Top 9 Best PLM Software In 2024 To Manage Your Product Lifecycle

List of the Best Product Lifecycle Management PLM Software:

What is PLM Software?

The process which is used to manage the complete lifecycle of a product, from the start to the end is called Product Lifecycle Management.

PLM software is an application that is used to manage the data related to this whole lifecycle and to integrate the related data. PLM software can manage product-related data. It can also combine the data with ERP, MES, CAD etc.

Product Lifecycle Management Process

Owing to the advancement in technology, nowadays products are more advanced and complex too.

Hence for managing all the data related to these new products, their business processes, engineering, analysis, v   development, etc., a sort of new process named Product Lifecycle management process is required.

An application that is required to follow or manage that whole process is termed PLM software. This software will not only help in increasing the profit, but will also improve the accuracy, efficiency, and productivity to a great extent.

Who Uses PLM Tools?

The answer to this question is based on the roles, responsibilities, and permissions. This software can be accessed by many users of an organization.

Benefits of Product Lifecycle Management Software:

• Product output will get increased.
• The quality of the product will improve.
• The most important benefit is, that it will accelerate the whole process.
• It helps in increasing revenue.
• Centralized data management

Top PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) Software

Given below is a comprehensive list of the most popular free and commercial PLM tools and vendors available in the market.

Comparison of the Best PLM Vendors

Let’s Explore!!

#1) Jira

Jira earns a coveted position on our list because of its ability to map out even the most complex projects with customizable workflows and roadmaps. You get a ton of ready-made templates to create and manage workflows.

Moreover, development teams can rely on visual boards like Scrum and Kanban to make their project considerably more manageable.

Features:

• Task Automation
• Dependency Management
• Project Archiving
• Scrum and Kanban Boards
• Customizable Workflow
• Agile Reporting

Total Cost/Plan Details:

• Free for up to 10 users
• Standard: $7.75/month
• Premium: $15.25/month
• Custom enterprise plan is also available

Verdict: If you have an agile software development team that wishes to manage every single stage of your project life cycle, then this software was tailor-made for your organization. Jira’s flexible pricing structure also makes us confident enough to recommend it to small, medium, and large enterprises.

#2) Arena

Arena PLM brings product information, people, and processes together into a single enterprise platform to speed product design and development with cloud-based software that is easy to use anytime and anywhere.

Features:

• Engineering Change Management
• BOM Management
• Document Management
• Supplier Collaboration
• Requirements Management
• Compliance Management (FDA, ISO, ITAR, EAR, and environmental compliance)
• Quality Management
• More…

Tool Cost/Plan Details: Contact them for pricing details.

Verdict: The product is best for unified product and quality processes, integration with ERP, BOM management features, and ease of use.

Website: Arena Solutions

#3) Teamcenter Siemens

Siemens PLM provides its services to many industries like aerospace & defense, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, etc. This software can be used by small, medium, and large organizations.

Features:

Siemens Teamcenter has the following features:

• Change Management
• Supplier integration
• BOM Management
• Requirements management and engineering.
• Document management
• Manufacturing data and process management.
• Much more.

Tool Cost/Plan Details: Contact them for pricing details.

Verdict: This system is best for its change management feature, integration with the CAD system, and it is easy to use functionality.

Website: Team Center Siemens

#4) Autodesk Fusion Lifecycle

Autodesk Fusion Lifecycle is a product lifecycle management platform. It will help you with defining and automating processes and hence will keep the work flowing and product development on track.

It has capabilities of New Product Introduction, Bill of Materials, Change Management, Quality Management, Supplier Collaboration, and Product Data Management.

Features:

• You will be able to create flexible and configurable 24*7 collaboration with your global supply chain.
• It will help your engineering team with organizing, managing, and tracking product data, revisions, and releases.
• You will get a powerful and easy-to-use centralized system to configure and manage structured Bills of Materials and items.
• It provides configurable New Product Introduction project templates that standardize phase-gate milestones, deliverables, and tasks by business unit, product line, etc.
• It has features and functionalities for Change Management and Quality Management.

Pricing Details: Autodesk Fusion Lifecycle is available in two editions, Pro ($965 per user per year) and Enterprise ($1935 per user per year). A free trial is available for the product.

The Pro edition provides 25GB storage per user and no 3rd party licenses whereas you will get unlimited storage and 3rd party licenses with the Enterprise edition.

Verdict:  Autodesk Fusion Lifecycle provides real-time access to the product data and will represent it graphically for quick interpretation. It is available for three industries, Industrial Machinery & Products, Consumer Electronics & High Tech, and Automotive Suppliers & Components.

Website: Autodesk Fusion Lifecycle

#5) Windchill

Windchill is a PLM solution by PTC. It can be used on Windows, Linux, and UNIX.

Features:

• Multiple system data management.
• Associative BOM.
• Helps in innovation
• You will be able to work fast and accurately.

Tool Cost/Plan Details: Contact them for pricing details.

Verdict: It has good features as a PLM system. The system is easy to use as well.

Website: Windchill

#6) Oracle Agile PLM

It helps in centralizing the data, process streamlining, and creating quality products. It helps in maximizing profit.

Features:

• The quality management feature will give you immediate visibility to any problem.
• The portfolio management feature will help in managing schedules, resources, and many other things for a new product.
• The cost management feature will help for RFQ (Request for Quote) process.

Tool Cost/Plan Details: Contact them for pricing details.

Verdict: It has good features and functionalities as a Product Lifecycle Management Software. It is a cost-effective solution for PLM.

Website: Oracle Agile PLM

#7) SAP PLM

SAP PLM software is for 360 degrees support to all the product-related processes. SAP PLM can be used with SAP and other products. It has features for Address-specific challenges.

Features:

• It provides centralized PPM.
• It helps in product design, compliance, cost, etc.
• Document management.
• Change management, batch management.
• As a learning resource, it offers tutorials and arranges webinars.
• BOM management.

Tool Cost/Plan Details: Contact them for pricing details.

Verdict: SAP PLM system is best known for its ease of creation of BOM. Also, it is best for its integration with ERP.

Website: SAP PLM

#8) Aras PLM

Aras PLM is an open architecture system, so you can customize a system as per your need. Even if it is customized, you can get the system upgrades.

Features:

• The system is flexible for business changes.
• It has features for change management, BOM, Manufacturing process planning, System engineering, Configuration management, and Quality.
• PDM/PLM integration features.
• Document Management.
• Requirements management.

Tool Cost/Plan Details: The system is open to use. You need to subscribe in order to access the complete platform capabilities.

Verdict: The system is customizable, easy to use, and open source.

Website: Aras PLM

#9) Omnify Empower PLM

Omnify Software provides you with a flexible and scalable PLM system. Omnify Software can deploy the system on-premise or in the cloud.

Features:

• It has features like quality, change, issue, and compliance management.
• It has document and item management features.
• BOM management.
• The system integration feature will allow you to import and export the data from your current business applications.
• It provides many learning resources like white papers, training, webinars, and live demos.

Tool Cost/Plan Details: Contact them for pricing details.

Verdict: System is easily configurable and easy to use as well.

Website: Omnify Empower PLM

#10) Propel

It delivers the system in the cloud. This software will help you to develop, launch, sell, and improve the product.

Features:

• It has quality management, change management, requirements management, and project management features.
• It has BOM management.
• It has features for product information management.
• Task management.
• You can track the complete audit history.

Tool Cost/Plan Details: Contact them for pricing details.

Verdict: The system is easy to customize and use. It has Quality management and Product information management software.

Website: Propel PLM 

#11) Upchain PLM

Upchain is a cloud PLM solution designed to help small and medium-sized companies collaborate on design, engineering production, and maintenance processes across their entire value chain.

Features:

• Project dashboards and KPIs
• BOM Management
• Automated parts numbering
• Change management
• 2D / 3D CAD viewer and markup
• Agile Project Management
• CAD plugins and API Integrations

Pricing Details:

Subscription plans are as follows:

• Participant: $20/user
• Team: $50/user
• Professional: $150/user

Contact them for pricing details.

Verdict: This system is best for cloud deployment, built-in workflow management, and project dashboards. It’s been designed to overlay existing legacy technology to push and pull data as needed through plugins and integrations.

Additional PLM Software Tools

#12) Uservoice: Uservoice has product prioritization, feedback collection, management & moderation, communication, and integration features. This software helps in product management through user feedback.

Website: Uservoice

#13) Solid Edge Siemens PLM Software: It is software for mechanical designers. It is the software for the Windows operating system. Solid Edge is related to product development software. This software is developed by Siemens.

Website: Solid Edge

#14) Creo: Creo is a CAD software for the Windows operating system by PTC. It is helpful in product design. It can be integrated with PTC’s Windchill which is a PLM tool.

Website: Creo

Conclusion

To conclude our learning from the above list, we can summarize that Aena can work with complex products, Teamcenter can be used by any size of organization, Vault is the best PLM for engineers and designers and Oracle Agile PLM is a cost-effective tool and provides good features and functionalities as well.

Almost all the software is commercial tools, whereas only Aras free PLM Software provides a few features for free.

I hope you would have gained immense knowledge of the Top product lifecycle management tools in the market!