Managing Complex Systems – Challenges for PDM and SCM

Within the industry there is a need of controlling the whole product development process including both hardware and software components. The integration of development processes meets many problems partially because of the different nature of the processes and partially because of the different approaches. A typical example of overlapping processes is Software Configuration Management (SCM) and Product Data Management (PDM). Both SCM and PDM try to solve similar problems but in different ways. To get a more efficient development process, the companies try to integrate PDM and SCM systems, which has not yet been very successful. This paper gives a brief overview of common characteristics of SCM and PDM and gives an analysis of a possible integration. An example of an early attempt of integration is depicted. Finally the paper presents an initiative by the Swedish industry to provide better understanding of SCM and PDM integration problems and to give directions for the possible integrations.