PLM poised for double digit growth

ARC Advisory Group predicts that adoption of product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions will continue to accelerate, becoming one of the top enterprise software markets through 2008.

By Control Engineering Staff January 13, 2005

ARC Advisory Group predicts that adoption of product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions will continue to accelerate, becoming one of the top enterprise software markets through 2008. According to a new ARC Advisory Group study , the worldwide market for PLM software and services is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11.5% over the next five years. The market was $5.3 billion in 2003 and is forecasted to be nearly $9.2 billion in 2008.

John Moore, lead author of the study for ARC sees strong growth occurring across most sectors of the PLM market, but particularly strong growth of over 16% is projected for product data management (PDM) software and services. “While PDM solutions have been in the market for a number of years, their adoption and use has been limited to addressing the needs of an enterprise’s engineering department. Companies are quickly realizing that PDM can no longer be confined to engineering, but must become the foundation and repository for all product-centric information, to enable a multitude of cross division business processes,” Moore says. “In addition to growth of net new users of PDM solutions, there is a significant replacement market for legacy PDM solutions as they do not have the collaboration capabilities that are required in today’s market.”

The study notes that the discrete industry remains the largest single sector for PLM spending in 2003, representing nearly 90% of the total market. Within the discrete industry, the automotive market is the single largest market for PLM. The balance of the PLM market is represented by the process industries, which is expected to see above-average growth over the forecast period, particularly in the consumer products goods and food and beverage industries.

—David Greenfield, editorial director, Control Engineering, dgreenfield@reedbusiness.com