This time a more theoretical post about classification in PLM. A topic that always has been around for more than a decade. Recently classification also came up in some discussions both with customers and on discussion groups on the Internet. So what I will try to do in this post, is to explain the goals of classification, the ways classification is implemented and finally how I see classification will evolve. As always feel free to comment or extend my post.
The goals
Classification is a generic understanding, so to start I want to narrow classification to item classification. Companies might use classification in various ways, for products, for knowledge, for supported functions and more. The most discussed topic in the context of PLM however is item classification. The idea of item classification is twofold: understand what you already have (designed) and promote reuse. Historically the item definition has been stored in the ERP system and reuse was mainly based on recognizing parts of the description. Sometimes the ERP system also supported a kind of classification id to group certain parts – like fasteners, frames, base materials etc.
With the introduction of electronic parts this rough classification as defined in ERP became insufficient as already the description and classification id were not enough to really understand if an item could be reused. During that same period of time more and more companies where merging or acquiring other companies and they want to understand and benefit from items already used in one of the companies.
So this brings back the challenge for the two goals mentioned:
- How can I make sure my engineering reuse existing items in future products ?
- How can i consolidate and understand items i have used in my company ?
Item reuse
In order to promote item reuse companies have used various classification systems in engineering to promote reuse and standardization within the company. Design catalogs with standard purchase parts, extended with company standard parts were implemented to limit the variety of choices for a designer. Companies & Products like Trace Parts, SolidWorks Toolbox, Inventor Content Center address this need.
Additional mostly in the German speaking countries a classification standard exists, called sachmerkmahl leiste (sorry only in German) or often referred to in the context of the DIN 4000 standard. This is also a standard classification standard, less CAD design centric. Interesting to analyze why this standard does not exist in other countries.
One of the reasons might be that classifying all your engineering data takes a lot of time – specially when you haven’t done it from the start. I worked with some companies where more than a man-year was spent on classifying information. This work had to be done by someone with engineering knowledge, so you can imagine the investment for classification, beside the software was huge. Main question is, what will be the (expected) Return On Investment ?
In this area I think that a cultural difference plays a role here. Some countries invest more in their working methodology and processes than others where the focus might be only on the single result. From my global experience to be fair, i have not seen and heard the real benefits of this type of classification for reuse. I am looking forward for statements from companies that have measurable result here. Like many IT projects we have the emotional feeling that this approach should bring benefits
Item Consolidation
In the mid nineties when companies started to merge, PDM became PLM, CRM became important, also another trend became visible. The need for item classification systems, more on the inventory side, for companies to understand which items they were using around their (merged) enterprises. One of the first companies that time was Aspect Development Inc, later in 2000 merged with I2. Customer case studies learned us that in some of these enterprises a single item could exist with 100 different ID’s, all described or classified in various departments a little different, so hard to reuse. Only by classifying items within an enterprise based on their specific characteristics, people start to recognize identical items. Also in smaller mid-market companies I have seen situations where items have been named or identified just a little bit different, although they were the same.
Here benefits of item consolidation can be easier justified. I assume most companies can estimate what is the total cost of handling an item through its lifecycle and what are the purchase benefits by consolidating for example 10 different named into a single item to be purchased in a much bigger quota.
The benefits really come when you control your inventory and from this base feed the engineering department with an optimized selection of validated items for reuse. And this is to my opinion the most important goal of classification
How to implement classification ?
As described above classification is needed to promote reuse of engineering knowledge and to standardize on inventory (purchased items).
To address the first need I believe PLM offers various ways to support a classification. Some might believe DIN 4000 is a useful standard. From my experiences with companies it appears that it is important to bring rational to what you classify. Where is the ROI. Classification brings a lot of constraints and overhead to the engineering department – all parameters needs to be mandatory managed for each part, otherwise your classification looses its value. Probably you will realize that classifying metal strips does not bring the reuse value as the overhead for maintaining the classification is higher then the cost of producing a new strip. So I am not so convinced about classification for this need.
For the second need – inventory optimization – here i believe the classification brings a measurable ROI, specially when the company uses a New Item Approval process or Standardization Process, where every new item will be reviewed (and classified) to guarantee its unique need. Of course it depends very much on the type of industry and main business process if this approach brings value. Listed in a more relevance order: Engineering To Order / Configure To Order / Design For Manufacturing
Folksonomy versus Taxsonomy
A new trend for classification is the way search engines work on massive unstructured data. No one tries to classify all the web pages that exist (although there might be a standard for that). It is easier to perform a context search and specially with new web development you see that tagging information becomes more and more important for retrieval. For example I tagged this article with PLM, ERP, Classification, Item Reuse and Item Consolidation. These tags will be used by search engines and I do not have to worry on which level and where Item Reuse is stored. As a creator of this text part I tag my information for reuse.
This is called Folksonomy, this in contrary to Taxsonomy, the classical method for ordering information. See for more background the related wiki hyperlinks.
Conclusion
Implementing Folksonomy in a PLM environment depends on the type of PLM system you are using (in case you use a PLM system). It requires a way to tag information in an user-friendly way and to retrieve information by tags in an easy way – the ease of use of a search engine. In case it is too futuristic this approach, evaluate your engineering classification needs based on your expected ROI and goals, keeping in mind in the classical way of classification will evolve.
Do you have examples of classification with a proven ROI for engineering, let me know
6 comments
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December 24, 2008 at 8:27 am
Bhushan Teli
Hi,
Do you come across any PLM system currently providing Folksonomy based classification?
ENOVIA is having Taxonomy based classification >> Library Central.
Thanks,
Bhushan Teli
Thanks for your positive response and to answer your question. Yes I have seen a few custom implementations where it has been implemented on top of ENOVIA SmarTeam. This were big customizations as most of the user interface and the search engine had to be programmed. I would assume ENOVIA V6 partners like Endeca or Autonomy (i hope i recall it correct – they provide also advanced search engines) could do the same. I am not aware of a solution where it is yet standard available, but i know startups are working on it.
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December 24, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Bhushan Teli
Thanks Joe,
In ENOVIA V6R2009 Autonomy search is implemented in Variant Configuration & some other center for better performance of Search Functionality.
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July 9, 2009 at 10:47 am
Paul van der Zande
“Do you have examples of classification with a proven ROI for engineering, let me know…”
Jos: ‘classification’ (incl. class hierarchy, property inheritence, etc) is since long (1995) implemented in Dassault Catia V4 (and V5)’ infrastructure for plant design and shipbuiling applications. When carefully setup (with knowledge of the ship/plant process) it brings clear ROI e.g. in setup, user interaction, reporting, automation. E.g automation of ship hull structure drawings (with class based rules) reduces time from 8 hours for manual drawing to 30 minutes for automatic drawing (which would not be possible without proper use of classes in structure design and the rules to produce drawings).
Paul unfortunate finding ROI specific on classification is hard. Customers I am working with for sure see the benefits for classification, although it is usually implemented combined with PLM. Currently I am working with a customer who want knowledge classification in both a classical hierarchical structure as also by tagging. I believe in the long term a hierarchical classification will disappear and more and more a Google like search will be standard
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August 15, 2011 at 6:57 am
Raj
Jos,
Can you please let me know more on the classification you implemented and how to achieve it for old legacy data where we depend only on description of item.
Thanks,
Raj
Raj – i will contact you by mail – Jos
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July 5, 2012 at 11:40 am
Deepak S Dixit
Jos, very good information. I also want to know more about classification you implimented and also like to know if you have any business case which shows the benefits of classification before and after. ( looking for a specific case )
Deepak hello. Thanks for your comments. It is not an easy question as classification has it benefits in certain areas (parts / components usage and comparison) and in other situations it might be an overhead as reuse and standardization do not bring ROI. I cannot give you a classification only business case because as usual the implementation of a PDM or PLM system brings much more additional benefits.
You can mail me the case you want to discuss and I can see if I can help you by giving some directions.
Best regards
Jos
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February 18, 2013 at 5:19 am
Deepak
Hi Jos, I was looking for any kind of approach or frameworks which can be used while implementing a classification in any industry. Do you have any reference.?
Thanks in advance.
-Deepak
Deepak hello sorry for the late response – there are various classification principles per industry / per region, so instead of writing a blog post here, please contact me directly tacit@planet.nl with a more specific question for the industry you are looking for
Best regards
Jos
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