PCB Design Best Practices: Library and Design Data Management

Welcome back to the PCB Design Best Practices newsletter! Today, we’re going to discuss library and design data management. The question is, how are you controlling or managing your data, whether it’s your library data or your actual IP??(If you'd like to learn more about this topic, join our LinkedIn Live on June 20 !)

What’s not working??

I can tell you from three decades of experience that companies are all over the spectrum when it comes to library and design data management. From company to company, no one’s consistent in how they do this. Every company has its own internal processes. That doesn’t mean that they’re not successful, because everyone has their own definition of success, but there are ways to be better optimized and more efficient.?

What are the roadblocks??

A lot of the roadblocks that we run into are due to product, organizational and process complexities, or having a lot of operational overhead to maintain. Often, companies just don’t have the experience on how to do library and design data management, or don’t have a specialist who knows how to do it. Internal resistance to change can potentially be the biggest roadblock of all.?

Best practices: library and design data management?

You want to establish internal guidelines and processes for library and design data management . This helps you stay consistent from project to project. It also gives you a way to look back to see how to optimize designs and be better?as time goes on. Establishing standards is also important for companies operating on a global scale, because your team may not speak the same language, but the common language can be an industry standard.?

How are you controlling your library data and your IP? I strongly stress that you don’t have it located on a local uncontrolled server or someone’s local desktop. Instead, have it in a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system that will help you optimize and control product release and revisions. This gives everyone better visibility of what’s going on at any given time.?

By implementing and optimizing library and design data management, you’ll get better control over your library data , and better control and use of company IP such as best parts and best approved circuitry.

Hardware reuse is an excellent example of controlling and managing IP and sharing it throughout the company. The key here is managing and controlling your data. This approach allows for better control and management of hardware IP modules where you can control the IP, implement it as needed, and track it better. You can potentially have instant status such as work-in-progress. This approach reduces the likelihood of logistics and human handling errors and allows for visibility of where used and other types of information that you may need to know during the work in progress.?

How it works: library and design data management?

Library and data management throughout the design process is essential to maintaining a successful digital thread throughout the lifecycle of a product. More than ever before, we see multidiscipline engineering teams collaborating and integrating across multidomain environments, including working from remote sites.?

Once product development has begun, data management is essential for maintaining design information such as design revisions and enabling team collaboration and integration, no matter where team members are located.?

The building blocks of any design are contained in the library used to create it. Having a tightly integrated and optimized library environment enables designers to keep track of everything, from 3D models to component datasheets, as well as suitable component alternates. It speeds up part identification, selection, and usage, and makes it quick and easy to search and instantiate a component into a design.?

Once a design has reached a project milestone, it is time to release the design to a PLM system like Teamcenter . This could be done to simply send the bill of materials to the PLM system for analysis, or it could be a full release that contains all the manufacturing outputs.?

Want to learn more? Join our live conversation here on LinkedIn on June 20: "Redefine ease of electronics systems design with effective data management ." I will speak with experts Carlos Gazca and Andre Mosley , and we'll answer your questions about library and design data management live!