Metadata Management

Metadata Management is the logical capability of defining, capturing, governing, and querying the descriptive attributes — author, creation date, classification, lifecycle state, security level, units, mass, compliance flags — that surround the actual product data files. CIMdata: “Information about the data controlled by the PDM system… drawing number is metadata about a drawing.”

What it covers

• Attribute schemas per item type, document type, and revision.
• Classification metadata — feeding the Classification Schema for parts and documents.
• Required-on-release rules — a part cannot release until mandatory metadata (compliance flags, weight, country of origin) is populated.
• Search and faceted browse — what makes a 10-million-item PLM database usable.
• Inheritance and propagation — child revisions inherit parent metadata; some attributes flow down BOM relationships.

Boundary against “data”

Pinquié et al. (2015) explicitly distinguish product data (the documents themselves — CAD files, specifications) from product metadata (the descriptive information about those documents — author, version, classification). Many platforms collapse this distinction in their UI, but the logical separation matters for migrations, where metadata must travel separately from binary content.

Relationships (see sidebar)

• Depends on the PLM Data Model (which defines what attributes exist) and the Classification Schema (which defines the controlled vocabularies).
• Supports BOM Management, Configuration Management, Release Management, and Regulatory Submission (where metadata-driven dossiers are mandatory).
• Implemented by every PLM platform; differentiation is in extensibility, search performance, and rule-engine richness.