PDM technologies and products have historically been positioned as the primary application backbone for managing and controlling the flow of design intent across the three major design stages: concept design, detail design and production. But in practice, PDM has served as a complementary application tower to computer-aided design (CAD) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems by providing the main repository for production-approved engineering data (i.e., vaulting) and managing the changes to production – approved data (e.g., engineering change orders and configuration management). PDM is a key enabler for constructing a concurrent art-to-product environment (CAPE) for enterprisewide design and production. A well-constructed PDM enables all participants involved with the capture, communication and maintenance of design intent to freely share and disseminate all heterogeneous data related to the product. PDM evolved from the need to better manage paper, electronic documents, engineering change orders, and bills of materials during the product development process.