The demand by consumers for a more personalized product and experience is a major trend driving automakers toward having more variety in their portfolio. Couple with this the need to leverage global resources and meet consumers’ requirements on a global scale, and you’ve just defined a significant challenge for automakers. To respond, automakers are investing in common, global platforms that can yield multiple variants per platform. In many cases, these platforms and variants are being developed by a global design and engineering team, and manufactured at many locations around the world.

Automakers and their suppliers are turning to Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) as a key strategy in enabling the global collaboration environment that makes global engineering and flexible manufacturing possible. PLM allows auto manufactures to connect all the different parts of the organization – and suppliers – into one common, collaborative environment.