Some unstructured PLM thoughts

I am not sure if it depending on the holiday season but apparently from my side at this moment things have gone quiet. Customers are either on holiday or delaying their PLM processes due to holidays or economical downturn. For that reason some unstructured thoughts

How PLM is Nokia ?

Two weeks ago I wrote a post about the problems found with the introduction of the new N97 phone from Nokia – see How PLM is NOKIA. As a victim of their NPI process I am still trying to understand their business reasons to be quiet in their responses. From the NOKIA forum, at this moment already 14 pages of discussion, there is no response from NOKIA, see GPS is cutting out on my N97. It is clear that NOKIA is following the discussion as the moderator has removed some posts, but no positive response from NOKIA’s side. Personally I believe a missed opportunity.

Interesting to see that NOKIA avoids to communicate around this problem. I can imagine keeping the problem silent at least does not alert people not using the GPS, from the other side, in times of crisis customer loyalty is probably something that assists a company in hard times.

PLM lesson learned: the costs of fixing problems once your product is in the field is dramatically higher as compared to the cost made during engineering. Did they do virtual testing ? Did they have a prototype phase ? Or was the product dumped into the market to compete with the iPhone ?

An interesting case to follow – anyone from NOKIA to comment ?

PLM Market Forecast Revised Downward.
V or a W-shape?

Another surprise was the report coming out from CIMdata where they mention that the initial growth expectation for PLM needs to be adjusted – see PLM Market Forecast Revised Downward.

In March, the research house had predicted 3.8% year-over-year growth in 2009 and 6.3% compound annual growth over the next five years — which would have pushed the market to $36 billion in revenue in 2013. Stating in a mid-year report released this week that “the global economic situation has been even more severe than anticipated,” the PLM consulting and research firm said it circled back to include data from the first half of 2009 in its figuring.

CIMdata revised its forecast for the PLM software market in 2009 and beyond, saying it now expects a decline of 2.1% in 2009 from 2008 revenue levels and a 3.5% compound annual growth rate from 2009 to 2013, to just under $31 billion in 2013. The company estimated the 2009 market at $25 billion.

The article contains some more interesting details, as it is also mentions virtual manufacturing, which I believe is one of the key benefits of PLM. I see it as one of the competitive advantages many companies should pursue to cut costs even though it requires an investment and change of work ( real PLM implementation)

This brought me to the good (or relative good) news. According to the first optimistic signs we have had our worst point of the recession and things can only go better – this are the V-shape believers. After the downturn we will continue as before.

The more pessimistic analysts say we are in a W-shaped recession. Although things are getting better, we will fall back again and recover later, perhaps in 2010.

Both might be right, but what I see is that either end of 2009 or end of 2010 the estimates are that PLM is back in focus. Will this be business as usual or did companies take the opportunity to modernize themselves towards PLM ? The CIMdata reports suggest the opposite, in my post Economical Crisis and PLM – YES WE CAN I tried to explain that investing now in PLM brings an advantage for the future. Companies that now do not look or investigate in PLM might come in a more difficult situation when the economical growth starts again. As the focus will be than on the old business, the chance for management attention and focus on PLM might become too low. Companies that currently invest in PLM take obviously more risk at this time, but will already reap the benefits faster

PLM, PLM 2.0 or a new PLM ?

Another interesting and ongoing discussion is the discussion where PLM is heading. Where in mid-market companies the discussion often is around the need for PLM beyond CAD data management and ERP, others are already visionary talking about the new PLM, which is based on people, social networking and communities.  Look at Vuuch and discussions on PLMTwine and Tech-Clarity. Main question here how will people change, will it be the new workforce that naturally replaces the old workforce and while replacing introduces new ways of PLM or will it be a concept driven from the big enterprises as a new wave of PLM  ? I believe this will become more clear when the economy picks up again and companies might have the bandwidth again for some experiments in this area.

Meanwhile I stay on my island