PSI - Product Data Management and Software Data Management Integration

Product Data Management (PDM) is the discipline of controlling the evolution of a product design and all related product data during the full product life cycle, historically with the focus upon hardware product design. Software Configuration Management (SCM) is the discipline of controlling the evolution of a software product, with emphasis on the development phase. The PDM and SCM domains have evolved in parallel with none or little communication as the products were usually divided in software or hardware products. Today products are often complex systems consisting of hardware, software, and related documents, developed by several groups. This put high demands on support on several levels, both for the system level as well as for each group, especially during the development phase. One important requirement is the possibility to integrate product information systems where PDM and SCM is part of this integration. However the knowledge of software management and its relation to hardware management is very low. The possibilities to integrate PDM and SCM are one of the key factors in product information management of today. The companies have serious problems using PDM and SCM together, since the overall development process is usually complex and not properly defined, a common knowledge of both domains is low, and the integration possibilities provided by PDM or SCM vendors are limited.The first goal of this project is to investigate the similarities and differences between SCM and PDM, to analyse the requirements for their usage and to analyse the development processes using both PDM and SCM. The investigation is based on theoretical reasoning, literature study, and case studies from different industrial domains.The second goal is to propose an integrated model where both PDM and SCM are used in a common process and where information from these systems is exchanged. The feasibility of that model is validated in industrial case studies.