Ryder’s PLM: Turning complexity into competitive advantage
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) has come into its own as manufacturing has become more complex. From highly technical iterations in design to supply chain diversification, managing the lifecycle of a product is harder to get right than ever before. This is why Ryder has invested in advanced PLM capabilities that help optimise our customer journey – from concept to mass production.
Integrated thinking
To proactively service our customers’ requirements, Ryder has made continual investments in its R&D capabilities – leading to the need for a more integrated system to manage engineering documents and product lifecycles. Our PLM platform is designed to optimise workflow and collaboration across functions.
The platform creates a unified environment where R&D, New Product Introduction (NPI) and Production engineering teams can work together seamlessly. It also connects with standard Office templates, driving productivity and making standardisation easier to achieve. Traditional EMS providers have not historically had strength in this breadth of capabilities, and so our team is excited by the benefits this provides for our customers.
Drawing the threads together
A key advantage of this mindset is how PLM helps transcend ERP bill of materials (BOM) limitations – synchronising engineering changes across sites and interfacing cleanly with both ERP and MES systems.
With so many key reference sources within the product lifecycle, Ryder’s approach uses a central material library and document repository as the process’s bedrock. The materials database standardises descriptions and selections, ensuring that the same component has only one part number – reducing unnecessary part number management for all departments.
It also ensures all relevant engineering documents are securely managed, linked directly to their respective projects and controlled via access authorisations. And to further protect intellectual property, documents are distributed as watermarked PDFs, ensuring traceability and preventing unauthorised sharing.
PLM as a strategic advantage
Ryder’s advanced PLM platform streamlines product development by unifying teams and standardising data. We have integrated project management, product design tools like CAD, Creo, UG and PADS (amongst others), office automation and document management into a single, streamlined process. This gives customers greater access to our value-add capabilities – improved efficiency, reduced errors, enhanced transparency and greater IP protection.
