Product Life Cycle Management
Product life cycle management (PLM) is the  process of managing the  entire life cycle of the product from the gathering of requirements, the design, manufacturer, shipment and disposal of  a product. The major phases of the PLM are :

• Conceive
• Design
• Realize
• Service

Like several  enterprise patterns the cloud provides lot of avenues for increasing the efficiency  of PLM as mentioned in the following points. The examples are emphasized using the automobile industry; however, these patterns hold good for other industries as well.

Supplier & OEM Integration in Design
Increased globalization and aggressive strategies due to competition have driven the automotive industry more and more look for active collaboration with the suppliers during the design phase.  To reduce the design time and increase the quality, design is achieved through simulation in the initial phases.  The following are the typical activities in supplier OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) collaboration in design.

• OEM and Suppliers need to have a common repository to share the design details, issues, suggestions, improvements, cost and budget details
• OEM should be in a position to communicate the Design changes to Supplier
• Suppliers able to retrieve the BOM information from the OEM system and able to transform back the revised part which should be the new BOM
• OEM should be able to propagate the Design changes across several builds