of heterogeneous PLM landscapes, which may have become necessary due to mergers & acquisitions or historically evolved structures.

At the end of the “Explore” phase, the decision must be for the future PLM system supplier has to be taken. valantic can accompany this process with systematic evaluation criteria, to create a detailed and comprehensible basis for decision-finding for the selection of a PLM system provider.

Step 2

Plan PLM Business Case and Roadmap

After the goals and scope for a future PLM setup are roughly outlined in the Explore phase, the “Plan” phase involves a more detailed and refined approach.

During the “Plan” phase, the conceptual design of the PLM solution architecture is developed as the basis for a subsequent implementation phase. For the conceptual design, requirements are again systematically captured, goals clearly defined and prioritized, a high-level system architecture developed, data management planned, integration planning carried out, and the security concept analyzed.

The solution architecture is aggregated at the end of the “Plan” phase in the form of a PLM vision and roadmap. This involves planning action sequences and work packages that contribute to the jointly formulated target vision. The planning provides clarity about the scope and effort of a PLM project and forms the basis for the subsequent “Build” phase.

valantic works closely with clients and solution providers to define the project scope, work division, organization, and schedule. The strategic direction of the project and the right approach are crucial for success. In this phase, it is important to gain the approval of all key PLM stakeholders and the management of your company.

Step 3

Build PLM Building PLM solution cluster

In the “Build” phase, the planned activities are executed, and the PLM system begins to take shape gradually. We recommend an approach that combines the structure of the waterfall model with the flexibility of Scrum, known as Water-Scrum-Fall. It’s also advisable to initially establish a PLM core solution, which can be gradually expanded afterward.

Concurrently, interfaces are implemented, necessary data migrations carried out and test plans created and executed. Training materials for your key users are developed step by step, and your organization is gradually introduced and enabled to work with the new solution.

The experts at valantic have ample experience from numerous large and small projects across different industries to accompany you on the path to PLM success. As a full-range supplier in the field of industrial digitalization, valantic also covers all adjacent disciplines and systems.

At the end of the “Build” phase, your individual PLM solution can be rolled out and go live.

Step 4

Operate PLM Utilization of Product Lifecycle Management

In the “Operate” phase, the fully tested solution is transferred from the development environments to the production environment, marking the beginning of the hypercare phase. After this, the solution enters regular operational support with KPIs, SLAs, and continuous improvements.

The shift from traditional on-premise solutions towards SaaS and cloud is also transforming PLM, having gained significant momentum. Our clients face the challenge of deciding which solution is most practical for them. PLM providers have various models in their portfolios to cater to different needs. The right model influences the decision for or against a particular provider. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, as each industry and company has its unique requirements.

At valantic, specialists who are well-versed with various hosting and operational concepts are ready to assist. We are pleased to offer you consulting services in the context of PLM.