1. A method for integrating material assignments between a computer-aided design (CAD) system and a product data management (PDM) system, the method performed by a data processing system and comprising: accessing a designed part in the CAD system, wherein the designed part includes one or more geometric entity objects; assigning one or more assignment objects from the PDM system to each of the one or more geometric entity objects; associating one or more material objects from the PDM system with the one or more assignment objects, wherein the one or more material objects identify one or more materials identified from the designed part; and generating a design object in the PDM system representing the designed part based on the one or more assignment objects and the one or more material objects.