Products are now more complex than ever, with mechanical systems typically integrated with electronics and software. In this era, teams find they must deliver faster while managing more variants and adhering to stricter compliance requirements. Success depends on how well organisations manage configurations, variants and traceability across the product lifecycle.
Fortunately, tools like Codebeamer are designed to help engineering teams meet these challenges. In this article, we’ll tell you more about them.
Why scalability matters
As product portfolios grow, configuration management becomes critical. Teams must manage multiple versions, platforms and regulatory requirements simultaneously. You also have teams working in parallel across different areas. They must keep configurations synchronised to prevent errors and inconsistencies. Without structure, the complexity quickly becomes unmanageable.
Compliance raises the stakes further. Many industries require full traceability, structured change control and clear audit trails. These rules make it difficult to sustain traditional, manual processes, especially when configurations are large and highly interconnected.
How can you stop these complexities from sending you out of control, while keeping up the pace necessary to succeed in this new world?
Scalable configuration management with Codebeamer
Codebeamer from PTC gives teams new ways to structure and manage configurations at scale. Streams, introduced in Codebeamer 3.1, is tailor-made for these tasks, enabling teams to organise configurations in ways that reflect real product architectures rather than rigid hierarchies.
Streams boosts scalability because you can reuse it across product families. Teams can manage shared components without duplicating large amounts of data. Traceability is preserved, making compliance much simpler.
Baselines give teams another level of control. Teams can freeze configurations at key milestones such as releases or audits while continuing development elsewhere. This allows certification and verification work to proceed without stopping progress.
To help run parallel development, Codebeamer introduced Delta Merge in version 3.2. Delta Merge solves common problems around variants by automatically identifying differences and guiding conflict resolution. This reduces manual work and improves the reliability of change integration.
When you put it all together, Codebeamer delivers benefits across the board, making it easier to scale development without losing visibility or control:
- Teams can keep stable reference points for audits and certification while development continues on new features
- Shared platform components can be updated once and used across variants in a controlled manner
- Large configuration structures can be handled more efficiently, reducing storage overheads and improving navigation
- Merge operations can be completed faster, helping parallel teams stay aligned
Looking to the future
Products are not going to get less complex in the future—quite the opposite. More variants, more software and stricter compliance demands will continue to shape how engineering teams work.
However, tools like Codebeamer are designed for this new reality, helping organisations scale development while maintaining control, compliance and quality.
Find out more about how Codebeamer can help you scale your product development here.