What do pdm's cost?

[CMcF]

My been counter won't buy a pdm because he says it would cost £30,000. I that is true I do not blame him. But is it true?

 

[manxJim]

We are looking at SmartTeam And PDMworks
SmartTeam is about £2200 per seat PDMworks is free with Office professional

 

[TheTick]

We're shelling out about $45,000(US) to implement PDM for a division of about 60 people (4 engineers plus quality and sales). This includes 17 seats, installation, training, and migration of data into new system.

This is to upgrade a current near-PDM system that never quite cut it. We had no trouble justifying it to our CFO.

Good and evil: wrap them up and disguise it as people.

 

[MadMango]

We spent about $50k USD for a PDM system for 22 users, plus training.

I think the best route is to start with PDMworks from SolidWorks ($500 USD add-on if you don't use SW Office) and then expand to more capable enterprise wide solutions like SmartTeam.

MadMango
"Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities."
Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[Standing]

If you have more than 5 people working with the same common parts, drawings and assemblies one cannot afford, not to have PDM/Works in my opinion. Although there are companies out there doing a good job without it. We tried and failed big time. What we started to do was make copies of part models all over our network. When an Engineer opened an assembly, someone else could not work on subassemblies below the assembly. So they would copy the whole assembly elsewhere to work on it. The files became more and more. In my opinion the money you save, will be spent later.

Bradley

 

[macPT]

Hi

When implementing a PDM system, we should consider the following costs:
- PDM software
- PDM software maintenance
- implementation (can it be internal or should it be external by a consulting company?)
- system maintenace (internal or external?)

When you refer your costs are you considering all the above costs?

From my experience (not in PDM system) the implementation costs can be very significant. If not well done, then we will have significant system maintenace costs. If we neglet these costs and don't carefully plan the strategy and the migration, we better be prepared for very bad news!

How can we mesure the benefits in order to justify the investment?

Regards

 

[Standing]

macPT is right! We did not plan the install right for not using a PDM at all, for using SmarTeam, and for currently using PDM/Works. We are still paying the price.

Bradley

 

[Cheeseburger]

If you're trying to justify the cost of a PDM system to the Bean Counters ... Good Luck !!! But the cost of being able to go backwards, keep a design log history file, etc. to an Engineering Team (especially a Medical Device company) is an INVALUABLE piece of software that can't be measured in just dollars.

I've been on the implementation team at a couple of companies that were thinking of purchasing a PDM software for SolidWorks. After first convincing the Mechanical Engineering Manager, then the Vice President of Engineering, the idea got squashed by the CFO. He said he didn't see the practicality of the software and that we shouldn't need it anyway if we keep a paper trail.

Good Luck ...

 

[macPT]

Chesseburger

We also keep a paper trail for obsolete drawings and obsolete revisions.

Some yers ago, I've started an experiment: save these obsolete docs. on the server, to avoid paper. The result was the growing unusefull space ocupied by these files.

Maybe it depends on your work, but I think the probability of turning back on a design doesn't pay the price of obsolete files management. Just keep it in paper for history purposes.

I my opinion, the biggest goal in a PDM is not the revisions history, but to assure that the available drawing is actualy the latest approved revision, and that it can be revised only under certain safe conditions.

Regards