How to get users excited or more committed to a new PLM system?

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.