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Two years ago I wrote a post called PLM in 2050 as the concluding post for 2008. Now two years later it is time to see what has changed my landscape during this period. Are we going to a predictable future or are new trends arising ?
These were the points I raised at that time:
1. “Data is not replicated any more – every piece of information that exists will have a Universal Unique ID, some people might call it the UUID. In 2020 this initiative became mature, thanks to the merger of some big PLM and ERP vendors, who brought this initiative to reality. This initiative reduced the exchange costs in supply chains dramatically and lead to bankruptcy for many companies providing translators and exchange software.”
I believe this trend is still happening only the big risk here is that it requires an open standard definition of this UUID. I am sure that before my retirement (see later below), there will be no global standard. There will be platform-vendor specific UUIDs and the challenge will be to operate in a heterogeneous platform-heterogeneous vendor environment. I feel less discussion on this topic in my environment, therefore the downward arrow.
2.”Companies store their data in ‘the cloud’ based on the previous concept. Only some old-fashioned companies still have their own data storage and exchange issues, as they are afraid someone will touch their data. Analysts compare this behavior with the situation in the year 1950, when people kept their money under a mattress, not trusting banks (and they were not always wrong)”
For sure this is the most important trend and I would rank it now as the number one trend for 2010. I just read an interesting article about Cloud Computing Predictions which addresses all dimensions of a cloud strategy and execution – very much worth reading.
What you see in that article and also around you, is that there is going to be a battle between legacy vendors, who will try to transform the cloud definition to a private cloud into a way it suits their platform, and the new cloud solution vendors which also require a platform and from there build and extend their services. It relates to one of the other trends I also mentioned in the 2008 post:
3. “Then with a shock, I noticed PLM did not longer exist. Companies were focusing on their core business processes. Systems/terms like PLM, ERP and CRM did not longer exist. Some older people still remembered the battle between those systems to own the data and the political discomfort this gave inside companies”
Combined with the new battle around the services platform it will be clear that in this approach dominant business systems, like CRM, ERP and PLM will no longer exist, as the focus will be to build business processes based on services and apps on a platform. Here I see PLM as the last hurdle to take. CRM already is understood by the market that it can be replaced by a cloud based solution, the first ERP attempts are already there too, but as PLM is a more, diverse and wide set of non-standardized functions, you will see that in this area the challenge to offer the required PLM capabilities will be the biggest. Another rising trend PLM vendors will move more towards the manufacturing execution, where ERP vendors will provide more PLM services.
The battle will be around, who owns the intellectual property of the company and where it is stored and managed.
4. “After 3D, a complete virtual world, based on holography, became the next step for product development and understanding of products. Thanks to the revolutionary quantum-3D technology, this concept could be even applied to life sciences. Before ordering a product, customers could first experience and describe their needs in a virtual environment”
This trend will also continue I believe and combined with different types of user-interfaces, mainly from the gaming world; the virtual reality will be the space where we do the most of our engineering work, shopping experience and entertainment. Big question will be, especially for the Matrix fans, will the real world stop to exist? So also here a growing trend – 3D television, 3D communication narrow the gap between the real and virtual world and understanding.
A trend I did not pick up at that time was the issue of social media and their influence on the existing business processes. At that time I wrote:
5. “As people were working so efficient, there was no need to work all week. There were community time slots, when everyone was active, but 50 per cent of the time, people had the time to recreate (to re-create or recreate was the question). Some older French and German designers remembered the days when they had only 10 weeks holiday per year, unimaginable nowadays.”
And I have to say I was completely wrong there. Thanks to social communities, I am spending now more time per day to jump from community to community, from blog post to blog post (I admire my colleagues who have time to produce blog posts). Meanwhile I try to follow all my Twitter and Facebook friends and meanwhile processing the messages coming from everywhere, without having time to really dig into a problem I want to solve.
So quickly I post a question in various forums to see if someone has the answer, as I have not time to solve it anymore – hopefully somewhere in the world there will be a person who has the answer or time. Where to position this new trend into the relation of PLM is still a question for me. Yes, collaboration becomes easier, less boundaries, but also less structure to store data. Intelligent search engines which also understand the context of the information become more and more important, as we cannot structure upfront all information as we did in the classical past.
Due to the economical crisis another trend came clear. There is no retirement money left for the older workforce that should retire in the next 20 years. So companies will have a new generation of people asking the questions and if the older workforce adapts the new social media capabillities, they can be the ones that provide the answers.
In 2050 I will just be retired at the age of 90, and according to statistics, I have still another 20 years to enjoy my bionic life.
I wish you all a happy and successful new year and that the good dreams may come true.
Keep innovation and sustainability on your agenda
I don’t know if it is the time of the year, but suddenly there is again in the PLM world a discussion which is related to the theme of flexibility (or the lack of flexibility). And I do not refer to some of the PLM supplier lock-in situations discussed recently. In a group discussion on LinkedIn we talked about the two worlds of PLM-ERP and that somehow here we have status quo do to the fact companies won’t change the way they manage their BOM if they are not forced to do or see the value.
Stephen Porter from Zero Wait-State in his blog wrote an interesting post about using PLM to model business processes and I liked his thoughts. Here the topic, flexibility was brought into the discussion by me.
Then Mark Lind from Aras responded to this post and referred to his post on Out-Of-The-Box (OOTB) PLM which ended in a call for flexibility.
However, reading this post I wanted to bring some different viewpoints to Mark’s post and as my response became too long, I decided to post it in my blog. So please read Stephen’s post, read Mark’s post and keep the word flexibility in the back of your mind.
My European view
As I have been involved in several OOTB-attempts with various PDM / PLM suppliers, I tend to have somehow a different opinion about the purpose of OOTB.
It is all about what you mean with OOTB and what type and size of company you are talking about. My focus is not on the global enterprises – they are too big to even consider OOTB (too many opinions – too much politics).
But the mid-market companies, which in Europe practice a lot of PLM, without having a PLM system, are my major target. They improve their business with tools fitting in their environment, and when they decide to use a PLM system; it is often close related to their CAD or ERP system.
In this perspective, Mark’s statement:
Now stop and think… the fundamental premise of OOTB enterprise software is that there’s an exact match between your corporate processes and the software. If it’s not an exact match, then get ready to customize (and it won’t be OOTB anymore). This is why the concept of OOTB enterprise PLM is absurd.
I see it as a simplification – yes customers want to use OOTB systems, but as soon as you offer flexibility, customers want to adapt it. And the challenge of each product is to support as much as possible different scenarios (through configuration, through tuning (you can call it macros or customization) Microsoft Excel is still the best tool in this area
But let’s focus on PLM. Marc’s next statement:
It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about Industry Accelerators or so called ‘best practice’ templates
Again is simplifying the topic. Most of the companies I have been working with had no standard processes or PLM practices as much of the work was done outside a controlled system. And in situations that there was no Accelerator or Best Practice, you were trapped in a situation where people started to discuss their processes and to-be practices (losing time, concluding the process was not so easy as they thought, and at the end blame the PLM system as it takes so long to implement – and you need someone or something to blame). Also her Stephen promotes the functionality in PLM to assist modeling these processes.
PLM is a learning process for companies and with learning I mean, understanding that the way of working can be different and change is difficult. That’s why a second, new PLM implementation in the same company is often more easy to do. At this stage a customer is able to realize which customizations were nice to have but did not contribute to the process and which customizations now could be replaced by standard capabilities (or configured capabilities). A happy target for PLM vendors where the customer changes from PLM vendor as they claim the success of the second implementation. However I have seen also re-implementations with the same software and the same vendor with the same results: faster implementation, less customization and more flexibility.
I fully agree with Marc’s statement that PLM implementations should be flexible and for me this means during implementations make sure you stay close to the PLM standards (yes there are no ‘official’ standards but every PLM implementation is around a similar data model.)
As the metadata and the created files represent the most value for the customer, this is where you should focus. Processes to change, review, collaborate or approve information should always be flexible as they will change. And when you implement these processes to speed up time-to-market or communication between departments/partners, do an ROI and risk analysis if you need to customize.
I still see the biggest problem for PLM is that people believe it is an IT-project, like their ERP project in the past. Looking at PLM in the same way does not reflect the real PLM challenge of being flexible to react. This is one of my aversions against SAP PLM – these two trigrams just don’t go together – SAP is not flexible – PLM should be flexible.
Therefore this time a short blog post or long response, looking forward to your thoughts
The past week I was involved in three different situations, which seem to be disconnected from each other, but when looking back, I found one common similarity
The first case was with a company that had implemented pdm with a tight CAD integration many years ago. They have built together with their implementer(s) a dedicated environment, which was working efficient, perhaps never efficient enough. In the beginning of this year they planned an upgrade to the latest available software and after going live with the upgrade of CAD and PLM software, they discovered severe issues both in performance, in data inaccuracy and user acceptance. With ups and downs and serious effort from several sides, it looked like things were going better, but now they are in a down again as some users refuse to work with the system.
What do to: Fix the system everyone would think ?
In the second case a company has implemented document management and with the support of the IT department the system was defined to cover the known needs.
The users however were reluctant to work with the system, complaining it was too slow, too complex and a lot of extra work, so nothing happened.
More than a year later, the engineering department got the assignment from the management to revive the system and they focused on implementing their main processes in the system, so everyone could work with the system. Still the system has not gone live! As all the time, when the management or users see the system, there are discussions on making it more user-friendly, simple interfaces and more.
What to do: Simplify the system everyone would think?
The third case is a company ready to launch their first PLM implementation and they really go for the full PLM story, including CAD data management, EBOM, MBOM and even BOP (Bill of Process) managed in their PLM system. Main reason they were able to plan the full PLM story was the fact that they were implementing a new ERP system too, so no legacy habits from the ERP side around ‘owning data’ like the Item master, MBOM or BOP. The past year has been spent on building the systems (PLM & ERP) conceptually in a test environment and from there on the PLM side they discovered some performance issues, which were considered critical to fix. And then they would go live both PLM and ERP at the same moment (a big bang), after almost a year of isolated preparation.
What to do: Fix the critical issues and go live everyone would think?
Although all three projects are in different countries, in a different culture and with different software, they all share one thought:
Implementing PLM is like installing an operating system. Once it is installed fix some bugs and the company will work with it. Perhaps not everyone is happy, similar like we have Windows, Apple MAC and UNIX communities, but the platform is there and we make it work. And updates of the system come with the new hardware; check our applications – if they are still running we are happy, if they are not running anymore we implement new versions or other software
By writing it so black and white, I hope you will agree it is more complicated. And I will be very happy that you agree here, as in many PLM implementations, the management of such a company has this impression – not being aware, not being knowledgeable, not being informed it is different. In addition PLM vendors and implementers try to stay close to this simple message, as no-one wants to be the messenger of the bad news that PLM is more than a software installation
The root cause of all these problems is exactly the lack of management understanding and commitment to PLM.
As most of the members in a management team are relying on their ERP system for financial activities, production status, order status, stock value, etc, they also try not to touch ERP anymore once it is running. It is a mandatory system for execution and everyone is aware and somehow comfortable with costs.
And there is the difference with PLM. Do we need PLM ? We have been doing projects, designing projects already before our ERP system ? And if we install a PLM system, isn’t it like the ERP system, you install it and it is up and running ?
No !
PLM is not a system, it a vision how to work more efficient and intelligent. And by collaboration (using modern tools and means) between all stakeholders: market, design, execution (production or construction) and field services, we are better able to understand what is happing and as a next step, we are able to react or even better, be pro-active and come with better and innovative products and services.
So it is not about automation only. It is a change in doing businesses. It is about connecting people who were not used to work together, share information together. And there are various ways to achieve this – but not by installing simple, error free software only.
And this happened in all three companies I described. The vision of PLM was (partly) based on certain software capabilities. In the first example, it was not really PLM. It was automating the existing situation and now several years later, the company assumes after upgrading it still works, without making an evaluation, where the PLM vendor was heading to, without making an evaluation what the current quality of their data was. The focus was again on a system and fixing errors that the system should be able to understand
In the two other situations, there was the thought that once the system is there, users will accept it and start working with it.
Big, big mistake !
Users do not like software that requires them to change their way of working and we forget every time that changing the way someone works is not a software change. For the oldies: remember MS-DOS ? Single screen – no window swapping/multiple applications open. Many users loved the old MS-DOS due its simplicity (now they are retired) and we see the Apple generation (single window and single tasking again, but modern interface)
Building a multi-tasking environment, which PLM often is, requires a guided change process, motivation of the users, but at the end a firm statement from the management that this is the chosen way to go forward -assuming they support the introduction and usage of PLM.
(I received a nice comment on my previous post, stating we should give every user £100 to commit start working with the software, instead of paying thousands of pounds for customization to comfort the user)
And here is the major pain in all of these three companies. The management is not able to take the ownership of the PLM vision and guide it through the company.
They let the execution to their project leader, lead engineer or IT staff and assume like ERP, everyone knows what to do and fix the bugs – no business change – just software implementation.
This leaves these front-runners in a very difficult position.
- Not loved by the end-user, who wants no change and if there is a change it should be more fun. The will show the system is not working for them.
- Not loved by the management as they are wondering why it takes so long to fix the issues. Should not we be up and running already after such a long time ?
- Not loved by the PLM implementer as there is a limit to fixing the problem. After solving a problem there is always a next problem discovered
- Not loved by the PLM vendor as they need positive references
And put any combination of people above in a meeting, the ones who are not there are to blame – and I realize I am doing the same – I am pointing to the management who is often invisible.
Call for the management
For me the management has the task to feel responsible for PLM – as they are responsible for the company’s future – not the end-users. This means they should be able to judge the steps executed during a PLM implementation, or for an upgrade and assure they fit in the vision. They should realize that they are the voice to the end-users to explain the value of PLM and why there is a different way of working. They do not have to go into the details, but keep the bigger picture in mind.
And the management must show commitment to all –they want PLM . So commitment is needed to the end-users, to the IT department, to project team and to the implementation partner. And commitment is not easy to delegate.
Unfortunate commitment for PLM is also a long-term engagement, as it is not like ERP. Once it is running do not touch it. The markets change, the people change, technology changes and therefore the software practices change. To decide where, when and how to engage with a next PLM step should be a strategic decision from the management, not from a user who wants a new interface.
My last remark: it is clear that the management does not have the time and in-depth knowledge of PLM today as also the PLM is a young and moving vision due to changes in our society. (In my next post I will go into the new social hype – ask yourself is there also social ERP ?).
So the management team needs a sparring partner, a PLM supporter, who will reflect their vision into PLM steps and how to enroll them and communicate them into the organization, without losing visions and faith but also without talking about software features. Either you should make sure this knowledge is in your company, as several companies have already successfully discovered. Or search for an external PLM supporter – looking to my blog questionnaire results they exist !!!
I am curious to learn if you recognize these situations, if you agree, disagree – feel free to comment
As promised I would come back to the results of my small questionnaire about PLM for the mid-market. Here are the answers:
What is your relation to PLM ?
| PLM consultant | 51 % |
| IT specialist | 21 % |
| Interested in PLM related to my work | 14 |
| PLM vendor | 9 % |
| Student | 5 % |
The answers show that the majority of readers are professionals directly involved with PLM, which is of course not strange for my blog. And good to see, the real majority is PLM consultant. At that time when I launched the questionnaire, I was not making a differentiation between independent consultants and PLM supplier specific consultants. And you need them both.
Do you believe PLM has a place in the mid-market?
| Yes, it is already happening | 57 % |
| Yes, it is a matter of time and education | 38 % |
| No, mid-market companies do not need PLM | 5 % |
| No, there is no place for a PLM system next to CAD and ERP | 0 % |
Of course it is a PLM blog, so this explains the 0 % for the last alternative. Also it is clear that the readers of this blog believe PLM has a place in the mid-market. Some remarks here were:
- It depends on product and maturity cycles and on whether this service is provided by the larger companies who the mid market company is supplying (IT enterprise architect)
- PLM is a strategy and can be implemented by any tool (Student)
Who should provide PLM functionality in the mid-market
| A special PLM provider | 72 % |
| A CAD supplier as extension of their data management | 14 % |
| A system integrator | 7 % |
| An IT supplier, like Microsoft, as part of their architecture | 5 % |
| An ERP supplier as extension of their BOM management | 2 % |
Good news, we are among PLM friends and believe it must be a PLM provider that will bring the PLM functionality to the market, not a CAD or IT-supplier. System integrators are the majority of the minority here. Some remarks here were:
- One size doesn’t fit all. A special solution need to be provided (PLM Consultant)
- For me, the best solutions for mid market involve low-cost of ownership, easy to use and limited but straight forward capabilities. ERP and CAD vendors are far from there from what I can see, but at least they are integrated with one or the other part. Cloud computing solutions would be the best, that could integrate with ERP and CAD would be the best. (PLM Consultant)
- Any one, who have technical sound knowledge, broad thinking and customized software tools like ERP and CAD (Student)
I would like to see more discussion about:
| PLM implementation experiences | 44 % |
| PLM basic principles / best practices | 34 % |
| PLM vendors and their specific coverage | 10 % |
| PLM selection guidelines | 8 % |
| PLM functions and features | 5 % |
It is clear that readers from this blog want to read PLM related topics vendor independent and I will focus on this the upcoming post about the two major responses: PLM implementation experiences and PLM basic principles and best practices. Some of the other requests were:
- How PLM can support inter-company collaboration at design time, manufacturing time and operational support time and how service oriented technologies have a role in this, especially when products can now be supported by 3rd party companies (not the OEM). (IT Enterprise Architect)
- As we have not came to final Point of PLM as it is vast field and will not be, so we will be discussing on different points (student)
Conclusion:
So I want to thank all of you who responded to this mini-questionnaire and as we are PLM supporters, I will focus in my upcoming post again on mid-market PLM experiences and practices.
This time I will conclude with an anecdote:
Some time ago a Christian PLM Sales professional died (let’s call him Jack) and according to his believe he faced Saint Peter at the gates of Heaven and Hell.
Saint Peter greeted Jack and said: “Jack, With your PLM Sales you have done good and bad things to the world and for that reason, I cannot decide if you should go to Heaven or to Hell. Therefore I allow you to make the choice yourself”.
Jack replied: “But Saint Peter, how can I make such an important decision for the rest of my eternal life. It is too difficult !”
Saint Peter replied: “No problem Jack, take a look at Heaven and Hell, take your time and then come back to tell me your decision”
Jack entered Heaven and he was surprised about the quietness and green atmosphere there. Angels were singing, people were eating from golden plates with the best food ever, people were reading poetry and everything was as peaceful as you could imagine. In the distance he could see God surrounded by some prophets talking about the long-term future. After some time Jack had seen it and went to Hell to have a view there.
And when he opened the gates of Hell, he was astonished. Everywhere he looked there were people partying, having fun. It reminded him off these sales kick-offs, he had in the past, exotic places with lots of fun. In the distance he could see the Devil as DJ playing the latest dance music – or was it DJ Tiësto ?
Jack did not hesitate and ran back to Saint Peter, no time to lose. “Saint Peter” he said “I want to go to Hell, no doubt and pity I did not know it before”
“So be it” said Saint Peter “go for it.”
And then once Jack entered Hell, it was suddenly all fire around him, people were screaming of pain and suffering and also Jack felt the first flames.
“Devil!!” he screamed “what happened to what I have seen before?”
With a sarcastic voice the devil replied: “That ? That was a demo”
If you think you have the need for PLM, as everyone around you has PLM and you are sure you need it also, how do you select a PLM system?
If you are not familiar with PLM, PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) stands for a vision and a combination of best practices, industry dependent, that allow you as a company to be more innovative, faster too market, more customer centric and also with a higher quality and efficiency. The result: you are doing better as the competition – more margin, market share etc, etc
Next the implementation of this vision can be done by implementing pieces of the PLM vision on top of the existing systems already in your company. Extending the capabilities of your CAD system with some macros ; programming some capabilities around SharePoint to make information available and combined with Excel macros and an import in our ERP system, you believe you are doing PLM as you implemented parts of the PLM vision, mainly the efficiency part.
And then we get stuck, we would like to be more customer centric. Which macro to write for that? Or we want to connect our 3D designs to be used in a virtual prototype environment so we do not have to make the first real prototype to understand where to improve. Here the local reseller or IT-provider mentions it goes beyond his expertise (if he is fair).
For the full PLM vision, we see that the major PLM vendors have an integrated story, where all best practices and capabilities are connected and available on demand. Of course there is a discussion between themselves who has the best vision, the best integration between all these modules and who is the most efficient, but this is normal in a competitive world. You will find out the details during your selection process, but let’s agree you want all these benefits now or in the future, so the first conclusion is, you need to implement a PLM system in your company, and not small pieces of PLM capabilities in different systems and infrastructure.
And now comes the do not do this part, which I encountered in the past two months several times and from which I thought this approach was already considered by people, knowledgeable in this are as leading to failure.
The content below might lead to dissatisfaction in the near or longer future and the writer warns you NOT to use the methodology below
The company starts collecting requirements from all departments to assure they can implement the new vision. And as collecting requirements is a lot of work, they hire an external consulting company to do this work. The consultant(s) go and talk with all the different departments and at the end they collected a list of 100+ requirements, which after discussing them with the management are completed with another 50 requirements to assure the company is not going to select the wrong PLM system.
Then the company sends this book to all the known PLM vendors, telling them to respond within a timely matter (two – four ) weeks. And questions will be answered only through a very formal process via the consultancy company.
This type of questions you will find (and they are real):
- There should be a control for the renaming of CAD-parts and links
- It should be possible to search from the top to the bottom in the structure with all documents
- It should be possible to work with the following formats (3 common and 15 rare formats mentioned)
- It should be able to drag and drop information from one structure to the other
- The system should protect the users to make an error
- The system should run integrated with our ERP system (xyz mentioned)
- The system should be able to identify and manage project risk to support product and process changes throughout the product lifecycle
And one of my favorites:
- The system shall be able to create, update, maintain and process main and typical sorts and types of documents and their source data. Both “tabular” data (lists/datasheets) and graphic (diagrams, etc.) data, as well as text data (technical reports, etc.) are understood in this requirement. However see also requirement 18 and requirement 54. The scope and types of documents should be possible to be modified in an easy way for various projects and various stages of development documentation for those projects
And the management added:
- The implementer should come with a detailed implementation plan and budget
- The implementer should guarantee the budget stays with xxx range
- The implementer should provide 3 references of similar companies and tools.
The RFP document is usually a 20 to 50 page document – the amount of pages seems to have a correlation with the amount of money spent to consultancy. The total assembly costs for this document: 400 to 1000 man-hours (do your math for the initial costs)
Then the RFP document is sent to 5 or more potential suppliers, who need to answer for each requirement in detail if:
- It is standard in the system
- It can be done through configuring the system, explain.
- It can be done through customization, please specify
- It is not supported
Each vendor spends at least 500 man-hours to answer all these questions as much as possible with yes, it is standard. An although not understanding the requirements at all at some points, they only give positive answers, trying to stay away from the “It is not supported answer”.
So after at least 2500 (5 times 500) man-hours the company assisted by the consultant(s) think the know who to invite for the next stage of the PLM selection.
Did they make the right choice?
My statement is perhaps yes. So far they have wasted 3000 man-hours or more in the world just to be busy and come to a result which an experienced independent PLM consultant could do in a few days:
If you are this type of company – look at these vendors: company A, company B and perhaps company C for your PLM solution as you are in this industry, this IT-platform and this maturity – let’s discuss with them what we want to achieve
Next the real PLM selection process starts, here the investment and research should begin – and I would do this different. In my next post I will explain my approach.
Do you agree and would you do it different?
I am looking forward to your feedback.
In my previous post (PLM for the mid-market – your opinion) I started a very small questionnaire – if you did not have the time (takes less than 5 minutes) or encouragement (please, please) to answer the 4 anonymous questions, please go there. End of October I promised to publish the results in this blog.
Direct link to the questionnaire: http://www.enquetemaken.be/toonenquete.php?id=48804
The past two years I have been blogging about PLM, with a special focus on the mid-market. My previous post was about PLM selection (which PLM to choose) and thanks to Oleg (How To Choose PLM? (Visual guide)) this became a broader discussion. It made me realize that although we are all talking about PLM, I am not sure if we all have the same opinion about the mid-market.
To be aligned my previous definition of the mid-market:
Mid market company: For me the definition of a mid-market company does not have to do with revenue or the amount of people working for this company. I characterize a mid-market company as a company, where everyone has a focus on the company’s primary process. There is no strategic layer of people, who are analyzing the current business and defining new strategies for the future. In addition, the IT-staff is minimal, more seen as an overhead than as strategic. Mid-market companies have their strength in being flexible and reacting fast on changes, which might contradict with a long term strategic approach.
Now I am curious about your opinion. Therefore I published a small questionnaire on a Belgium website, to get a quick feedback and I am looking forward to your response. Although I do not consider it as scientific research, your (anonymous) response will enable me review my opinion and to focus on some specific topics.
Please take the time so answers this questionnaire from the link below:
PLM for the mid-market – your opinion
Thanks for your feedback and I will publish the results end of October
Jos Voskuil
As today it was again ‘Black Saturday”, the day that the French and German roads are filled with cars and traffic jams above100 km length, it was a moment for me to reflect in the middle of my summer holiday. I do not want to make other continents jealous, but the summer holiday is important (and long), still time for some thoughts.
PLM is dead, long live Social / User focused PLM ?
In one of my old 2008 posts, PLM in 2050, I predicted that PLM would no longer exist at that time, as companies would no longer focus on individual systems, but on full coverage of business processes, through integrated and federated data sources. I see this trend coming from two major PLM vendors (Dassault Systems / Siemens) with their 3DLive / HD PLM concepts. These concepts are trying to provide a unique user experience, where in an intuitive manner, a user in a specific role can obtain relevant data, analyze and simulate it in a virtual environment. Here the PLM vendors are really taking the lead to become the main platform for product development processes. Will the name PLM disappear at a certain stage ?
Additional you see startups and also some of the major PLM vendors experimenting with community concepts, social media. Moving towards a “Facebook’- like environment for product development and collaboration processes. The idea behind this direction is partly driven by the fact that the old generation of workforce slowly moves towards retirement where the new generation is not motivated to follow up the same working processes and procedures. The old generation moved from paper-based, manual processes to terminal-like screens, email and excel sheets.
If the new generation of employees will benefit from Facebook like environments is the question. Product development and collaboration requires a lot of boring data entry, even if we have a unique user experience. In addition, I was reading a preview of some research done with American and Dutch students, stating that study results from those students active on Facebook are significant lower as the result of student not active on Facebook, although they spend the same time on internet. I haven’t found the original source – here is a Dutch link. Curious to learn who will develop and bring better products to the market in the future with modern social PLM ?
ALM based on PLM is underestimated by owner /operators
As I have been active the past two years in some Asset Lifecycle Management projects based on PLM, I also feel that many owner/operators do not have the understanding or guts to change the way they are working. Understandable from their point of view – as long as the errors and risks are acceptable, why change the way the whole industry is working ?
In the nuclear industry you see the awareness growing. People know the risks of a nuclear disaster (after Chernobyl) and as we need more energy resources, nuclear energy with enhanced containment of risks is a natural way to go.
Perhaps after the BP disaster in the Mexican gulf, where apparently to the various reports, people were taking the wrong decisions due to inaccurate data or due to lack of information (could not be found in time) ALM based on PLM could be considered. However, investing even a few millions and changing the company’s way of working will never be approved by the BP management, as it will never happen a second time. It is all about being proactive (which is not a natural behavior) or being reactive and trying to control the damage. Here I have no predictions for 2050, I only believe that the proactive companies have a higher chance of survival – no matter which industry
But now my holiday activities call me back – for those not blessed by a holiday, here an overview of some of the relevant posts from the past year/
PLM and Organization
How to get users excited for PLM ?
Some users do not like the single version of the truth
Implementing PLM requires a vision
What not to do in a bottom up PLM implementation ?
Culture change in a mid-sized company a management responsibility !
PLM selection
PLM for mid-market a mission impossible ?
Who decides for PLM in a mid-market company ?
More on who decides for PLM in a mid-market company
The academic conclusion on who decides for PLM in a mid-market company
Free PLM does not help companies
ALM
Asset Lifecycle Management based on PLM experiences
Asset Lifecycle Management using a PLM system
Tutorials
and if these links are not enough – look at my favorite blogs:
This time it is hard to write my blog post. First of all, because tomorrow there will be the soccer final between Holland and Spain and as a Virtual Dutchman I still dream of a real cup for the Dutch team.
Beside that I had several discussions around PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), CM (Configuration Management) and ALM (Asset Lifecycle Management), where all insiders agreed that it is hard to explain and sell the value and best practices, because it is boring, because it is not sexy, etc, etc.
So why am I still doing this job…..
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)
If you look at trade shows and major events of PLM vendors, the eye-catching 
stuff is 3D (CAD).
Dassault Systemes introduced in 2006 3DLive as the 3D collaboration layer for all users with the capability to provide in a 3D manner (see what you mean) on-line role specific information, coming from different information sources. Recently Siemens introduced their HD PLM, which as far as I understood, brings decision making capabilities (and fun) to the user.
Both user interfaces are focusing on providing information in a user-friendly and natural way – this is sexy to demonstrate, but a question never asked: “Where does the information come from ? “
And this is the boring but required part of PLM. Without data stored or connected to the PLM system, there is no way these sexy dashboards can provide the right information. The challenge for PLM systems will be to extract this information from various applications and from users to have the discipline to enter the needed data.
Those software vendors, who find an invisible way to capture the required information hold the key to success. Will it be through a more social collaboration with a lot of fun, I am afraid not. The main issue is that the people who need to enter the data are not rewarded for doing it. It is downstream the organization, in the product lifecycle, that other people benefit from the complete information. And I even suspect in some organizations that there are people who do not want share data to assure being required in the organization – see also Some users do not like the single version of the truth.
So who can reward these users and make them feel important. I believe this is a management job and no sexy (3D) environment will help here
Configuration Management (CM)
Although it is considered a part of PLM, I added configuration management to my post as a separate bullet. Two weeks ago, I attended the second day of the CMII Europe conference in Amsterdam. What I learned from this event was that the members of the CMII community are a group of enthusiastic people with somehow the same vision as PLM missionaries.
Quoting the organization: “CMII is about changing faster and documenting better. It is about accommodating change and keeping requirements clear, concise and valid.”
And it was interesting to listen to speeches of the members. Like with PLM, everyone is convinced configuration management brings a lot of value to a company, they are also fighting for acknowledgement. Not sexy is what I learned here and also here those people who are responsible for data accuracy are not necessary the ones that benefit (the most).
Like PLM, but even more in Configuration Management, the cultural change should not be neglected. Companies are used to have a certain level of “configuration management”, often based on manual processes, not always as efficient, clear and understood and satisfactory for the management, till something happens due to incorrect information.
Of course the impact of an error differentiates per industry, a problem occurring due to wrong information for an airplane is something different compared to a problem with a sound system.
So the investment in configuration management pays of for complex products with critical behaviors and in countries where labor costs are high. It was interesting to learn that a CM maturity assessment showed that most companies score below average when it comes to management support and that they score above average when talking about the tools they have in place.
This demonstrates for me that also for configuration management, companies believe tools will implement the change without a continuous management push. I remember that in several PLM selection processes, prospects were asking for all kind of complex configuration management capabilities, like complex filtering of a product structure. Perhaps pushed by a competitor, as at the end it was never implemented 
Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM)
In some previous posts, I wrote about the benefits a PLM system can bring, when used as the core system for all asset related information. For nuclear plants, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) recommends to use configuration management best practices and I have met an owner/operator of a nuclear plant who recognized that a PLM system brings the right infrastructure, instead of SAP for example, which has more focus on operational data.
Also I had a meeting with another owner/operator, who was used to manage their asset data in a classical manner – documents in an as-built environment and changes of documents in various projects environments.
When discussing the ALM best practices based on a PLM system, it was clear all the benefits it could bring, but also we realized that implementing these concepts would require a conceptual revolution. People would need to start thinking asset centric (with lifecycle behavior) instead of document centric with only revisions.
This kind of change requires a management vision, clear explanation of the benefits and a lot of attention for the user. Only then when these changes have been implemented, and data is available in a single repository, only then the fun and sexy environments become available for use.
Conclusion
PLM, CM and ALM are not sexy especially for the users who need to provide the data. But they provide the base for sexy applications where users have instant access to complete information to make the right decisions. To get there a cultural change is required. The management needs to realize that the company changes into becoming proactive (avoiding errors) instead of being reactive (trying to contain errors); investing upfront and never be able to know what the losses would be in case an error occurred.
Not sexy, however the benefits this approach can bring allow employees and companies to continue to do their work for a secure future
And now … time to close as the final is near
Last weeks have been busy weeks and I have seen various PLM candidates all around Europe. As these companies were mid-market companies, I noticed again how difficult it is for these companies to follow the ideal path towards PLM.
For those reading my blog frequently they might remember my definition of mid-market and PLM. For newer readers I will give my definitions again, as everyone has their own definition.
Mid market company: For me the definition of a mid-market company does not have to do with revenue or the amount of people working for this company. I characterize a mid-market company as a company, where everyone has a focus on the company’s primary process. There is no strategic layer of people, who are analyzing the current business and defining new strategies for the future. In addition, the IT-staff is minimal, more seen as an overhead than as strategic. Mid-market companies have their strength in being flexible and reacting fast on changes, which might contradict with a long term strategic approach.
As what happens if you are only in a reactive mode – it can be too late.
PLM: For me PLM is not a product but a vision or business approach based on a collection of best practices (per industry). Main characteristics of PLM are centralizing all product knowledge (IP) throughout all the lifecycle stages and a focus on best practices and immediate visibility on all lifecycle stages. Combining concept, planning, development, production planning and after sales / service into one integrated process. It is more than concurrent engineering, it is about sharing data and ownership of data through different departments. And this means business transformation, breaking through traditional barriers. Of course PLM vendors have a slight different definition in order to differentiate themselves from other vendors. For example more focus on a virtual product definition (CAD PLM vendors) or a focus on efficiency and one single platform (ERP PLM vendors)
Who will initiate this change ?
And these two definitions already raise the questions I want to reflect here as I experienced again in two recent visits that the pain to move to PLM is here.
First what is the result of a reactive mode, even when it is a quick reaction ?
A reactive mode leads to a situation where a company will never be able to differentiate rapidly from their competition. As every change takes time to implement, it is logically that a real business change will not be implemented as a quick reaction. The company needs to have a long term vision. And this is one of the things I noticed talking with mid-market companies. Ask these questions: “Where do you want to be in five years from now” and “How do you make sure you achieve these goals (if goals exist)” and often you find the company is depending on the business instinct of the founder(s) and has no real answers for the long term future.
This is of course a result of the typical mid-market company, they have no internal people who will step outside the daily hectic and work on a change. And being reactive always means you are (a little) behind. And this was the situation in one of the companies that I have met recently. There was an initial understanding of the values that PLM could bring, but when talking about some of the basic principles of PLM, the answers was: In our company ERP is God. This means real PLM has no chance – you do not want to fight against God.
And now the discussion who can initiate the change towards PLM
Now another example of a mid-market company that had a long term PLM vision but got trapped in their own approach. The company has been growing fast and like many European companies, production is done in China. And this causes collaboration issues around communication and quality between Europe and China as the company only knows CAD data management and ERP. The engineering manager was assigned to solve these issues.He did not get a full strategic assignment to look at the complete picture, but the management pushes him to solve the current pains, having the PLM wishes still in mind.
And solving the current pains lead again to function / feature comparison with a short term justification, believing that in the future all will fit in the PLM vision, as the potential resellers for the new solution said: “Yes we can”. Have you ever heard a reseller say “No we cannot”
The result, the engineering manager has to make a decision based on the ‘blue eyes’ of the reseller as he does not get the mandate and power from his management to analyze and decide on a PLM strategy for the long term. For one of the resellers talking about the details of PLM was even more a disadvantage as it creates an impression that PLM is complex. It is easier to sell a dream. A similar situation as I described in my posts: Who decides for PLM in a mid-market company
My conclusion
Although I am aware that many mid-market companies implement basics of PLM, it is frustrating to see that lack of priority and understanding of the management in mid-market companies blocks the growth to full benefits for PLM. The management is not to blame, as most PLM messages either come from the high-end PLM vendors or from product resellers both not packaged for the mid-market. See PLM for the mid-market – a mission impossible ?
PLM is a cross-departmental solution and the management should look for partners who can explain the business values and share best practices for mid-market companies business wise.
The partner is 50 % of the success for a PLM implementation.
Do you recoginize similar situations ? How would you address them ?
My PLM blog cloud based on Wordie – see the virtualdutchman blog cloud
Two weeks ago I received through the PLM group on LinkedIn, the following question from Nathalie: “Do you know any specific examples of what some companies have done to get their users ready, excited or more committed to the new PLM system?”
When digging in my mind and planning to give a quick answer, I realized it was an interesting question with a contradiction embedded: users and excitement for a new PLM system.
This week I was attending the SmarTeam User Group meeting in the Netherlands, where an excellent presentation was given by Simon and Hessel from a Dutch company called Meyn (Poultry processing) about their PLM implementation. They shared their excitement !
Combined with an interesting discussion on Oleg’s blog with Frank, I believe I have the ingredients to answer the above question more complete.
PLM is not exiting for users
I think this is fact number one. When you go to tradeshows or PLM exhibitions, you see usually only 3D CAD demos, nobody tries to demonstrate PLM functions and features in detail. As a side step, I believe the best PLM system should be almost invisible for the user. Users want to work in their own environment with applications like CAD, Excel (BOM handling apps), Office, FEA tools, Simulation tools and more.
ERP has a more clear value proposal, if you want to define and schedule your manufacturing and manage the financial transactions, everyone has accepted that you need ERP. User acceptance is not relevant, users have to work with the provided interface as otherwise production or accounting will fail, there is no alternative.
In contrary, the clear value and definition of PLM are not clear to user. For that reason these users do not get excited when confronted with PLM. They have been surviving without implementing PLM, so they believe there is an alternative.
But we know there are PLM benefits?
My previous post – PLM in the mid-market a mission impossible? – lead to a discussion with Oleg and Frank coming with anew and interesting view point. Frank mentioned that in the German area, many mid-market companies do PLM without purchasing an enterprise PLM system from the known vendors.
The discussion focused on granularity, as all of us believed that a set-by-step approach towards PLM best practices, driven by people who understand the company very well, is the key to success. For this approach you need people inside the customer’s organization who can formulate the vision assisted by consultants working very dedicated in that industry. It requires a different type of consultant as those active in the big enterprise projects.
Instead of implementing PLM as a standard process, in this approach the customer drives and leads the activities where they see benefits in their overall business process. To achieve this, the company must have has a clear vision, where they want to be in the next 5 – 10 years.
Next implementations steps should fit in this strategy and prioritized based on different parameters and these steps are not always with a focus on PLM.
And here lies the key for successful PLM implementations.
The implementation might be based on an academic approach around a core PLM data model and best practices. Mid-market offerings are around an OOTB (Out-Of-The-Box) quick implementation – the PLM system/implementer leads.
Something the management of likes to hear; quick and with little customization, which would translate in lower costs of implementation and disruption of the organization. But then, the end-users start to complain. There is too much change their standard way of working and they do not see the advantages – keying in more data in a system does not help them.
The introduction of PLM brings more complexity and as the new system has to prove itself, there is not big enthusiasm from the average user. The management can push, like in the ERP situation, but in general also the management is anxious to learn if this OOTB-approach brings the benefits and when it fails they ask the vendor where the estimated ROI can be found.
Concluding you will be lucky if users get excited form the OOTB approach.
In the second and granular approach, the company defines their strategy and vision, not necessary a 100 % PLM vision. This strategy need to be clear and shared with the employees in the company, especially for those who are affected by changes.
Next together with implementation partners, who bring in the know-how and possible software tools, a part of the company’s process is addressed and improved. It can be in any area, changing the CAD engine, automate BOM handling, connect sales to engineering or connect after sales/service to engineering.
Many of these areas of interest have different solutions, some are extensions of the CAD environment, some of them are extensions of the ERP environment and some of them are extensions of the IT-platform used in the company.
This approach is not sold by the PLM vendors, as they want to introduce their system as the IT-platform, wrap around the CAD and even capture the definition of the MBOM and initiation of the Item master.
A step-by-step approach based on different granular components, every time in the direction of the company’s strategy, plus all the time feed-back to the end-users on the positive impact of the change, is for me the key to success. In my previous post I was looking for a global provider for these required components.
With the step by step approach with granular solutions, we get users involved and excited.
And this brings me the to the presentation from Meyn
The first time I got involved with Meyn was in October 2004. At that time they had chosen to move from their BaaN-2D CAD infrastructure to a new environment with BaaN – 3D CAD (CATIA). Simon presented their target strategy and vision: moving away from being an Engineering To Order company to become primarily a Configure To Order company.
ENOVIA SmarTeam was chosen to manage the 3D CAD and to connect the information to BaaN. Initially Meyn started in the classical PLM approach, but already after a few months, the understanding was there, they need have step-by-step approach, focused on results for the new CATIA users, without communicating around a complete PLM focused project.
So they followed a stepped approach, they called them waves.
Moving from Engineering to Order to Configure to Order is not software implementation. It requires rationalization of your products; convert them into modular, configurable parts. For this you need to be an engineering expert, not a software expert.
But when it comes to implementation of this concept in the software, you need both experts. And through this collaboration, a methodology for skeleton design was established which was driven by Meyn. And the reason the users were excited was, that they were doing real engineering, the benefits were significant visible.
Customer project related engineering time (typical ETO), which was in the beginning their core activity, became around 30 % of the time. More time could be spent on developing new machines in a modular way. With almost the same amount of engineers the turn-over of the company had more than doubled. A win-win environment which makes also the end-users excited.
Still the backend with ERP at Meyn remained almost the same similar to the time they were working in the 2D environment. And the most interesting conclusion at the end of the presentation was, they are still using the same slide with the vision and they can explain why each step was taken and justify it by measurable benefits.
And this brings me to the answer of the question
“Do you know any specific examples of what some companies have done to get their users ready, excited or more committed to the new PLM system”?
- The management needs to have a clear vision where they want to be as a company in the future. This is not an IT-vision, but a business vision which explain why changes are needed. This vision should be clear to the employees. Communicate!
- Where possible provide metrics!
- Do not talk about a PLM system; it can be also in other tools. Talk about improvement steps in the business processes contributing to the vision. The PLM system is the information backbone, not the front-end. Management and implementers should talk business functionality not IT functions and features. Do not talk in applications!
- Build step by step user scenarios with focus on methodology and user understanding. Implementations with a function-feature focus are hard to accept by the users. Talk business!
- The management should present their vision again and again, supported by metrics what has been accomplished and what has been learned for the future – repeat!
Conclusion
There are thousands of mid-market companies that have a vision to improve their business. The PLM system should never be the topic of discussion with the end users; it is the change in working methods that is important, supported by various systems -CAD/ERP/CRM – and almost invisible …….. PLM
The company Meyn is an example of this approach. Simon and Hessel are working for Meyn as engineers improving their company’s business. Unfortunate it is not their business to explain all around the world, how PLM supports business change in a mid-market company. I was glad to attend their session last week.
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