3 Steps To Deploy An Effective Product Data Strategy

Manufacturing companies are competing to win the digital transformation race. It is super critical to find what are key success factors to make it happen. Working with many manufacturing companies and engineering companies, we found that their ability to develop an effective product data strategy is a critical factor in achieving success and it is very often the main thing that can contribute to a possible failure. 

Failure, on the other hand, often comes from a lack of a product data strategy, inability to define core principles of product data organization, information flows in the organization and beyond, and clear strategy on how to keep data management between multiple teams and companies. 

To avoid the pitfalls, let’s walk through some key success factors. 

In my article today, I want to bring your attention to 3 main contributing factors and steps on how to build an effective product data management strategy. I will also be referring you to the following OpenBOM Training Course – OpenBOM Data Management Best Practices. 

Setting Up The Core Data Model 

OpenBOM core data management model includes basic data records about the following entities: (1) Item; (2) Bill of Materials; (3) Revisions and Change history. Organizing data in catalogs allows you to create a database with the classification of attributes, storing exactly the data you need about each item, keep a single record of information about the item, and eliminating the need to copy data between spreadsheets. 

Check out more information in the Understanding of Items in the OpenBOM chapter in the data management course. 

Check out OpenBOM’s user stories to learn how our customers are escaping from Excel into a world where data is organized and there are duplications of data. 

Defining Integrations and Interfaces 

Bringing data into OpenBOM is fully automated. You can use out-of-the-box import from Excel or Google Spreadsheets as well as multiple available OpenBOM integrations.  You can check OpenBOM tutorials about importing data from Excel. 

It is important to define the strategy of integration. OpenBOM is capable of organizing a multi-disciplinary BOM containing data from multiple sources. Check this out here – Building a multi-disciplinary BOM and bringing data from MCAD, ECAD, and Software packages.

Check out how some of our customers do it – Activate Games. 

Organizational Collaboration 

OpenBOM provides a unique collaboration model allowing you to share data instantly and perform simultaneous changes done by multiple team members located worldwide. Nothing is lost and every change done by team members is included. Also, data sharing eliminates the need to export data continuously and will guarantee that everyone is using the same data. 

Many small and large companies are using OpenBOM exactly because of that – collaboration allows to streamline the process and move faster. Check out how global consumer electronic Fortune 500 company is using OpenBOM to speed up their new product development process. 

Conclusion 

It all starts with the core data model. Such a data model is the foundation of healthy information organizations. Don’t try to bring computer services until you’ve organized the information and set up a single source of truth for the data. You will fail miserably if you don’t have a clear set of product records with Part Numbers, Revisions, and History of changes. 

Once you’ve done it, define the information streams including integrations. Every copy of the data eventually brings potential errors and errors are very costly. Last, but not least, share the data. By sharing the data, you will keep your team on the same page (or how we say, on the same BOM). It eliminates the painful process of exporting data to excel files and sending them via emails. 

By keeping centralized data records, you will make your company more lean and efficient, eliminating mistakes and streamlining collaboration. 

Check out what OpenBOM can do for you. REGISTER FOR FREE and start your 14-day trial today. 

Best, Oleg