What is MatStream?¶
MatStream is a structured data and lifecycle management platform. It gives your organisation a flexible, engineering-grade foundation for managing any type of item — with full versioning, revision control, configurable approval workflows, and relationship tracking between items.
At its core, MatStream is built around a single powerful idea: anything your organisation needs to track can be modelled as an entity. A part, a document, a supplier, a customer complaint, a product, a stock item — all are entities. All follow the same consistent model. All benefit from the same versioning, lifecycle, and relationship capabilities.
This makes MatStream both deeply flexible and highly structured — you configure it to match your process, not the other way around.
Where MatStream fits¶
MatStream sits at the intersection of several traditional software categories — and deliberately so. Rather than being locked into one vertical, it provides the foundation that those verticals are built on.
| Traditional category | What it manages | MatStream equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| PLM | Parts, assemblies, drawings | Entities of type Part, Assembly, Drawing |
| DMS / Document Control | Controlled documents | Entities of type Document |
| QMS | Non-conformances, corrective actions | Entities of type NCR, CAPA |
| ERP (partial) | Products, suppliers, stock | Entities of type Product, Supplier |
The difference is that in MatStream, all of these live in the same platform, share the same data model, and can be linked to each other. A non-conformance can reference the exact part revision it relates to. A supplier can be linked to every purchased part they supply. A change order can reference all affected assemblies.
How MatStream relates to PDM tools¶
If your engineering team uses Autodesk Vault or a similar PDM (Product Data Management) tool, MatStream sits above it — not alongside or instead of it.
| PDM (e.g. Autodesk Vault) | PLM / MatStream | |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | CAD files and design data | Structured data and lifecycle around those files |
| Primary users | Designers and CAD engineers | Engineering, quality, procurement, management |
| Key questions | Where is the file? Who checked it out? | Is this approved? What changed? Who released it? |
| Replaces? | No — they work together | MatStream complements Vault, not replaces it |
Your designers continue working in Inventor and Vault exactly as they do today. MatStream adds the structured lifecycle layer on top — formal approval workflows, BOM traceability, and organisation-wide visibility into your product data.
Why not a generic platform?¶
Tools like Airtable, Monday.com, or SharePoint Lists offer flexible data models — but they are not built for engineering. MatStream brings capabilities that generic platforms cannot match:
- Engineering-grade revision control — formal revision labels, revision schemes, and immutable revision history
- Configurable lifecycle state machines — states, transitions, permission gates, and transition history
- BOM management — multi-level uses and where-used trees, lazy-loade