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Bottom-up design tends to focus on the capabilities of available real-world physical technology, implementing those solutions which this technology is most suited to. When these bottom-up solutions have real-world value, bottom-up design can be much more efficient than top-down design. The risk of bottom-up design is that it very efficiently provides solutions to low-value problems. The focus of bottom-up design is "what can we most efficiently do with this technology?" rather than the focus of top-down which is "What is the most valuable thing to do?"
Top-down design is focused on high-level functional requirements, with relatively less focus on existing implementation technology. A top level spec is decomposed into lower and lower level structures and specifications, until the physical implementation layer is reached. The risk of a top-down design is that it will not take advantage of the most efficient applications of current physical technology, especially with respect to hardware implementation. Top-down design sometimes results in excessive layers of lower-level abstraction and inefficient performance when the Top-down model has followed an abstraction path which does not efficiently fit available physical-level technology. The positive value of top-down design is that it preserves a focus on the optimum solution requirements.
A part-centric top-down design may eliminate some of the risks of top-down design. This starts with a layout model, often a simple 2D sketch defining basic sizes and some major defining parameters. Industrial design brings creative ideas to product development. Geometry from this is associatively copied down to the next level, which represents different subsystems of the product. The geometry in the sub-systems is then used to define more detail in levels below. Depending on the complexity of the product, a number of levels of this assembly are created until the basic definition of components can be identified, such as position and principal dimensions. This information is then associatively copied to component files. In these files the components are detailed; this is where the classic bottom-up assembly starts.
Defense engineering traditionally develops the product structure from the top down. The system engineering process prescribes a functional decomposition of requirements and then physical allocation of product structure to the functions. This top down approach would normally have lower levels of the product structure developed from CAD data as a bottom-up structure or design.
Both-ends-against-the-middle (BEATM) design is a design process that endeavors to combine the best features of top-down design, and bottom-up design into one process. A BEATM design process flow may begin with an emergent technology which suggests solutions which may have value, or it may begin with a top-down view of an important problem which needs a solution. In either case the key attribute of BEATM design methodology is to immediately focus at both ends of the design process flow: a top-down view of the solution requirements, and a bottom-up view of the available technology which may offer promise of an efficient solution. The BEATM design process proceeds from both ends in search of an optimum merging somewhere between the top-down requirements, and bottom-up efficient
implementation. In this fashion, BEATM has been shown to genuinely offer the best of both methodologies. Indeed some of the best success stories from either top-down or bottom-up have been successful because of an intuitive, yet unconscious use of the BEATM methodology. When employed consciously, BEATM offers even more powerful advantages.
Front loading is taking top-down design to the next stage. The complete control structure and review structure, as well as downstream data such as drawings, tooling development and CAM models, are constructed before the product has been defined or a project kick-off has been authorized. These assemblies of files constitute a template from which a family of products can be constructed. When the decision has been made to go with a new product, the parameters of the product are entered into the template model and all the associated data is updated. Obviously predefined associative models will not be able to predict all possibilities and will require additional work. The main principle is that a lot of the experimental/investigative work has already been completed. A lot of knowledge is built into these templates to be reused on new products. This does require additional resources "up front" but
can drastically reduce the time between project kick-off and launch. Such methods do however require organizational changes, as considerable engineering efforts are moved into "offline" development departments. It can be seen as an analogy to creating a concept car to test new technology for future products, but in this case the work is directly used for the next product generation.
Individual components cannot be constructed in isolation. CAD and CaiD models of components are designed within the context of part or all of the product being developed. This is achieved using assembly modelling techniques. Other components' geometry can be seen and referenced within the CAD tool being used. The other components within the sub-assembly may or may not have been constructed in the same system, their geometry being translated from other collaborative product development (CPD) formats. Some assembly checking such as DMU is also carried out using product visualization software.
Product and process lifecycle management (PPLM) is an alternate genre of PLM in which the process by which the product is made is just as important as the product itself. Typically, this is the life sciences and advanced specialty chemicals markets. The process behind the manufacture of a given compound is a key element of the regulatory filing for a new drug application. As such, PPLM seeks to manage information around the development of the process in a similar fashion that baseline PLM talks about managing information around development of the product.
One variant of PPLM implementations are Process Development Execution Systems (PDES). They typically implement the whole development cycle of high-tech manufacturing technology developments, from initial conception, through development and into manufacture. PDES integrate people with different backgrounds from potentially different legal entities, data, information and knowledge and business processes.