PLM Glossary

An informal name for a Modular BOM, reflecting that the structure contains more parts than any single product instance will ever use — it is 'over-specified'…

The 3DEXPERIENCE Platform is Dassault Systèmes' unified cloud and on-premises environment that connects all DS applications — CATIA, ENOVIA, SIMULIA, DELMIA…

5-axis machining refers to CNC machining operations where the cutting tool can move along three linear axes (X, Y, Z) and simultaneously rotate around two…

Commercial FEA software acquired by Dassault Systèmes (2005) known for robust implicit solver architecture and nonlinear material modeling.

ACIS is a 3D boundary-representation (B-rep) geometric modeling kernel, licensed to hundreds of CAD/CAM/CAE products globally.

Growth approach where established vendors (Autodesk, PTC, Siemens) acquire specialized software companies to expand capabilities, fill product gaps, or…

Active Workspace is Siemens' modern browser-based interface for Teamcenter, replacing the legacy thick-client "rich client" for most day-to-day workflows.

Adaptive Manufacturing is production that senses its own state and changes what it does next.

Mesh refinement strategy where element size is adjusted based on predicted or actual stress concentration.

Software designed from inception around autonomous AI agents that can read, reason about, and act on domain data.

Agentic AI refers to AI systems that can take sequences of actions, use tools, and pursue goals autonomously over extended time horizons — beyond single-turn…

An approach to product lifecycle management where AI agents autonomously execute PLM tasks, act as a single source of change across engineering tools, and…

Agile Methodologies is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

An AI agent is a software system that perceives its environment, makes decisions, and takes actions autonomously to achieve a specified goal—often using large…

AI Agent Autonomy is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

An AI copilot in engineering is an AI assistant that integrates into CAD, PLM, or ERP workflows to augment engineer productivity.

AI in engineering is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

The application of artificial intelligence techniques to manufacturing processes, quality control, design optimization, and production planning to improve…

PLM-AI refers to the application of artificial intelligence — generative models, agentic systems, or specialized ML — to product lifecycle management workflows.

AI in supply chain is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

AI Integration is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

A class of artificial intelligence systems where multiple independent AI agents coordinate to solve complex problems, share information, and make autonomous…

A bill of materials generated or augmented by AI tools — either through automated part classification, LLM-assisted specification writing, or AI-driven…

AI-driven quality control uses computer vision and machine learning models trained on images or sensor data to detect manufacturing defects, dimensional…

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is the discipline and toolset for managing the full lifecycle of a software application — requirements capture…

Configurable analytics interface for monitoring product data, workflow metrics, and business KPIs within a PLM system.

API-led integration is an integration pattern in which point-to-point connections between systems are replaced by a layered set of reusable APIs — system APIs…

Asset Performance Management (APM) software applies AI, machine learning, and physics-based models to asset condition data to predict failures, estimate…

Aras's AI platform layer, announced in 2024, that embeds AI capabilities directly into the Aras Innovator PLM workflow.

Applicon was one of the earliest commercial CAD/CAM software companies, founded in 1969 in Burlington, Massachusetts by a group of MIT alumni.

An approved vendor list (AVL), or approved manufacturer list, is the controlled record in PLM of which suppliers and manufacturer part numbers are qualified to…

Annual user conference and community event where Aras Corporation shares product vision, demonstrates new features, and hosts customers and partners for…

Aras Enterprise SaaS is the fully managed cloud delivery of Aras Innovator, launched in 2023 on Microsoft Azure.

Aras Innovator is the flagship product of Aras Corporation: a model-based, low-code PLM platform available as a free Community Edition with paid enterprise…

Browser-based, multi-tenant SaaS PLM platform launched in 2000 focused on BOM management and change control for high-tech and medical device manufacturers.

Arena PLM (acquired by PTC in 2021) is a cloud-native PLM platform for midmarket manufacturers, particularly strong in medical devices, electronics, and…

A record of the actual configuration of a specific product unit as it was manufactured — the components used, their revision levels and lot numbers, and any…

A running log of all changes, repairs, component replacements, and service events that have occurred on a product unit since it left the factory, maintained…

Management of assets and their associated data throughout their operational lifetime, including installation, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning.

Flagship 2D/3D computer-aided design software from Autodesk, first released in 1982.

Autodesk Fusion 360 is a cloud-connected CAD/CAM/CAE platform delivered on a subscription model, designed for modern product development workflows that…

Autodesk Inventor is Autodesk's mechanical CAD application for 3D parametric part and assembly design, targeting mid-market manufacturing.

Autodesk's on-premises product data management (PDM) system designed for teams using Inventor, AutoCAD, and other Autodesk design tools to manage and version…

An automated visual inspection method using cameras and computer vision algorithms to detect defects — including surface flaws, dimensional deviations, solder…

AI-powered automated inspection using computer vision, thermal imaging, or spectroscopy to detect defects in real-time during manufacturing.

Best-of-breed software refers to selecting the most functionally capable available tool for each specific business domain, regardless of vendor alignment.

Big Data Solutions is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

A Bill of Materials (BOM) is the structured, multi-level list of every part, sub-assembly, raw material, and (increasingly) every piece of software and…

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a process and set of technologies for creating and managing digital representations of physical and functional…

BIOVIA is the Dassault Systèmes brand for scientific informatics and life-sciences software, formed from the 2014 acquisition of San Diego-based Accelrys for…

The processes and tools for creating, maintaining, and collaborating on Bills of Materials—including version control, supplier linking, and real-time updates…

Boundary representation (B-rep) is the dominant method for representing solid geometry in CAD kernels.

Computer-Aided Design (CAD) is software used to create, modify, and document 2D drawings and 3D models of physical products.

The software integration layer that connects a CAD application (CATIA, NX, SolidWorks, Creo) to a PLM vault, enabling checkout/check-in workflows, BOM…

The ability to exchange CAD data — geometry, assembly structure, properties, and metadata — between different CAD authoring systems while preserving sufficient…

A geometry kernel (or geometric modeling kernel) is the foundational software library in a CAD system responsible for creating, editing, and representing…

CAD Management encompasses the policies, processes, and software tools used to organize, version, secure, and share Computer-Aided Design (CAD) files within an…

Business model where PLM platform is built on or tightly integrated with flagship CAD software.

The seamless connection between computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) systems, enabling design files to be directly used for…

Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software generates the machine-ready toolpaths, G-code, and setup instructions that CNC machines use to cut, mill, turn, or…

Computer-Aided Manufacturing programming: the process of generating toolpath instructions for CNC machine tools from 3D CAD geometry.

Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) is the quality system process for identifying, investigating, and resolving product or process quality failures.

CATIA (Computer Aided Three-dimensional Interactive Application) is Dassault Systèmes' flagship parametric and surface modeling CAD tool, originally developed…

CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) is the branch of engineering simulation that predicts fluid flow, heat transfer, and related physical phenomena using…

CGM (Convergence Geometric Modeler) is Dassault Systèmes' high-end proprietary geometry kernel, originally developed as part of CATIA V5 and licensed…

A cross-functional committee that reviews and approves engineering change requests before changes are executed against released product data.

Change impact analysis in PLM is the process of tracing how a proposed engineering change propagates across assemblies, documents, suppliers, and downstream…

In the context of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and manufacturing engineering, Change Management refers to the systematic process of identifying…

The post-approval execution of all updates identified in the impact analysis, updating affected BOMs, drawings, and process plans.

Check-in/check-out is the access control mechanism used by vaults and PDM systems to prevent concurrent edits to engineering files.

A design philosophy that plans for a product's full material lifecycle from the start — prioritizing recyclability, repairability, disassembly, and reuse over…

A PLM process pattern in which operational field data — sensor readings, failure events, service actions — automatically triggers engineering review or change…

Cloud CAD (also "CAD cloud") refers to computer-aided design software that runs in the cloud rather than installed locally on a workstation — with all…

Cloud PLM is a software-as-a-service model for product lifecycle management delivered as a cloud platform rather than on-premise infrastructure.

Cloud Technology is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

Product Lifecycle Management systems built from the ground up for cloud deployment, with no on-premises legacy code, multi-tenant architecture, and…

CNC (Computer Numerical Control) is the automation system that controls machine tools — mills, lathes, routers, plasma cutters, wire EDM, and more — using…

COBie (Construction Operations Building Information Exchange) is a data format and delivery standard for the structured handover of asset and maintenance…

Human workers and collaborative robots (cobots) working side-by-side, with AI providing real-time guidance on part handling, task sequencing, and quality…

The process of evaluating and mitigating risks associated with specific components in a product BOM — including single-source exposure, geographic…

An engineering and design methodology that uses computational algorithms, simulation, and algorithmic exploration to generate, evaluate, and optimize design…

The field of computer science and engineering concerned with creating, displaying, and manipulating visual representations of data, encompassing rendering…

Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) is software used to analyze, simulate, and validate product designs before physical prototypes are built.

Computervision (CV) was one of the earliest commercial CAD/CAM companies, founded in Bedford, Massachusetts in 1969.

A design methodology where CAD, CAM, and CAE teams work simultaneously rather than sequentially, enabled by integrated PLM systems.

A configuration audit is an evaluation process that verifies the accuracy, completeness, and consistency of product configurations within a Product Lifecycle…

In Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), a Configuration Baseline is a predefined set of product parameters, specifications, and attributes that serve as a…

Configuration control is the process of managing and documenting all changes to a product's baseline configuration—ensuring that only approved changes are…

Configuration Integrity is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

Configuration Management is the PLM discipline that answers the question: 'which version of the product did we ship to which customer, and what is in it?' It…

A software system used in sales processes to configure valid product combinations, calculate pricing, and generate quotes — typically consuming the option…

A manufacturing strategy in which a product is assembled from pre-defined option modules based on customer specifications, rather than built to stock or…

CONTACT Software is a Bremen-headquartered German PLM vendor founded in 1990 by Karl Heinz Zachries.

Any document whose content, revision history, and approval status are formally managed so that only the current approved version is used in production or…

A structured quality process for identifying the root cause of a defect or nonconformance, implementing a correction, and taking steps to prevent recurrence…

Documented implementations where companies successfully deployed PLM systems to solve specific business problems, achieve measurable outcomes, or gain…

A cyber-physical system (CPS) is an engineered system in which computational and physical components are tightly integrated—where software monitors, controls…

The Vélizy-Villacoublay campus southwest of Paris is the global headquarters of Dassault Systèmes, established in the late 1980s as the company outgrew its…

The dimension of data quality that measures whether data correctly reflects the real-world attribute it describes.

The dimension of data quality that measures whether all required data fields and associated documents are present.

The dimension of data quality that measures whether the same attribute is represented identically across different systems.

The planned transition point at which users stop using the legacy system and begin using the new PLM system as the authoritative source for product data.

Data governance is the organizational and technical practice of defining who owns data, who can read it, who can change it, and how changes are audited.

Data interoperability is the ability of independent systems to exchange and use data reliably without custom translation layers.

The process of transferring data from one system, format, or storage environment to another — typically during a PLM platform upgrade or replacement.

The assignment of accountability for the accuracy, completeness, and currency of a category of product data to a specific role or individual.

In the context of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and manufacturing engineering, data quality refers to the accuracy, completeness, and consistency of…

Data sovereignty is the principle that data is subject to the laws of the country in which it is stored.

The organizational role and process responsible for maintaining the quality, accuracy, and governance of master data — including defining standards, resolving…

The ability to track and trace any piece of product information (requirement, design decision, CAM plan, field failure) back to its source and forward to all…

Making operational and strategic decisions based on analysis of real-time and historical data, rather than intuition or manual observation.

A form of effectivity where a part or configuration is defined as valid from a specific calendar date, used when changes align with time-based events such as…

Dassault Systèmes' digital manufacturing platform integrated into 3DEXPERIENCE.

AI prediction of customer demand 2–4 weeks ahead by analyzing signals (orders, search trends, inventory levels, macroeconomic data) that correlate with actual…

Design automation is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

A quality gate milestone at which the product design is locked — no further design changes are permitted without a formal engineering change order — so…

AI applied to the design phase of product development, focused on producing manufacturable designs.

Design intent capture is the practice of recording not just what a designer chose but why—preserving the rationale, trade-offs, and constraints that drove a…

Automated search through design space (geometry, material, topology) to find solutions that meet performance goals (minimize mass, keep stress below threshold…

The systematic evaluation of a range of possible design configurations to understand performance trade-offs, identify optima, and characterize design…

Design-simulation integration is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

Design methodology that integrates manufacturing constraints and capabilities into the design process, rather than treating manufacturability as a downstream…

Automated Design-for-Manufacturing screening: AI-assisted analysis of a 3D design to identify features that are difficult, expensive, or impossible to…

An AI system designed to augment human engineers by autonomously executing routine tasks, making preliminary design decisions, and collaborating with human…

The unbroken availability and accuracy of product data across all lifecycle phases — from design through manufacturing, service, and end-of-life — without data…

Digital manufacturing is the discipline of creating and using an integrated, computer-based system that includes simulation, 3D visualization, analytics, and…

A machine-readable data record mandated under EU ESPR (Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation) that contains standardized information about a product's…

A digital supply twin is a real-time computational model of a supply chain network — capturing supplier locations and capacities, transportation lanes…

The digital thread is the connected data backbone that links all lifecycle phases of a product—requirements, design, simulation, manufacturing, quality, and…

Digital Thread Architecture is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

A digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical product, asset, or system that is synchronized with real-world data to reflect current state, predict…

A virtual representation of physical manufacturing assets and processes that enables real-time monitoring, optimization, and predictive maintenance across the…

Direct modeling is a CAD authoring paradigm in which geometry is edited by pushing, pulling, and reshaping faces and edges directly, without an intervening…

DirectX is Microsoft's collection of multimedia and graphics APIs for Windows, covering Direct3D for 3D rendering, DirectCompute for GPU compute, and DXGI for…

Discrete manufacturing is the production of distinct, individually countable products assembled from component parts.

An architectural pattern used in PLM systems to manage large-scale assemblies across distributed engineering sites.

A Digital Mock-Up (DMU) is a virtual assembly of all parts and subassemblies in a product, used to perform design reviews, interference detection, clearance…

Artificial intelligence systems built with deep expertise in a specific industry, field, or problem domain, incorporating domain knowledge, regulatory…

Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) software manages the full lifecycle of physical assets — from initial acquisition and commissioning through maintenance…

The practice of engaging key suppliers during the design phase of product development — before designs are finalized — to incorporate their manufacturing…

EBOM vs MBOM is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

A parameter that defines the conditions under which a part, configuration, or engineering change is valid — typically expressed as a date range, serial number…

A computer-generated mark that legally binds an individual to an electronic record, subject to authentication and audit trail requirements under regulations…

Metadata-driven data model and query language (MQL) underlying MatrixOne PLM.

Software written to control hardware devices — firmware in controllers, ECUs in vehicles, software in medical devices.

The final lifecycle stage in which a product is discontinued from production and sales, spare parts supply is wound down, and product data is formally archived…

The Engineering Bill of Materials (eBOM) is the structured list of parts, subassemblies, and materials that defines what a product is, organized the way…

Engineering Change Management (ECM) is a systematic process used in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) to identify, evaluate, implement, and track changes to…

An Engineering Change Order is the formal, audited record of an approved change to a product design.

The computational modeling and analysis of physical systems and phenomena to predict product behavior, validate designs, and optimize performance before…

ENOVIA is Dassault Systèmes' PLM data management solution, managing product structure, BOM, change management, and configuration control.

The discipline of tracking and managing all product and process configurations across an organization, including versions, variants, and release baselines.

The comprehensive transformation of large organizations through the adoption and integration of digital technologies to improve operational efficiency…

An Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is a messaging-oriented middleware architecture that mediates communication between disparate enterprise systems through a…

Enterprise solutions is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is the system of record for the financial and transactional side of a business: purchase orders, inventory, work orders…

Event-driven architecture (EDA) is a software design pattern in which components communicate by producing and consuming asynchronous events rather than calling…

In the context of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and manufacturing engineering, Executive Sponsorship refers to the highest-level support and endorsement…

The documented, measurable conditions that must be satisfied before a product can pass a quality gate and advance to the next development phase.

The requirement that AI systems used in engineering and PLM workflows produce outputs that qualified engineers can understand, interrogate, and explain to…

Numerical solution method that solves equations sequentially using explicit formulas with small time steps.

A reference within a CAD file to geometry or parameters defined in another CAD file — common in CATIA and NX — creating a dependency that must be resolved when…

Factory Operating System is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

A structured, systematic method for identifying potential failure modes in a product or process, their causes, their effects on system performance, and the…

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is a computational simulation method that discretizes a physical structure into a mesh of finite elements to solve partial…

The FIELD Framework is a five-layer architectural lens for evaluating operations and asset management software, introduced by ThreadMoat in the EAM-APM Buyer's…

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a structured, systematic risk analysis technique used to identify potential failure modes in a product design…

The condition where data stored in a proprietary or legacy format becomes unreadable because the software that created it is no longer available or supported.

G-code (also called GCode or NC code) is the low-level programming language that controls CNC machines.

In the context of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and manufacturing engineering, Generative AI refers to artificial intelligence algorithms that use machine…

Generative design is an AI-driven design process in which software automatically generates and evaluates multiple geometry options for a component based on…

The single, authoritative version of a master data entity — the one definition that all other systems are expected to use and synchronize against.

The use of graphics processing units as general-purpose computing processors to accelerate computation-heavy tasks beyond rendering, including matrix…

Granite is PTC's geometric modeling kernel, originally developed as the geometry engine inside Pro/ENGINEER (now Creo) and tightly coupled to it.

Hexagon AB is a Stockholm-headquartered industrial software and metrology group founded in 1975.

An engineering workflow architecture in which AI systems generate suggestions, analyses, or outputs that are reviewed and approved by a qualified human…

Hybrid modeling refers to CAD architectures that allow a single part or assembly to mix parametric history-based authoring with direct geometry edits, ideally…

I-DEAS was the integrated CAD/CAE/CAM platform shipped by SDRC starting in the early 1980s.

IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) is the open, vendor-neutral data schema for exchanging Building Information Modeling data between different software…

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) refers to sensors, actuators, and connected devices deployed on manufacturing equipment, production lines, and…

IMAN (InfoMANager) was the PDM system built by EDS Unigraphics in the early 1990s, designed to manage the massive multi-site assembly structures of automotive…

The pre-approval assessment of all downstream effects of a proposed engineering change, identifying affected assemblies, documents, suppliers, costs, and…

A geometry representation in which shapes are defined by mathematical functions (e.g., signed distance functions) rather than explicit surface meshes or B-rep…

Numerical solution method that solves coupled equations simultaneously at each time step.

An integrated PLM suite is a platform from a single vendor that spans multiple product lifecycle domains within a unified data model, common authentication…

PLM integration is the discipline of connecting the product lifecycle management system to the enterprise systems that author, consume and change product data…

Integration governance is the set of enforced decisions that make enterprise integration trustworthy: which system is authoritative for each data domain, which…

Architecture and tooling for connecting PLM to complementary systems including CAD (Solidworks), CAM tools, ERP systems, MES platforms, and requirements…

A part numbering scheme in which attributes of the part — commodity class, material, product family, size — are encoded directly in the structure of the part…

AI-powered extraction of structured requirements from prose specifications, technical documentation, or conversation.

Intergraph (originally M&S Computing, founded 1969 in Huntsville, Alabama by Jim Meadlock and four other ex-IBM/NASA engineers) was a pioneer of interactive…

Interoperability in PLM is the ability of different software systems and platforms to exchange product data accurately and use it effectively without manual…

Using demand forecasting, AI, and supply chain visibility to maintain optimal inventory levels.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical devices embedded with sensors, actuators, and connectivity that enables them to collect and exchange…

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) is a category of cloud-hosted integration platforms that provide pre-built connectors, low-code mapping…

ISA-95 is the international standard for enterprise-control integration that defines a hierarchical model of manufacturing systems.

US federal regulations that control the export of defense-related articles, services, and technical data, including engineering documentation and CAD models…

JT (Jupiter Tessellation) is a lightweight 3D visualization format developed by UGS (now Siemens) that lets manufacturers share and view complex assemblies…

A knowledge graph is a structured data store that represents entities and their relationships as a graph of nodes and edges, enabling semantic queries that…

A knowledge graph in engineering links products, requirements, decisions, and standards as semantic nodes—enabling AI systems to traverse relationships rather…

An engineering methodology that captures product and process knowledge as explicit rules, constraints, and templates — enabling that knowledge to be reused…

In the context of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), a Large Language Model (LLM) is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) technology that uses natural…

Older, established software systems and manufacturing processes that continue to operate within organizations, often difficult and expensive to replace or…

A standardized methodology (ISO 14040/14044) for quantifying the environmental impacts of a product across its entire life — from raw material extraction…

Data on the full lifecycle impact of a product or part: material sourcing, manufacturing, use phase, end-of-life recycling.

A defined phase in a product life -- concept, design, development, release, production, or EOL -- with specific entry conditions, required deliverables, and…

A defined status a product document or item passes through in PLM — such as Draft, Under Review, Released, or Obsolete — that controls who can read, edit, or…

Lot traceability is the ability to identify every unit manufactured from a specific batch (lot) of raw material or purchased components, and conversely to…

Configuration-driven approach to building REST APIs and integrations without extensive custom coding.

Low-code PLM refers to PLM platforms that let administrators and power users configure data models, workflows, forms, and integrations through visual editors…

Explicit FEA solver from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory specializing in transient dynamics, crash simulation, and explosive phenomena.

The Manufacturing Bill of Materials (mBOM) is the structured list of parts, subassemblies, and consumables that defines how a product is built, organized the…

The engineering discipline focused on planning, designing, and controlling manufacturing processes and systems to produce products efficiently, safely, and at…

Manufacturing execution is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

A semantic graph of manufacturing relationships — product structures, assembly sequences, supply chain constraints, machine capabilities, and material…

Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) is the layer of software between ERP and the shop floor that manages, coordinates, and optimizes manufacturing…

The discipline of planning and documenting how products will be manufactured, including process sequences, tooling, and production workflows.

Manufacturing process planning is the translation of a product's engineering definition into how it will be made: the sequence of operations, the work centers…

A manufacturing strategy that combines the efficiency of mass production with the flexibility of custom production — delivering products tailored to individual…

Master Data Management (MDM) is the discipline and software category for maintaining a single authoritative record for the data entities — products, customers…

The Material Master is the central data record in SAP that defines every material, component, or product in the system.

A structured record of the materials, substances, and components contained in a product or building, including their quantities, locations, and technical…

A production planning and inventory control system that calculates material needs based on the bill of materials, production schedule, and current inventory…

MatrixOne was a US-based PLM vendor whose eMatrix platform — built on a graph-based metadata model and the Matrix Query Language (MQL) — was acquired by…

A formal decision checkpoint between lifecycle stages where reviewers verify that all required deliverables meet defined quality standards before authorizing…

Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is the formalized application of modeling to support system requirements, design, analysis, verification, and validation…

Mechanical Computer-Aided Design refers to software systems and workflows used by engineers and designers to create, visualize, and modify detailed digital…

A flight control software system on the Boeing 737 MAX that automatically pushed the nose down to compensate for the aerodynamic effects of larger…

Additive manufacturing technology that creates physical anatomical models, surgical guides, and custom medical devices from 3D digital models derived from CT…

A Manufacturing Execution System (MES) is the software layer at ISA-95 Level 3 that manages real-time production execution on the shop floor.

Process of discretizing continuous geometry into discrete finite elements.

Metaphase was a pioneering PDM product developed in the early 1990s by Metaphase Technology Inc., a joint venture between Cincinnati-based SDRC and…

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard developed by Anthropic for connecting large language model (LLM) agents to external data sources, APIs, and…

Model-Based Definition (MBD) is the engineering practice of embedding all manufacturing, inspection, and product definition information directly in a 3D CAD…

An approach where the 3D model and associated data become the authoritative source of truth for design, manufacturing, and service — replacing document-centric…

A configurable bill of materials structure that represents all possible product options and variants in a single structure, with configuration rules…

A design strategy that structures a product as a set of functionally independent, standardized modules with well-defined interfaces — enabling mix-and-match…

MP3 (Manufacturing Process Planning) is a discipline within PLM that manages the digital description of how a product is made — operations, sequences…

MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul) is the discipline of managing installed-base assets across their service life — scheduled maintenance, repair…

Multi-CAD support means a PLM system can manage engineering data created in multiple CAD systems (Creo, SOLIDWORKS, NX, CATIA, Inventor) without requiring all…

Coupled simulation where two or more physics domains (structural mechanics, thermal, fluid dynamics, electromagnetics) interact.

The ability to manage product development and manufacturing across geographically distributed sites with synchronized data, approvals, and release processes.

Software-as-a-Service model where one platform instance serves multiple independent companies with data isolation.

The ability to see the full supply chain structure below a product's immediate Tier 1 supplier layer — identifying Tier 2 and sub-tier suppliers of critical…

Analysis involving multiple coupled physics domains (structural, thermal, electromagnetic, fluid) within a single model.

The engineering discipline concerned with the design, construction, and operation of ships and other floating structures, encompassing hydrodynamics…

A machine-learning model (neural network) trained to approximate the output of a computationally expensive simulation.

A machine learning model trained to approximate the outputs of a physics-based simulation (FEA, CFD, thermal) for new input geometries and boundary conditions.

A file format that is not owned by any single software vendor and can be read by any compliant application — including STEP, IGES, JT, and PDF/A-3 in…

Artificial intelligence systems designed for a specific domain or industry with deep expertise in that domain's constraints, regulations, and workflows…

A part numbering scheme in which the part number is a meaningless sequential identifier with no embedded attribute information — all descriptive data is stored…

A formal record documenting that a product, component, or process has failed to meet a specified requirement, including the nature of the failure, affected…

NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines) is a mathematical model used to represent freeform curves and surfaces with high precision.

NX CAD (formerly Unigraphics, then NX — marketed as Siemens NX) is Siemens Digital Industries Software's flagship CAD/CAM/CAE platform.

On-premise PLM is deployed on servers owned and managed by the customer organization, within the customer's data center or private cloud.

Onshape is a cloud-native, browser-based MCAD platform founded in 2012 by ex-SolidWorks executives including Jon Hirschtick.

In the context of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), ontology refers to a structured representation of knowledge about an organization's products, processes…

OPC UA (OPC Unified Architecture) is the IEC 62541 international standard for secure, reliable, cross-platform information exchange between industrial devices…

Open CASCADE Technology (OCCT) is an open-source geometric modeling kernel that began at Matra Datavision (France) as CAS.CADE, the platform behind EUCLID…

An effectivity condition with a defined start but no defined end — meaning the part or configuration is valid from the start condition forward, with no known…

Open standards in PLM are internationally defined, vendor-neutral formats and protocols for exchanging product data.

The Open XML modeling engine is the technical core of Aras Innovator — a declarative, XML-schema-driven layer that allows administrators and power users to…

OpenGL is a cross-platform, vendor-neutral graphics API for 2D and 3D rendering, originally derived from Silicon Graphics' IRIS GL and released in 1992 under…

Operational Efficiency is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

A concurrency control approach that allows multiple users to check out the same item simultaneously, detecting and resolving conflicts at check-in rather than…

An option is a selectable product feature (e.g., motor size, color, power supply); a variant is the specific product configuration that results from a…

The set of rules that governs which parts are included or excluded from a product configuration based on customer selections — including inclusion rules (if…

Oracle's on-premises PLM platform acquired with Agile Software Corporation in 2007, managing product records, engineering change management, supplier…

Oracle Cloud Supply Chain Management is Oracle's SaaS suite for end-to-end supply chain operations, built on Oracle Fusion Cloud.

Organizational change management (OCM) is the disciplined approach to managing the human side of organizational transitions — ensuring that employees…

Parametric modeling is a CAD authoring paradigm in which geometry is defined indirectly through features, dimensional parameters, and constraints organized in…

Parasolid is the dominant commercial geometry kernel in MCAD, developed at the Cambridge University CAD Centre and commercialized by ShapeData and then UGS…

The authoritative record for a part or item — including its part number, description, classification, unit of measure, sourcing attributes, and lifecycle…

A unique identifier assigned to a specific part, assembly, document, or item managed in PLM, used to reference that item consistently across all systems and…

The accumulation of more part numbers than necessary because engineers create new part numbers for items that are functionally identical to existing parts…

Product Data Management (PDM) is the narrower predecessor and subset of PLM.

PTC's Product Data Management solution, launched in 2002 as the successor to Pro/INTRALINK.

A phantom assembly is an intermediate grouping that exists only in the build process and is de-kitted when the final product is assembled.

PHIGS (Programmer's Hierarchical Interactive Graphics System) is an ANSI/ISO standard 3D graphics API published in 1989 as a successor to GKS.

Neural networks trained not just on labeled data, but also constrained to satisfy physical laws (governing PDEs, boundary conditions).

A BOM structure that captures all components common across a product family, plus the complete set of optional modules from which variant BOMs are derived — as…

PLM meaning: Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the engineering-led discipline and software category for managing all data, processes, and stakeholders…

PLM & OT is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

The practice and architectural pattern of connecting Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems — which manage product definition, BOM, and engineering change…

Architectural philosophy where PLM serves as the central system coordinating all business processes (design, engineering, procurement, manufacturing, supply…

A vendor-specific or enterprise-tailored AI assistant integrated into a PLM system and trained on company-specific products, standards, and historical data…

PLM Core is the system of record in a thread-centric PLM architecture, responsible for governing trusted product data: the bill of materials, configuration…

An architecture pattern that provides unified, governed access to product data distributed across multiple PLM, ERP, MES, and supply chain systems — without…

The organizational framework of people, processes, and policies that controls how product data is created, approved, modified, and retired across the product…

Recognition program or informal designation for pioneering PLM practitioners, architects, and thought leaders who have shaped the industry.

Multi-year strategic plan for PLM technology evolution, including new capabilities, integrations, and market-driven features.

PLM Integration Challenges is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

An implementation approach where a new PLM system is deployed to handle specific processes or data types not well-served by an existing PLM platform.

The set of processes, system connections, and access controls that enable controlled data exchange, collaborative design, component qualification, and supply…

A standardized PLM system configuration deployed consistently across all sites in an enterprise, covering workflows, attributes, lifecycle states, and…

Network of professionals using PLM systems who share experiences, best practices, and lessons learned.

A postprocessor (or post-processor) in CAM software is the translation layer that converts the generic, machine-independent toolpath calculated by the CAM…

Application of statistical and machine learning models to manufacturing data to forecast equipment failures, optimize inventory, predict demand, and identify…

Real-time monitoring of equipment health using sensors (vibration, temperature, acoustic emission) and AI anomaly detection to predict failures days or weeks…

Predictive maintenance uses sensor data, condition monitoring, and AI/ML models to predict when equipment is likely to fail — enabling maintenance to be…

A quality management approach that uses machine learning and historical defect data to predict where and when defects are likely to occur — enabling…

AI-driven optimization of production job sequencing, setup times, and machine allocation.

Private cloud is a hybrid deployment model: PLM is deployed in a cloud environment but as a dedicated instance owned and controlled by the customer.

Process manufacturing is the production of goods through chemical, biological, or physical transformation of raw materials, where the output is a bulk product…

The systematic improvement of manufacturing and business processes through analysis, redesign, and implementation of efficiency measures, waste reduction, and…

Using machine learning to analyze manufacturing workflows, identify bottlenecks, predict the impact of parameter changes (e.g., temperature, pressure, speed)…

The discipline of defining, validating, and managing the set of allowable product configurations — including the rules that govern which options can be…

The degree to which product information is accurate, complete, consistent, and timely enough to reliably drive downstream engineering, manufacturing, and…

The complete, traceable history of a specific physical product instance, including its as-built configuration, component lot origins, post-manufacture…

Product Memory is the semantic abstraction layer that sits between PLM systems and AI agents, capturing not just product data but the reasoning, context, and…

A discipline that tracks product profitability, cost structure, and commercial viability across the product lifecycle, integrating financial data with…

Product variants are the distinct, separately orderable configurations of a base product, each defined by a unique combination of options, features and…

Production scheduling is the MES function that determines the sequence, timing, and resource allocation for work orders on the shop floor.

Propel is a cloud PLM platform built on Salesforce, designed for product companies that want PLM integrated with their CRM and customer-facing processes.

A cloud-native PLM and product value management platform built natively on Salesforce, designed for midmarket manufacturers seeking to integrate product data…

Proprietary software is software whose source code, data formats, and implementation details are controlled by the vendor and not available for inspection or…

PTC (Parametric Technology Corporation) is a Massachusetts-based industrial software company founded in 1985 by Samuel Geisberg, who developed the parametric…

PTC Creo (formerly Pro/ENGINEER) is PTC's parametric CAD platform and the reference implementation for mechanism-heavy design, industrial equipment, and…

A Quality Management System (QMS) is a formalized framework of policies, processes, and software tools that documents how an organization ensures product and…

A formal checkpoint in the product development lifecycle where stakeholders review evidence against predefined criteria and decide whether the product may…

See QMS. The full name distinguishes the software category from generic quality management practices. Quality Management Systems in regulated industries are…

Real-time synchronization is the capability of keeping data consistent across multiple systems as changes occur, rather than through batch updates or manual…

The ability to see current and historical state of products, processes, and supply chain in real-time: which designs are in production, what's the quality…

Recipe or formula management is the PLM capability for governing the composition, parameters, and version history of a process-manufactured product's…

Application Lifecycle Management: tracking requirements from conception through design, testing, deployment, and service.

In Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Requirements Traceability refers to the systematic process of identifying, documenting, and linking product requirements…

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) is an AI architecture that combines a large language model with a retrieval system that fetches relevant documents at…

A formally approved and released snapshot of a product document or model that is immutable — it cannot be modified without initiating a new change process.

A routing is the detailed sequence of operations that a product goes through during manufacturing — the workstations, work centers, labor, equipment, tooling…

Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) is the monthly cross-functional process that aligns a company's demand plan (what the business expects to sell) with its…

SaaS is a software delivery model in which applications are hosted by the vendor and accessed by customers over the internet on a subscription basis.

Safety culture is the collection of beliefs, practices, and attitudes in an organization that determines whether safety is genuinely prioritized in decisions…

A system whose failure could result in serious injury, loss of life, or significant environmental or financial harm — requiring additional engineering rigor…

A leading cloud computing and customer relationship management (CRM) platform that provides enterprise software for sales, service, marketing, and custom…

Sandvik Manufacturing is the digital-manufacturing arm of Sweden's Sandvik Group, the cutting-tools and advanced-materials engineering group founded in 1862.

SAP's product lifecycle management capability embedded within S/4HANA and the SAP ecosystem, covering document management, engineering change management…

SAP Recipe Development is the module within S/4HANA that manages product recipes and formulas for process industries.

SAP's current-generation ERP platform, built on an in-memory database (HANA).

A Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) is the structured inventory of every software component, library, and dependency that makes up a software product or a…

SCM (Supply Chain Management) is the discipline and software category for planning and executing the flow of goods, information, and money across the…

SDRC was a Cincinnati-based engineering software company founded in 1967 by Dr.

Semantic consistency is the property of a multi-system data environment where the same concept has the same meaning across all systems — enabling reliable data…

A form of effectivity where a part or configuration is defined as valid for product units with serial numbers within a specified range, enabling precise…

A variant of the product BOM structured around serviceability — identifying which components are field-replaceable, their expected service intervals, and the…

A parallel industry of startups solving problems that incumbents have failed to address.

Siemens NX (formerly Unigraphics, then NX) is Siemens Digital Industries Software's flagship CAD/CAM/CAE platform.

A scalar function F(x, y, z) defined over all of 3D space that returns the shortest Euclidean distance from any point to the nearest surface — negative inside…

A computer hardware manufacturer (1981-2009) that pioneered specialized graphics workstations and the OpenGL standard, dominating high-end visualization…

Siemens' integrated simulation and testing suite for multi-physics analysis, CFD, structural mechanics, and system simulation across the product development…

Simulation credibility is the formal assessment of a model's fitness for a specific intended use—quantifying the confidence that a model's outputs are accurate…

Simulation Governance is the organizational discipline of managing simulation models, data, and outputs with defined standards for verification, validation…

Simulation optimization is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

An engineering methodology in which physics-based simulation (finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics, multibody dynamics) is used as a primary…

The use of CAE (finite element analysis and computational simulations) to predict manufacturing performance before physical production, reducing iterations and…

SIMULIA is Dassault Systèmes' simulation brand covering finite element analysis (FEA), computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and multiphysics simulation under…

SolidWorks is a Windows-native, parametric, mid-market 3D CAD application founded in Concord, Massachusetts in 1993 by MIT graduate Jon Hirschtick and a team…

Sparkplug B is an open MQTT payload specification maintained by the Eclipse Foundation that adds industrial semantics to MQTT-based communication.

Spatial Technology Inc.

Mathematical curves (including Bézier and B-spline curves) that represent smooth, continuous shapes using control points and basis functions, fundamental to…

A product development framework that divides the development lifecycle into sequential stages separated by decision gates, where each stage must satisfy…

A method of quality control that uses statistical methods to monitor and control manufacturing processes, detecting when a process is drifting out of control…

ISO 10303, the international standard for representing and exchanging product data between different CAD systems, including geometry, assembly structure, and…

ISO 10303-242, the international standard for model-based 3D product data exchange, covering geometry, PMI, assembly structure, and lifecycle attributes in a…

Standard for the Exchange of Product model data — a neutral 3D CAD file format (ISO 10303) that preserves geometry without being tied to a specific CAD…

STEP-NC, formally ISO 10303 AP238, is a standard that extends the STEP product data model to machining.

A geometric representation generated by iteratively refining a control mesh using a subdivision rule (Catmull-Clark, Loop).

Real-time or near-real-time data about supplier health, capacity, ESG performance, financial stability, and geopolitical risk exposure — aggregated from…

A controlled external access layer to a PLM system that allows authorized supplier users to interact with scoped product data — their own component…

The capability of a supply chain to anticipate, withstand, and recover from disruptions — achieved through diversified sourcing, inventory buffers, design for…

Supply chain traceability is the ability to identify, for any component in any shipped unit, its origin (supplier, lot or batch, certificates and handling)…

Artificial intelligence systems that process medical imaging data to create patient-specific 3D anatomical models and surgical guides, enabling surgeons to…

PLM extensions that integrate lifecycle assessment, carbon footprint tracking, and material/compliance intelligence into the design phase.

The SWARF Framework is ThreadMoat's five-dimension evaluation model for CAM software.

Synchronous Technology is the Siemens-developed hybrid-modeling layer introduced with Solid Edge ST1 in 2008 and rolled into NX 7 shortly after.

System integration in the PLM context is the technical and organizational process of connecting multiple software systems so they exchange data accurately…

A System of Record (SOR) is the authoritative source of truth for a specific domain of data in an enterprise.

Teamcenter is Siemens Digital Industries Software's enterprise PLM platform, the most widely deployed PLM system in manufacturing.

Service-facing documentation generated from product engineering data: manuals, parts catalogs, service procedures, training materials.

Tecnomatix is the Siemens digital manufacturing portfolio, covering manufacturing process planning, plant simulation, robotics programming, and quality…

Thermal analysis (also called heat transfer analysis or thermal simulation) is the CAE technique for predicting temperature distribution within a design, heat…

ThingWorx is PTC's Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) platform, acquired in 2013 for approximately $112 million.

Thread-Centric PLM is an architectural approach where the digital thread — a governed data contract connecting all product lifecycle phases — is the primary…

A toolpath kernel is a licensable software component that computes cutter paths (roughing, finishing, multi-axis, simulation) which CAM vendors embed inside…

A computational design method that finds the optimal material distribution within a design space for given structural, thermal, or fluid constraints…

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is the comprehensive accounting of all costs associated with a system over its full lifetime, including purchase price…

A Unified Namespace (UNS) is an architectural pattern for industrial data integration in which all producers — devices, PLCs, SCADA systems, MES, ERP, and…

In Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Variant Management refers to the process of creating, managing, and controlling variations of a product design or…

In the context of product development, a vault is a purpose-built CAD file management system that handles versioning, check-in/check-out, access control, and…

The process of maintaining synchronized copies of PLM data (CAD files, documents, BOM data) at multiple physical locations to reduce access latency for…

Vendor lock-in is the condition in which switching from a technology vendor to a competitor becomes prohibitively expensive due to accumulated switching…

In simulation, Verification confirms that a model is implemented correctly (the math is right), while Validation confirms that the model represents physical…

A work-in-progress iteration of a document, still under development and subject to change before formal release.

Vulkan is a low-overhead, cross-platform 3D graphics and compute API released by the Khronos Group in 2016 as the explicit successor to OpenGL.

PLM systems designed from inception for web/browser delivery rather than retrofitted from desktop applications.

WebGPU is a modern web graphics and compute API designed as the successor to WebGL, standardized by the W3C and shipped in production browsers in 2023.

A PLM query that identifies every assembly, document, and process that references a given part or configuration item.

Windchill is PTC's enterprise PLM platform.

Work instructions are step-by-step directions that specify exactly how a manufacturing operation is to be performed—including tools, torque values, sequence…

Work Instruction Automation is a key capability in modern PLM systems that improves product development efficiency and decision-making.

A work order is the shop-floor execution instruction that MES creates for each unit or lot to be produced.

Reduction in time and steps required to complete an engineering task.

Siemens Xcelerator, launched in 2022, is the unified portfolio brand and commercial platform that consolidates Siemens Digital Industries Software's products…