Benefits of Simulation Models in Product Data Management System : A pilot study with cooling system simulation models

The product development today handles increasingly complex products and to be able to compete on the current market companies need an effective PLM/PDM system to manage the lifecycle, models, and data connected to their products. Three of the factors for success in product development are time, cost, and quality. Which need to be supported by the processes and tool used in a project. Product development often uses both physical and analytical prototypes. The analytical method of simulation is an important element in product development that has started to shift from being a validation and verification tool at the last stages in the development process to be more included in the early stages. Simulation models often generate a big amount of data and because of this, the storing and management of them can be troublesome. Therefore, there is a need to have closer integration between design and simulation. The purpose of the thesis is to do an inquiry about what a PLM system contributes to in a company regarding their product development and why and how simulation models can be connected to the company’s PDM system.The methods used during the study were literature reviews, interviews, workshops, and a survey. The results show that in the literature the benefits of using a PLM and PDM system are connected to the factors for a successful product development which are time, quality and cost. While the employees think traceability, reuse of data and storing is the most important benefits. Simulation models are beneficial to the product development process and should, therefore, be stored in a way that there is a connection between the simulation model and the design model. For the employees, the highest-ranking benefits with adding simulation models to the system are traceability, reuse of simulation models and control over simulation models. A manual for how the simulation engineer can utilize the system and add simulation models to it are presented