DMU (Digital Mock-Up)
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 analysis, kinematics simulation, and maintainability studies without building a physical prototype. DMU originated in aerospace (Boeing 777 was a landmark DMU program) and is now standard in automotive, heavy equipment, and defense. In the Dassault 3DEXPERIENCE ecosystem, DMU is a first-class module; Siemens NX and PTC Creo include comparable capabilities.
Why it matters
DMU eliminated the full-scale physical mock-up for most industries — replacing months of physical assembly with digital interference checks that catch fitment problems before tooling is cut. The challenge is keeping the DMU in sync with the latest PLM-governed BOM: a DMU built on stale configurations gives false confidence. Thread-centric architectures solve this by making the DMU a live view of the governed assembly rather than an exported snapshot.
Related concepts
External References
This term appears in
Cite this definition
Finocchiaro, Michael. “DMU (Digital Mock-Up).” DemystifyingPLM PLM Glossary, 2026, https://www.demystifyingplm.com/glossary/dmu-digital-mock-up