Fujitsu Establishes PLEMIA Product-Data Management Solution on M3

Tokyo, April 08, 2009

Fujitsu Limited and Fujitsu Nagano Systems Engineering Limited today announced that the product data management (PDM) solution that the Fujitsu Group will now offer has been structured in accordance with the M3 (Management 3) concept. Fujitsu's existing PDM solution, PLEMIA, has been rebuilt based on the M3 concept and developed into three individual products to suit different industry needs and sizes of businesses. These products are available starting today.

The M3 concept consists of an integrated development model that allows engineers to share ideas from the early design stages as a way to minimize the need to redesign and redevelop, and acts as a management system capable of detecting latent risks within a project so that they can be dealt with in a timely manner. The integrated development model, which capitalizes on the existing strengths of Japanese manufacturers, systematically administers design know-how along the three management axes: product information, design process, and design resources, delivering an effective way to leverage design know-how from the conceptual-design phase, which is said to determine 80% of a product's success.

This enables engineers to proceed in accordance with cost and quality targets set during early design stages, formulate highly precise plans, and tightly manage projects. As a result, engineers can focus more on the creative aspects of their work, thereby increasing their products' competitive edge.

Background

One of the strengths of Japanese manufacturers is the integrated development model, in which engineers exchange their ideas and approaches with their colleagues in order to continually improve products as development progresses. Due to corporate restructuring and hiring cutbacks caused by current economic downturn, companies cannot secure the sufficient number of engineers or create sufficient opportunities for sharing and incorporating the needs of affiliated departments into product development. With engineers facing increasingly diverse customer needs, product sophistication, and new requirements for legal compliance, the need for information exchange between those in mechanical design, electronic circuitry, and firmware planning is stronger than ever. These factors make it extremely difficult to develop accurate design plans, keep project management focused, and carry out cost and quality levels according to original plans.

In order to address these issues, Fujitsu and Fujitsu Nagano Systems Engineering have developed the M3 concept, which leverages the manufacturer's accumulated know-how in PDM during the initial planning and conceptual-design phase, thus creating a front-loaded design approach that minimizes the need for redesign and redevelopment.

Features of the M3 Concept

1. Systematizes design know-how along three axes: product information, design process, and design resources
   Today, product information is managed by PDM, while the design process is handled in an ad-hoc fashion through paper-based progress charts and various proprietary systems. The design resources encompassing the skills and workloads of designers are mostly intangible, making it extremely difficult to search for reference materials. This results in excessive time and effort. The M3 concept defines the three axes (product information, design process, and design resources) central to design and development and ties them together in a PDM for ongoing and systematic management.
2. Provides thorough information support during the conceptual-design phase
   It is said that 80% of product quality and costs are determined during the conceptual-design phase, where engineers determine what mechanisms will achieve the desired functions. The M3 concept enhances product development and competitiveness by providing access to accumulated technical knowledge during the conceptual-design phase, such as frequently referenced know-how and relevant data used during the conceptual-design phase. This makes it possible for engineers to thoroughly apply the accumulated know-how and incorporate quality and cost standards at the conceptual-design phase.
3. Assists in formulating and executing high-precision design plans
   In manufacturing innovation, it is important to follow the plan-do-check-act cycle of formulating a plan for a project, executing it, looking back over it, and improving it. As information is integrated and systematized under the M3 concept, the skills, workload, and work processes of those involved can be taken into account resulting in plans that can be readily put into action. For example in the project-implementation phase, this system can spot discrepancies in cost-related design data or changes between planned and actual work process, exposing latent risks so that potential problems or delays can be detected and addressed quickly.
4. Provides an IT infrastructure that can keep pace with changing business environments
   Companies with overseas production sites or design production networks need to be able to respond to changes in diverse business environments, shift development resources to products that are selling, or use their existing core technologies to move into new sectors. To be able to respond to these changes quickly and flexibly, existing systems need to change and process-management tools need to take into account the skills of individual engineers while at the same time defining a development process in which a standardized level of quality can be met.
   
   Fujitsu and Fujitsu Nagano Systems Engineering have equipped these features in the PLEMIA series based on the M3 concept. By capitalizing on its manufacturing strengths, Fujitsu is supporting customers by making their own information more accessible.

Features of the M3-based PLEMIA

1. PLEMIA BOM Standard One, for medium-sized companies
   A basic system with excellent editing and search functions, as well as a highly responsive list of parts. It includes functions for item and configuration management, blueprints and documentation associated with specific items, as well as workflow management with electronic approval. It enables customization of master data maintenance and attributes with an easy-to-use graphical user interface, and supports user-permission and access-log management so that engineers can use the system comfortably under solid security.
2. PLEMIA BOM Standard, for multiple manufacturing models
   In addition to the basic product-information management functions, this package includes functions to make the product design process more efficient in a variety of production models, including mass production and build-to-order. Functions for build-to-order include information management and a configurator that tests modular-unit assembly designs. Functions for mass production include a component matrix that easily assesses the differences between products, functions that assist in investigating components that can be shared between similar products as well as products that have different specifications according to different regions, and cost-planning functions that assist in continuous cost-reduction efforts from planning to pre-production phases.
3. PLEMIA BOM Enterprise, for global design support
   This product uses the Windows Communication Foundation, a new development platform for distributed applications based on service-oriented architecture, allowing for greater flexibility in product design as well as greater customizability and maintainability in design extensions. By allowing design data to be transmitted quickly even over relatively slow Internet connections such as ADSL, easy integration and transmission of product information data in global and distributed design operations is made possible.

Sales Targets

Total sales of JPY 30 billion over the next three years for the entire PLEMIA series.

Operating Requirements

Server
OS	:	Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2
DB	:	Database Server – Oracle Database 11g Release 1, Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.4 or higher) Web Server – Oracle Net 11.1 (11.1.0 or higher), Oracle Net 10.2 (10.2.0.4 or higher)
CPU	:	Dual-core Intel Xeon 5050 (3.0 GHz or higher) – (recommended)
Memory	:	2 GB or higher (recommended)
Client
OS	:	Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 or newer
CPU	:	Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 or better (recommended)
Memory	:	1 GB or more (recommended for Windows XP), 2 GB or more (recommended for Windows Vista)