Product Manufacturing Information

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Product and Manufacturing Information, or PMI, is used in 3D computer-aided design (CAD) and Collaborative Product Development systems to convey information on the design of a product’s components for manufacturing. This includes data such as geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, 3D annotation (text) and dimensions, surface finish, and material specifications.

Industry standards for defining PMI include ASME Y14.41 Product Data Definition and ISO 1101 Representation of specifications in the form of a 3D model.

The PMI annotation is created on the 3D CAD model, associated to edges and faces, this information can then be used by a number of down-stream processes. Although the PMI data can be used to generate annotation on a traditional 2D drawing the data can be visualized within the 3D model by other departments, either in the CAD/CAM system or in a 3D Product visualization tool, thus greatly reducing the need for drawings. Some computer-aided manufacturing software can also access the information directly for CNC programming. The PMI data can also be used by CAQ validation tools for analysis such as tolerance stacking and Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) software.