Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Product life cycle management (PLM) software is specifically designed to manage a product from its earliest concept, through design, development, testing, and manufacturing, and often even into service and retirement. It centralizes all data, documents, and processes related to the product so that different teams (engineering, design, manufacturing, quality, etc.) can collaborate effectively.

Key points aligned with IT management concepts:

PLM supports idea/concept generation, computer-aided design (CAD) integration, engineering change management, and manufacturing planning.

It ensures that everyone involved in the product’s creation and improvement is working from the same up-to-date product data.

It improves time-to-market, quality, and coordination across the full product life cycle.

Why the other options are incorrect:

A. Workflow automation – Focuses on automating business processes or task flows, but does not provide end-to-end management of product definition, design, and manufacturing.

B. Asset management – Focuses on managing physical and digital assets (like equipment, vehicles, or IT hardware), not the entire life cycle of a product from concept to production.

D. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) – Integrates core business functions (finance, HR, procurement, etc.) and often handles production planning and inventory, but it is not primarily focused on managing the complete design-to-manufacture product life cycle the way PLM does.

Therefore, Product life cycle management (PLM) is the software type that best supports managing goods across all stages from concept through design, development, and manufacturing.