Top Product Data Management (PDM) Solutions

Product data management (PDM) is so very important, especially when it comes to engineering. Whether you are a small team or a full-scale enterprise, data management is essential in assuring your data’s security and history. Plus, since the files often relate to each other, it’s important to have a system that speaks the same language and understands those file/data relations. Since you are reading this, we figure you have already decided you need data management capabilities. Now, how to choose the best option for your application? Let's dive in and compare our options!

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Topics covered in this post:

1. Feature Comparison

2. GrabCAD Workbench

3. Autodesk Vault

4. Collaborative Industry Innovator (ENOVIA)

5. SOLIDWORKS PDM

6. PTC Windchill

7. Teamcenter

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Feature Comparison

First things first, let’s take a look at an overview of some of the top solutions available and what functionality they bring to the table!

	GrabCAD Workbench*	Autodesk Vault	Collaborative Industry Innovator (ENOVIA)	SOLIDWORKS PDM	PTC Windchill	Teamcenter
Cost	Free	$	$$	$$$	$$$	$$$
Licensing	-	Subscription	Subscription	Perpetual	Subscription	Perpetual
Built in Cloud Services	✓	✘	✓	✘	✘**	✘
CAD Agnostic	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Task Management	✘	✘	✓	✘	✓	✓
Change Management	✘	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Revision Control	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Collaboration Capabilities	✓	✘	✓	✘	✘	✘

*GrabCAD Workbench will be discontinued on June 1, 2023

**Available for additional purchase

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GrabCAD Workbench

GrabCAD Workbench is a great place to start if you need a free solution. It provides a cloud-based storage solution, allowing you to better work with a dispersed team. Plus, there are some basic collaboration tools such as markups and email notifications. As with all the solutions in this post, it’s compatible with various CAD formats. It even has some basic revision capabilities built in.

This is a great solution to get started, however, it’s rather limited in its capabilities compared to the other solutions featured in this post. If you plan on expanding, it’s important to consider that migrating data from one solution to another can be a time consuming and expensive task, especially if you have an extensive data set.

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Autodesk Vault

Autodesk Vault has three tiers (Basic, Workgroup, and Professional), all of which are purchased on a subscription basis. Regardless of which solution you choose, they do not provide cloud functionality in their offers. This means you will also be responsible for purchasing and maintaining all of the servers and any additional hardware as well or configuring the setup on the cloud provider of your choice.

As you jump into the higher tiers, you start to add some PLM capabilities such as revision control with Vault Workgroup and automated change orders with Vault Professional. If you need additional PLM capabilities, you will have to integrate the solution with a specialized PLM solution.

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Collaborative Industry Innovator (ENOVIA)

Collaborative Industry Innovator is a role on 3DEXPERIENCE, powered by ENOVIA, that brings both PDM and PLM capabilities to CAD and non-CAD users alike. It’s a subscription based, out of the box, cloud-based solution. This means you can have your data storage, revision control, change management, collaboration, and more, ready much more quickly than some alternatives.

There are connectors available for a wide array of common CAD solutions that make multi-CAD assemblies a breeze. Plus, all of the 3DEXPERIENCE roles (rendering, simulation, manufacturing, etc.) all use this common source of data, making it a very expandable solution. Check out this blog I wrote if you’re interested in learning more benefits.

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SOLIDWORKS PDM

SOLIDWORKS PDM is a perpetual solution, meaning you pay a single up-front fee, and then yearly maintenance payments if you want to stay on subscription to receive the latest updates and support. This solution is also on premise, requiring you to obtain and maintain the hardware. Once installed, the learning curve is generally quite reasonable as it’s integrated into Window’s file explorer.

SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard comes with the purchase of SOLIDWORKS Desktop CAD (Professional and Premium). This tier provides secure data storage, and basic revision control features. If you upgrade to SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional, you will gain access to more PLM tools such as Change Management, customizable approval workflows, and remote access for users to contribute through a web browser.

Check out this webinar where we put SOLIDWORKS PDM and the Collaborative Industry Innovator head to head.

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PTC Windchill

PTC Windchill is a subscription based perpetual solution. They do have an offering to provide the system hosted on Microsoft Azure or AWS, but this falls outside of the standard Windchill offering.  PTC Windchill is one of the longer-standing PDM/PLM systems available on the market today. This experience results in an extensive feature set.

While it does have an extensive feature set, this also comes with a higher price and complexity of implementation. It is typically found within larger companies.

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Teamcenter

Teamcenter is owned by Siemens and sold as a perpetual offer. Just as with PTC Windchill, Teamcenter has been around for a long period of time. During which, a solid set of functionality has been built into it, such as scheduling management, BOM management, and more, in addition to the standard secure data management. There is no built-in cloud offering and this would fall under a separate offering from Siemens.

With Siemen’s Teamcenter, you can expect a higher cost and more complex integration. Just as with PTC Windchill, this does not make it optimal for people looking to get up and running with their PDM and PLM in a short period of time.

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Conclusion

There are plenty of solutions available for managing all of your CAD and engineering data. Depending on where you/your company are, each have different benefits. If you’re looking for entry-level functionality for a small number of users, options like GrabCAD Workbench may be all you need. As a larger company you may need additional functionality with larger solutions like SOLIDWORKS PDM, however, you can expect more expensive and time-consuming implementations.

Solutions like the Collaborative Industry Innovator on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform strike a nice balance between having a diverse set of features, providing out of the box cloud functionality, and having compatibility with a wide array of additional roles on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform that allow your organization to expand with ease. And since it’s built off of ENOVIA, you know it’s a solution you can trust!

Contact us today to see how ENOVIA could benefit your company!