11.6 Summary

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Document and content management systems have many functions in common with PDM systems. In many cases, PDM will be sufficient for satisfactory management of documents. If publishing and the provision of information in general is a core business, PDM alone will probably not be sufficient to provided adequate support. The focus of DMSs is on document and information management (i.e., finding, creating, formatting, and composing information). As information becomes an increasingly important part of any business activity, document management tools are becoming more important and more widely available on the market. To a greater extent than PDM systems, DMSs vary in costs, complexity, and functionality.

SCM tools do not provide specific support for document management, although SCM can be used for document management to a relatively large extent. By using advanced version management and CM within SCM, it is possible to save and search for documents with particular state, automate publishing, and implement similar functions related to document management. In most cases, additional tools not provided with SCM must be used.

It is very likely that in the future, most of the document management functions will be directly included in other tools or basic platforms such as operating systems.

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