TABLE OF CONTENTS
The global product lifecycle management (PLM) software market is estimated at $48.65 billion in 2026 and projected to reach $67.47 billion by 2035, reflecting the growing need for better product data management, collaboration, and lifecycle visibility across manufacturing organizations.
As products become more complex, teams need a reliable way to connect engineering, operations, manufacturing, sourcing, and quality around the same source of truth. PLM software helps organizations manage product data, decisions, and changes from early concept through end of life.
Without PLM, critical information often gets scattered across spreadsheets, CAD tools, email threads, supplier documents, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. That makes it harder to track revisions, approve changes, manage bills of materials (BOMs), and move products from design to production without costly errors.
Below, we’ll break down how PLM works, the key stages of the product lifecycle, common implementation challenges, and how modern PLM Tools helps engineering teams improve collaboration, traceability, and time to market.
Key Takeaways
- PLM software helps teams manage product data and processes from concept through end of life.
- As products become more complex, PLM helps organizations balance speed, quality, compliance, and cost throughout the product lifecycle.
- Modern PLM software improves collaboration, accelerates time-to-market, and creates a single source of truth across engineering and operations.
- Successful PLM strategies improve product quality and help organizations adapt faster throughout the product lifecycle.
What is Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)?
Product lifecycle management is a process for managing products through the different stages of their lifecycle, from initial concept through to product retirement. It helps organizations accelerate time-to-market, reduce production costs, and improve product quality.
Over time, PLM has evolved from a mechanical design and engineering-focused philosophy into a broader discipline used across industries to manage product development and launch new products efficiently.
Modern product lifecycle management uses PLM software to centralize BOM management, sourcing, and documentation, helping teams bring products to market faster and manage changes more efficiently.
Evolution of Product Lifecycle Management
Product lifecycle management has evolved significantly over the past several decades and continues to evolve:
- Early PLM practices: These were primarily focused on mechanical design and engineering documentation, helping teams manage CAD files and product specifications. As products grew more complex and teams became more distributed, companies began seeking a more connected, lifecycle-wide approach to product data.
- Modern PLM systems: PLM platforms now serve as a centralized system for managing product data, bills of materials (BOMs), design revisions, and change processes from concept through end-of-life. They create a single source of truth to help engineering, operations, manufacturing, and other stakeholders stay aligned as products evolve.
- Current drivers of the next leg of evolution: The next stage of PLM evolution is cloud-native, AI-powered platforms that improve collaboration and increase visibility into product changes, making PLM a critical foundation for faster, higher-quality product delivery.
How Does a PLM System Work?
PLM systems provide a centralized environment where multiple teams can access and manage product information throughout the product lifecycle. They eliminate the need for disconnected spreadsheets and point solutions by allowing teams to work from a shared product record that keeps information aligned across the organization.
A PLM system supports activities such as BOM management, document control, revision tracking, and engineering change management. As products evolve, the system records what changed, who approved the change, and how it affects downstream activities such as manufacturing and production planning.
With improved visibility into product data and change processes, PLM systems help:
- Make faster and better decisions
- Improve collaboration
- Strengthen change control
- Make the path from concept to production more efficient
Key features of PLM software:
- Centralized product data and bill of materials (BOM) management with real-time access across the development lifecycle
- Engineering change management with approval workflows, traceability, and product revision tracking
- AI-powered automation for product development workflows to support faster decision-making and development workflows
- Integrations with CAD, ERP, MES, and other hardware development tools via API-first architecture
- Cross-functional collaboration across engineering, operations, manufacturing, and other stakeholders
- Configurable workflows, validation rules, and lifecycle processes for consistent product governance
Stages of Product Lifecycle Management
Product development is becoming increasingly complex as manufacturers balance faster innovation cycles, digital transformation initiatives, supply chain volatility, and growing product requirements.
According to Deloitte’s 2025 Smart Manufacturing Survey, 78% of surveyed leaders are allocating more than 20% of their improvement budgets to smart manufacturing initiatives, highlighting the growing importance of connected data and digital product operations.
To manage this complexity, organizations need a structured approach to product development.
While the exact process varies by company and industry, most hardware products move through six key lifecycle stages.
1) Product Requirements Documentation
Every successful product begins with clear requirements. During this stage, teams define the product’s goals, specifications, target costs, expected production volume, release timeline, and long-term roadmap. These requirements serve as the foundation for engineering, manufacturing, and business decisions throughout the product lifecycle.
At the bare minimum, a product requirements document (PRD) should include:
- List of features (and performance metrics for each)
- Estimated production volume
- Costs
- Product release timeline (anticipated)
- Product roadmap
Once the PRD gets approved by all relevant team leads, the product is clear to move onto the next stage.
2) Engineering Validation and Testing
Once engineering feasibility has been validated, the product moves into Design Validation and Testing (DVT).
At this stage, teams test a near-final design against product requirements, including form, fit, function, reliability, materials, safety, and customer expectations. This involves rigorous testing to ensure that each product feature meets its predetermined performance metrics. The goal is to confirm that the design is ready for production validation before committing to production tooling and manufacturing processes. This can take weeks or months of research and development.
3) Design Validation and Testing
Once functionality is nailed down, the focus is on the end product’s look and feel. In the design validation and testing (DVT) stage you’ll select the materials and mechanical components that align with the aesthetic laid out in the PRD.
Getting feedback from potential customers is highly valuable at this stage. This helps assess the product-market fit, and allows you to adjust critical design elements (form, fit, materials) before greenlighting the product for final production.
4) Production Validation and Testing
Production Validation and Testing (PVT) focuses on manufacturability and production readiness. The goal is to confirm that the product can be manufactured at the required volume, quality standards, and target cost while maintaining consistent performance.
During this stage, manufacturers and suppliers often provide feedback that helps identify potential production bottlenecks, quality issues, or opportunities to simplify manufacturing processes.
5) Mass Production
Once production processes have been validated, the product moves into mass production, where it is manufactured at scale for customer delivery. At this stage, organizations focus on maintaining product quality, meeting customer demand, controlling costs, and ensuring supply chain continuity as production scales. Continuous monitoring and improvement are critical during this phase, because even small inefficiencies can have a significant impact at high volumes.
6) End of Life
Every product eventually reaches the end of its lifecycle. During the End-of-Life (EOL) stage, organizations plan how to phase out production, manage remaining inventory, address regulatory requirements, and determine whether components or materials can be reused, recycled, or repurposed. Effective EOL planning helps minimize waste and costs and preserves valuable product knowledge that can inform future product development efforts.
Benefits of PLM Software
Managing a product’s journey involves hundreds of decisions, dozens of stakeholders, and constantly changing data. That’s why over 1.2 million professionals worldwide rely on PLM software to keep everything under control. Here’s what companies get from using PLM software.
Improves Collaboration Between Engineering Teams
PLM software provides a shared environment where cross-functional teams can access product data, review design updates, and track revisions in real time.
This visibility reduces miscommunication and helps teams stay aligned on the latest product information. Modern PLM platforms such as Duro support seamless collaboration by centralizing product data, design revisions, change processes, and related documentation in a single environment, serving as a single source of truth for entire organizations.
Mitigates Missteps and Errors
Manual processes and disconnected systems increase the risk of duplicate records and other types of human error. PLM software reduces these risks by centralizing product data and providing structured workflows for managing revisions and engineering changes.
With PLM software, everyone involved in the product development process works from the same information because teams can easily identify the latest approved design and track change history. This improves accuracy and lowers the risk of costly mistakes reaching production.
Reduces Time to Market
Bringing products to market quickly is a competitive advantage, and PLM software helps teams achieve it by streamlining workflows, automating manual tasks, and improving cross-functional collaboration.
By centralizing product information and making design changes easier to track, PLM software helps teams identify issues earlier and move products through development more efficiently. With engineering, manufacturing, and operations teams working from a single source of truth, less time is spent searching for information, and more time is focused on advancing product development.
Supports Regulatory Compliance and Traceability
Many industries, including aerospace, medical devices, automotive, and industrial manufacturing, are required to maintain detailed records of product data, design changes, and approval processes. Tracking this information across spreadsheets, emails, and disconnected tools is a tedious and error-prone process.
With clear records of product revisions, engineering changes, approvals, and supporting documentation, PLM software makes it easier to maintain compliance and improves traceability, allowing teams to understand what changed, when it changed, and who approved it.
Stronger traceability also helps investigate quality issues and maintain confidence in the accuracy of product information across the organization.
Industry use cases for PLM software
While the benefits of PLM are consistent across industries, the specific challenges PLM solves often vary depending on the product, regulatory requirements, and development processes.
Below are a few examples of how organizations across different industries use PLM software to improve product development and operational efficiency.
Aerospace and defense
The aerospace and defense industry uses PLM software to help manage the creation of essential components and lower the costs of bringing these parts and their associated products to market.
Complex hardware teams need strict control over product data, documentation, and change processes, especially when development timelines are tight and errors can create costly downstream issues.
AstroForge faced these challenges while building a space mining vehicle, relying on separate systems for CAD, ERP, and procedural documentation before adopting PLM. After implementation, the company achieved a 20% improvement in time efficiency, centralized documentation, and synchronized part numbers, assemblies, and BOMs.
Automotive and transportation
Another industry greatly benefiting from PLM software is the automotive industry, where there has been a surge of innovation in the development of autonomous vehicles.
Lumafield develops industrial CT scanning technology that helps engineers inspect and analyze products without destroying them. As the company scaled, it needed a better way to manage product data and revisions across teams. With PLM as a centralized system for product information, Lumafield improved visibility across engineering and manufacturing workflows while streamlining part release and change management processes.
Consumer Electronics
Consumer electronics is a major PLM use case because products often combine mechanical, electrical, firmware, and supplier-managed components. This industry now includes a wide array of tools, from robotics to IoT devices, infotainment systems, mechatronic machines, and more.
Sphero used PLM to develop programmable robots and educational tools to encourage children to learn about coding, science, and the arts. The company uses Duro as its system of record to review what’s going to be made and track changes over time.
Industrial Automation
For industrial automation companies, PLM software helps keep customized products consistent across designs, components, BOMs, documentation, and manufacturing processes. By centralizing product data and change workflows, teams can adapt products to customer requirements without losing control of revisions, approvals, or production readiness.
For example, Rapid Robotics develops robotic systems that automate repetitive manufacturing processes. The company uses PLM to manage its core product configuration and adapt designs to meet specific customer requirements. Rapid Robotics can maintain design consistency, improve collaboration across teams, and make updates more efficiently as products evolve by centralizing product data and change processes on Duro.
Wellness and medical devices
As equipment for health tracking and medical devices becomes more complex, these organizations need strict product data monitoring. Additionally, they must carefully manage quality and ensure regulatory compliance.
Whether you’re building aerospace systems, autonomous vehicles, connected devices, robotics, or medical hardware, managing product data across teams gets harder as products become more complex. Duro helps hardware companies centralize BOMs, track revisions, manage engineering changes, and connect product data across CAD, ERP, and manufacturing workflows.
Learn how Duro helps hardware teams bring complex products from design to production with greater speed, traceability, and control. Request a demo today.
Common PLM Software Challenges and Solutions
PLM initiatives often deliver significant long-term value, but they are also complex to execute. In fact, 67% of PLM programs exceed planned budgets and timelines, with an average cost overrun of 32% and delays of approximately four and a half months. These challenges highlight the importance of careful planning, strong change management, and the right technology approach when implementing PLM systems. Here are some of the most common issues and how to address them when choosing the right PLM software.
Ineffective Change Management Processes
A poorly defined change management process can create confusion and increase the risk of outdated information reaching production. Without clear approval and documentation processes, teams can struggle to maintain alignment as products evolve.
Change approval workflows should be structured and easy to follow. If you’re implementing a new PLM system, avoid overcomplicating approval routing with unnecessary review stages or rules that can slow decision-making. Starting with streamlined workflows makes it easier to maintain efficiency as processes mature.
Lack of Access to Information to Make Decisions
Teams can’t make effective decisions without access to accurate product information. When product data is spread across disconnected systems or restricted by limited integrations and access controls, stakeholders may struggle to identify the latest design revisions, track engineering changes, or verify whether information is up to date.
A flexible, cloud-native PLM platform helps ensure critical product information remains accessible across teams and locations. Features such as integrations, revision visibility, alerts, and centralized product records make it easier for stakeholders to understand changes and make informed decisions throughout the development process.
Disparate Data Across Your Software Platforms
Hardware product teams often manage information across multiple systems, including CAD tools, ERP platforms, supplier databases, and requirements management software. When this data remains disconnected, organizations create data silos that limit visibility, slow collaboration, and increase the likelihood of errors.
As product complexity grows, addressing these silos becomes increasingly important. Research shows PLM software is used by more than 60% of leading manufacturing firms worldwide, highlighting its growing role in centralizing product information and improving data continuity.
PLM software helps reduce data silos by creating a centralized environment for product information and engineering workflows. Integrating PLM with CAD tools (such as SolidWorks or Altium), ERP platforms, and other business systems ensures teams work from consistent, up-to-date information throughout the product lifecycle.
Slow Implementation Time
Lengthy PLM implementations can delay adoption and slow the realization of business value. As product development cycles accelerate, organizations need systems that can be deployed quickly without creating unnecessary operational disruption. This is why prioritizing PLM platforms with intuitive interfaces, rapid onboarding, out-of-the-box functionality, and flexible configuration is essential.
Modern cloud-native solutions such as Duro are designed to streamline implementation and reduce the complexity often associated with traditional PLM deployments. Faster implementation helps teams begin centralizing product data and realizing operational benefits sooner.
The Future of Product Lifecycle Management
Product lifecycle management continues to evolve alongside advances in manufacturing, product development, digital technologies, and industrial automation. As products become more connected and development cycles accelerate, organizations need greater visibility into product data and engineering changes. Let’s take a closer look at trends driving the future of PLM:
Cloud-Native Product Development
As engineering teams become more distributed, organizations are moving away from legacy on-prem systems and adopting cloud-native PLM platforms. Cloud-based environments make it easier to access product data and maintain visibility throughout the product lifecycle.
Cloud-native PLM also simplifies integrations with CAD, ERP, manufacturing, and other business systems, helping organizations create a connected digital thread across product development workflows.
Sustainability and Product Traceability
Regulatory requirements and sustainability initiatives are increasing the demand for better product traceability. It’s now critical, and even a regulatory requirement in some industries, for companies to understand material usage, supplier data, product lifecycles, and environmental impact throughout development and manufacturing.
Traceability is also becoming a regulatory priority. The European Commission’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation will introduce a Digital Product Passport to store relevant information about products, components, and materials, supporting sustainability, circularity, and legal compliance. For manufacturers, this increases the need for structured product data that can be traced across materials, suppliers, revisions, and lifecycle events.
Modern PLM platforms help support these efforts by providing greater visibility into product data and change history, making it easier to track and report on sustainability-related metrics.
AI and Intelligent Automation
McKinsey’s 2025 global AI survey found that 88% of respondents say their organizations regularly use AI in at least one business function, while only about one-third report that their companies have begun scaling AI programs.
In PLM, this creates an opportunity to move beyond isolated AI experiments and apply intelligent automation to practical workflows such as duplicate part detection, documentation review, change routing, and product data cleanup.
As PLM platforms continue to evolve, intelligent automation will play a growing role in helping organizations manage product complexity and make faster decisions based on product data.
Connected Products and IoT Data
The rise of connected devices and Industrial IoT technologies is creating new opportunities for product teams to learn from real-world product performance. Modern organizations are now using operational data from connected products to inform engineering decisions and improve product quality.
As PLM systems become more integrated with connected product ecosystems, teams will gain deeper visibility into how products perform throughout their lifecycle.
Implement Future-ready AI-Native PLM
PLM software makes it easy for engineers and product leaders to make smarter decisions about their products. Without a PLM system, organizations might struggle to effectively design products, bring them to market, and manage information across different systems.
Book a demo today to learn how Duro can help improve your operations and streamline your PLM experience. Duro gives hardware teams the first AI-Native PLM system for centralizing BOMs, managing engineering changes, connecting CAD and ERP workflows, and keeping product data traceable from design through production.
Product Lifecycle Management FAQs
What is the difference between PLM and PPM?
Product lifecycle management (PLM) focuses on managing product data and changes throughout a product’s lifecycle. It helps teams centralize product information and improve collaboration across engineering, manufacturing, operations, and other teams.
On the other hand, project portfolio management (PPM) focuses on selecting and managing projects. While PLM manages the product itself, PPM helps organizations allocate resources, track project performance, align projects with strategic goals, and improve visibility into project progress. The two systems complement each other but serve different purposes.
What is the difference between PLM and PDM?
Product data management (PDM) primarily focuses on organizing and storing engineering data such as CAD files and drawings. It helps teams manage revisions and maintain version control throughout the design process.
Product lifecycle management (PLM) includes many of the capabilities of PDM but extends beyond engineering data management. PLM supports the entire product lifecycle by connecting product data, bills of materials (BOMs), change management processes, documentation, and cross-functional collaboration in a single system.
What is the difference between PLM vs. ERP?
Product lifecycle management (PLM) focuses on managing product data before and during product development, including parts, BOMs, design revisions, documentation, and engineering change orders. PLM helps engineering, operations, manufacturing, and quality teams stay aligned as a product moves from concept to production.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) focuses on managing business operations after product data is released for execution. ERP systems typically handle procurement, inventory, production planning, finance, order management, and fulfillment.
The two systems work best together. PLM serves as the source of truth for product design and change management, while ERP uses approved product data to support purchasing, planning, and manufacturing. When PLM and ERP are integrated, teams can reduce manual data entry, avoid version-control issues, and ensure manufacturing teams are working from the latest approved product information.
How do you measure the success of PLM efforts?
You can measure PLM success using operational and product development metrics. Common indicators include reduced time-to-market, fewer engineering change errors, improved product quality, faster approval cycles, and greater reuse of existing components and designs. Many organizations also track collaboration and data management outcomes, such as improved product data accuracy and reduced duplication.