Editing Product lifecycle (section)

====User skills====
The broad array of solutions that make up the tools used within a PLM solution-set (e.g., CAD, CAM, CAx...) were initially used by dedicated practitioners who invested time and effort to gain the required skills. Designers and engineers produced excellent results with CAD systems, manufacturing engineers became highly skilled CAM users, while analysts, administrators, and managers fully mastered their support technologies. However, achieving the full advantages of PLM requires the participation of many people of various skills from throughout an extended enterprise, each requiring the ability to access and operate on the inputs and output of other participants.

Despite the increased ease of use of PLM tools, cross-training all personnel on the entire PLM tool-set has not proven to be practical. Now, however, advances are being made to address ease of use for all participants within the PLM arena. One such advance is the availability of "role" specific user interfaces. Through tailorable user interfaces (UIs), the commands that are presented to users are appropriate to their function and expertise.

These techniques include:
* [[Concurrent engineering]] workflow
* [[Industrial design]]
* [[Top-down and bottom-up design|Bottom–up design]]
* [[Top-down and bottom-up design|Top–down design]]
* Both-ends-against-the-middle design
* Front-loading design workflow
* Design in context
* [[Modular design]]
* NPD [[new product development]]
* DFSS [[design for Six Sigma]]
* DFMA [[DFMA|design for manufacture / assembly]]
* Digital simulation engineering
* Requirement-driven design
* Specification-managed validation
* [[Configuration management]]