Open questions on Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) with CAD /CAE integration

Nowadays, manufacturing industries have to shorten the time to market in order to satisfy needs of customers and to survive in global competitive markets. For these reasons a new type of product data development and management is necessary. The Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is an emerging philosophy to improve strategic engineering for managing information, processes and resources to support the life cycle of a product, from its conception, development, launch and the withdrawal. The well-established technologies CAD / CAE / CAM are fundamental part of it, although their interactions may be only partially involved. The paper takes into account open questions regarding the relationship between models and simulations and new possible scenarios related to their integration starting from a complete and multi-disciplinary case-test involving the virtual-experimental deliverable process of the fatigue life prediction and related structural modification design applied to a suspension cab for truck vehicle.