Materials Data Management - Materials Data Management Problems

Materials Data Management Problems

Problems typically relate to productivity and data integrity. They begin with difficulties in consolidating specialized data stored in disparate sources and varied formats. Problems continue with the challenge of controlling and using approved information effectively throughout an organization, often within complex processes. These include:

• Engineers spending hours finding property data to support analysis or simulation
• Materials scientists duplicating existing test results or generating data that goes unused
• Design iterations failing due to outdated or inconsistent data
• Weeks taken tracing the source of design data for certification, or customers, or to support the design process

This final issue ('traceability') is particularly important in quality and safety-conscious industries (such as aerospace or medical devices) where engineers need to be able to trace the full pedigree for a manufactured component - ideally, not just back to the design, but to all of the raw (materials and other) data used to create the design. This need for traceability has been a key driver for many commercial materials data management projects.