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42 The PCB Design Magazine • November 2015 design data and help push it up to PLM when it is ready for release. There is also quite a bit of data in PLM that an engineering team could and should have ac- cess to as they make design decisions. One of the most important pieces is information on avail- able and approved components. We are able to integrate with most PLM systems to allow de- sign teams controlled access to this engineer- ing information directly inside their CAD tools so they can make better part decisions early in the process. Engineering likes this because they don't have to leave their CAD environment to get this info, and they can see it in the context of their engineering data. Similarly, PLM users like this because it makes sure engineering is us- ing PLM content as the single source of data, so they are confident that the BOMs they receive contain correct and approved parts, and that greatly reduces late stage issues when the BOM is sent to procurement. Shaughnessy: how has data management changed over the years? Marcano: Shared drives and email exchanges have been the predominant data management methodology for PCB design teams until now. While those may have worked before, com- panies are finding these methods aren't able to meet the time to market and productivity demands placed on PCB design teams today. This has been the big reason we see customers looking for a much more accurate and efficient way to manage their PCB data. Designs are just getting too complex, project deadlines are too short, and the margin of error is too small for teams to rely on ad hoc and inefficient systems. They need a solution that is geared specifically for managing PCB design data. I also think technology has really helped bring down the cost of delivering PCB-centric data management solutions while improving ease-of-use. Setting up systems like this in the past could be multi-year efforts costing huge sums of money in hardware and software as well as consulting and customization. With OrCAD EDM we are able to get new customers up and running in just a matter of days with access in - side their CAD tools and through a web browser. Shaughnessy: What sort of data management opportunities do you see for emA in the future? Marcano: We see a whole range of opportunities in this space. First, we see this as a real driver to help PCB design teams be more productive and more collaborative. I think there is still more we can do there to help PCB designers have ac- cess to the information they need, when they need it. For example, compliance-aware design is something we are looking at. The idea is, why wait until you are ready to order your parts to verify they meet regulatory requirements or are orderable or meet your cost targets? Why not provide that information upfront to the design- er when they are choosing the parts so they can make those decisions when the cost of change is the lowest? We think there is tremendous opportunity to help empower the PCB design team with more information to make intelli- gent business and manufacturability decisions as well as engineering ones. We also see a growing need for PCB design teams to be able to collaborate, share IP, and build out metrics regarding project status and progress. As interfaces become more standard- ized, PCBs start to become a collection of com- mon parts and connections with specific areas of unique differentiation for that particular product. If engineers are designing in the same interfaces over and over, how do we make it so they can effectively leverage that IP across de- signs to give them time to focus on the chal- lenging or specialized parts that will differenti- ate their product from the competition? From a metrics side, once you are able to track and follow designs through their development pro- cess you can start to build statistics on how long certain designs take to complete or where prob- lems typically arise. This can greatly help com- panies with planning and schedule manage- ment if they have an accurate historical record based on their own design data from which to build their project estimates. Shaughnessy: thanks for the update. Marcano: Thank you. PCBDESIGN EMA: HELPING TECHNOLOGISTS MANAGE DISPARATE DATA feature interview