SaaS broadens reach to product life cycle management

Once the domain of only the largest manufacturers, Product Lifecycle Management [PLM] applications are now needed by even the smallest machine shop thanks to environmental compliance regulations. Companies in search of an easy-to-deploy, inexpensive solution for its suppliers are now turning to software as a service.

 This week Arena Solutions will upgrade its SaaS PLM product, Arena PLM Fall '05 release, to include compliance management features. Also announced was the Arena PLM Enterprise Edition. Originally, Arena mainly targeted the SMB market.

Three of the most far-reaching government regulations will force manufacturers to "design for compliance," and to propagate those design requirements down to the smallest suppliers, according to Eric Larkin CTO at Arena.

The Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA), with a January 2006 deadline from the Food and Drug Administration.FALCPA requires food processing and manufacturing companies to list on their labels the eight most common food allergens that may be contained in the finished product.

The Restrictions on the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS) Directive, from the European Union [EU] goes into effect July 2006. RoHS, in particular, will have a dramatic affect on the computer industry. It will prohibit the sale in the European Union of electronics products that contain more than 0.01 percent of eight hazardous materials, one of which is lead.

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive  also from the EU, had an August 2005 initial deadline for compliance. WEEE is a waste disposal and recycling regulation, that will make manufacturers responsible for what happens to goods at the end of their product lifecycles.

Similar regulations are expected from China and California.

The Arena PLM Fall '05 upgrade will allow companies to track the status of each requirement for each product down to the component and supplier level. It will also allow for the inclusion of additional information such as the rationale for why it is in compliance and evidence that it does comply. The system generates a compliance report.

Tracking gets even more complex, according to Larkin, because manufacturing typically allows for subtle variations in product content from supplier to supplier.

"When you design, you are saying, 'Here is what is acceptable,' and using different suppliers means content may vary by one ten thousandth and that needs to be tracked," said Larkin.

 Arena allowed startup SafeView, a company that makes full body imaging devices for security, to concentrate on its core competency rather than having to embrace a major deployment of difficult PLM software, according to Karen Meyer, vice president of operations at SafeView.

After licensing the imaging technology from the U.S. Department of Energy' s Pacific Northwest National Lab, Safeview decided to outsource as much of the actual design and manufacturing as it could, said Meyer. This meant the company was going to have a lot of partners in the design and manufacturing phase.

"SaaS gives you that flexibility. We have partners all over the place, but as long as they had Internet access that is all that is required [to collaborate]," said Meyer.

 Larkin claims a SaaS solution allows manufacturers and suppliers to more easily work off the same set of information than a more costly packaged application.