Product development (PD) and Product Information Management (PIM) are important parts of the Product Management feature set of Oracle SCM Cloud Application. In order to understand the uses/functions and even the differences between Product Development and Product Information Management (aka Product data hub) one must gain some insight into the Ideation to Commercialization process. During this process a user starts off with an idea, which is posted and processed through innovation management. The steps are Post Idea, Create Proposal, Create Requirements Specification, Create Concept Structure.

Image showing idea process:

Once the idea has completed all the steps within Innovation Management (IM) the Ideation to Commercialization process requires the user to move on to PD. PD’s main use is during the design phase. This module is utilized by engineers to define design specific meta data (ex. length, width, height, weight and UOM). Also defines item structure (Engineering Bill Of Materials), add manufacturer parts, and create change orders to manage design revisions and effectivity.

Upon completion of the design process, Commercialization in SCM Cloud would have users utilize PIM. This is where organizational/plant specific attributes are added to the item. These attributes include specifications for how the item is planned, procured, received, stored in inventory, manufactured, sold, and serviced by organizational/factory location. Additionally PIM is where item catalogs, packs, suppliers and GTINs are applied and maintained against said manufacturing organizations and plants. Within PIM, multiple Manufacturing Bill Of Materials (mBOM) structures can be configured and applied per organization/plant. Simply put, a one to many ratio can exist in PIM, for example a single item design can be used in multiple factory locations with different configured structures and details per location.

In short PD is well suited for the design process and PDH for configured item manufacturing execution.