Mens Et Opera - Reloaded

In a recent post  (one of my most popular), I gave a very short answer to the question of whether PDM and PIM are the same thing. The answer was a resounding "NO". Let's elaborate on this a bit further. Historically, product management (PM) meant mostly engineering data. In fact, PM was seen as a common layer shared across engineers and manufacturers to translate data from one domain to another. Engineers would provide classifications and attributes for components and materials to support the growing need of manufacturers to standardization by identifying similar components/materials, eliminating redundancy, and establishing a preferred parts list. The data would also be available to R&D and QA, for example. These particular processes along with version control are part of Product Life-cycle Management (PLM) discipline which includes PDM. More specifically, PDM is a capability to "reliably capture and maintain the definition of a product and related data throu...

OK there is a big difference between MDM and PIM. Apparently not everyone agrees.  Regardless, things can become even more confusing when analysts, vendors, consultants, and academics all give you their perspective on what MDM and/or PIM really is. I know it’s hard to sort through it. But let’s try to keep it very simple. Note 1 : my apology to the experts to leave out important aspects Note 2 : I took inspiration for the example below by reading "Master Data Management", written by the well-respected David Loshin. Now, take the following transaction from a generic order fulfillment system: I am sure you have identified the three master data domains in this transaction: Customer: Michele M. Arpaia Product: Seat 15B (what about Flight 238?) Location: Sydney, SYD, Melbourne, MEL Can you see the beauty of MDM? Ideally, every transaction (occurring everywhere in your organization) relies on accurate, consistent, fresh, and complete master d...