Top 10 Best Product Data Management (PDM) Software in 2024

Product data management (PDM) software is a tool that has become increasingly important in modern product development and manufacturing. PDM software is designed to manage the entire product data lifecycle, from conception to design, to manufacturing, to maintenance and support. It acts as a single source of truth that organizes, stores, tracks and manages all product related data in one place, in a secure and central location.

Organizations use PDM software to ensure team collaboration is effortless, reduce errors, streamline workflows and achieve better data integrity. As the pace of business accelerates and organizations work with increasingly complex products, PDM software has become essential for designing quality products and delivering them to market quickly.

The success of an organization depends heavily on how quickly it can take products from the ideation phase to market. PDM software drastically reduces the time it takes organizations to complete this process by providing greater visibility into the progress of products from design to manufacturing to delivery. The software ensures consistency and adherence to organizational policies, standards and guidelines.

PDM software is useful in many industries such as aerospace, automotive, consumer goods, electronics, medical devices and more. It is an essential tool that has helped companies keep up with the pace of growing competition while enhancing the quality of the products that they deliver.

Features of PDM Software

PDM software is developed to cater to the complex and multifaceted requirements of product data management. Examples of the features of PDM software include:

Centralized Data Repository: PDM software stores every piece of product-related data in a centralized location. This enhances data integrity, accessibility and helps organizations to access data quickly and easily.
Version Control and Revision Management: PDM software revision management tools ensure that engineers are aware of the latest version of product data at all times. This reduces errors by ensuring that only the most up to date version of a product file is used and eliminates the possibility of data duplication.
Integration with CAD software: PDM software can integrate with different computer-aided design software (CAD) that is used throughout the product development process. This allows designers and engineers to create, share and collaborate on their designs from within the PDM software.
Approval Workflows: PDM software provides a documented approval process for all engineering changes and authorizations while ensuring that the workflow is accurate and visible to all involved parties.
Access Control: PDM software provides access control features that govern the extent to which users can access product data. This ensures the information is not exposed to the wrong people, so that sensitive information remains confidential.
Search functionality: One of the most important features of PDM software is the search functionality, which allows users to search the database for specific product-related information. This saves a lot of time as users don’t have to go through every single product file to find what they are looking for.

Benefits of PDM Software

PDM software has numerous benefits that make it an essential investment for organizations. These benefits may include:

Improved Collaboration: PDM software encourages teamwork, as different teams can access the same data and get immediate feedback. This can facilitate communication, speed the progress of a particular project, and keep everyone involved in the process of designing a product, informed.
Increased Product Quality: PDM software is a valuable tool for ensuring consistency and accuracy of the product data. It ensures that every engineer or designer of a particular project is working with the most recent CAD data. Thus, discrepancies, errors and data duplication can be significantly reduced.
Reduced Costs: PDM software makes the process of designing and manufacturing products more efficient, thereby reducing costs. For example, it can reduce revision turnaround times since the latest version of a particular design is instantly available.
Greater Visibility: PDM software will provide visibility into the progress of product designs in real-time. This enables companies to monitor the development of a product, track revisions, and anticipate any problems that arise before they escalate.
Enhanced Regulatory Compliance: PDM software helps organizations comply with regulatory standards by ensuring that every aspect of product design is properly documented.

Product data management (PDM) software has become an essential tool for organizations that design, manufacture and sell products. The tool streamlines the product development process, improves collaboration among team members, reduces errors, enhances data integrity and helps organizations increase their product quality.. PDM software is continuously evolving to cater for complex multidisciplinary product data management needs, meeting regulatory standards, automating workflows and enhancing productivity.

BECPG

beCPG PDM Software manages finished products, recipes, formula, raw materials, packagings, their characteristics and documents.

Completeness of data
Automatic numbering
Automatic calculations
Version control
Comparison
Autocompleted
Analysis of impacts
Advanced search
Mass modification
Project managment
Data exchange

NETSUITE

NetSuite Product Data Management delivers consistent, branded product data so employees, partners and affiliates are working from a common information source.

Assembly Items
Advanced Bill of Materials
Item Management
Location Management
Engineering Change Orders
Routings
Document Management

EPICOR

Implement faster, customize less, and see ROI sooner with Epicor ERP software services built to fit your business, with your industry best-practices built in.

Product Data Backbone
Technical Document Management (DMStec)
CAD Data Management
Complete Extensibility
BOM Management
Kinetic Integration
Multi-CAD Management
Work on Multiple Locations

SOLIDWORKS

SOLIDWORKS develops and markets 3D CAD design software, analysis software, and product data management software.

File Management
Design and Reuse
Revision Control

HELBLING-GROUP

Helbling supports you with: Consulting, Conception as well as Realisation of product data management for your company.

Business process optimizationChange Management ECR / ECO
Preparation of deployment plans (workgroups, collaboration)
Integration of authoring systems, such as CAD, Office, ERP, etc.
Impact of legal rules and regulations (TüV, ISO, FDA)
Definition of IT infrastructure
Project management
Training
Operations, support

PRO-FILE

PRO.FILE is a PDM and PLM solution for managing product-centric data and automatic processes throughout your organization.

Automatically provides production with valid product information to produce from
Leverages digitalized product information integrated from MCAD, ECAD, electronics, Office, and email sources
Consolidates information in customer, machine and lifecycle files to give you a complete at-a-glance picture
Keeps everything synchronized by creating an integrated information platform