ANN ARBOR, Michigan, USA 2 June 2026—CIMdata, Inc., the leading global research, consulting, and education firm specializing in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and the Digital Transformation it enables, announces the publication of a new eBook, sponsored by aPriori Technologies, Automating Engineering Intelligence: Accelerating Profitable Product Development. The eBook details how manufacturers must transform PLM from a “system of record” to a “system of action” to overcome global market volatility.
As competitive intensity rises and supply chain volatility creates sustained margin compression, manufacturers are finding it increasingly difficult to deliver complex products on time and within budget. While modern PLM systems provide a strong backbone for data governance and traceability, they often lack the decision-ready insights needed to guide engineering choices in real time.
Traditional Design for Manufacturing (DfM) and costing methods often rely on manual, part-level analysis and expert knowledge, which creates bottlenecks and cannot scale across modern, complex assemblies. This eBook highlights how automating these insights enables a "Shift Left" approach, moving critical evaluations of cost, manufacturing process, and sustainability to the earliest stages of design.
The eBook features use cases from leading innovators:
- CNH Industrial: By automating analysis across large, complex product platforms, CNH Industrial successfully expanded Design-to-Cost practices. This improved product profitability while reducing manual effort, decreasing reliance on expert-driven analysis, and enabling better alignment between engineering, procurement, and manufacturing.
- Rivian: In a high-speed product development environment, Rivian leveraged automated product intelligence to enable real-time evaluation of cost and manufacturability during the design phase. This improved cost control and reduced reliance on delayed supplier feedback, resulting in faster, more informed engineering decisions and more efficient execution across programs.
According to Mark Reisig, Executive Consultant and Sustainability Practice Director at CIMdata, “Manufacturers seeking to improve product profitability must address the limitations of traditional approaches to cost, carbon, cycle time, and manufacturability. Extending PLM with aPriori’s Manufacturing Insights Platform transforms it from a system of record into a system of action.”
On July 15, 2026, aPriori and CIMdata will host a joint webinar to discuss these findings. The session will explore how embedding insights into cost, carbon, and manufacturability early in the design process enables better trade-offs and more consistent outcomes. Attendees will learn how to scale these capabilities across entire BOMs without increasing engineering resources. Finally, experts will demonstrate how extending PLM transforms it into a “system of action” that aligns engineering, procurement, and manufacturing.
To register for this complimentary webinar, visit aPriori here: https://www.apriori.com/resources/webinar/automating-engineering-intelligence-cimdata/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=press-release&utm_campaign=fy27-wbn-nb-engintel-en&utm_content=pr.
Please download and read the complete eBook at: https://www.cimdata.com/en/resources/complimentary-reports-research/white-papers.
