This time a little provocative title, which I hope will give some feedback from those who claim PLM brings INNOVATION. In one of my earlier posts, I talked about PLM – what is the target and also acted as an advocate for innovation.
Now after hearing PLM and INNOVATION mentioned the past two weeks everywhere as a logical combination, I started to question myself is this is just marketing ?
In this post I will act as the advocate of the devil.
Two weeks ago I attended the PLM Innovation congress, where first of all these two words were accepted by the audience as obvious linked together PLM INNOVATION. I participated in three sessions where INNOVATION was the topic. Charles Gagnon from Hydro Quebec talked about open innovation, but mentioned Hydro Quebec did not use any tool to manage INNOVATION so also not PLM. Peter Fassbender talked about the innovative approach to connect to the outside world using crowd sourcing and social media, but again no mentioning about PLM. Finally Christian Verstraete held an appeal for INNOVATION, urging everyone to think outside the box (did he mean outside the PLM box? Anyway no mentioning of PLM contribution)
Autodesk´s CEO Carl Bass talked about The New Rules of INNOVATION at TEDx and in the first part of his speech he is making the same statement that I would make related to PLM – see video:
Some quotes from his speech:
“Innovation is fundamentally not a corporate phenomena. Innovation involves taking risks and involves breaking the rules. And companies aren’t particularly good at that. In fact let´s say that it is just the opposite: companies are good in making rules and minimizing risk”
and quoting the author of The Innovator´s Dilemma Clayton Christensen:
“The lack of innovation is not the failure of companies but rather the result of prudent and sound management”
Autodesk
A week later Autodesk PLM 360 is launched. Again a PLM system that is bringing rules and structure, but apparently so far not affecting INNOVATION as we can see in one of the videos that came with the launch.
Unfortunate the above video is only a teaser to get to the Autodesk Facebook page where, if you like them, you will be rewarded with access. A modern way of marketing: Only if you like us, we will tell you what we like.
Sanjeev Pal believes PLM is a business strategy that helps companies to reach their INNOVATION goals. Tom Grant starts with: “INNOVATION is really the word to focus on. At the heart of PLM is INNOVATION”. Later he states that probably one of the problems in PLM is the M (the Management part) that misleads the mind shifting in the wrong direction (against user acceptance and involvement’) and he prefers to call it more enablement instead of management. Somehow the conclusion is that PLM supports INNOVATION by bringing products faster to market. Does this mean PLM is the vehicle of bringing new innovations to the market ? Instead of creating a platform for INNOVATION?
STATS: Autodesk PLM + Innovation: 199.000 hits on Google
Once you have struggled like me to find the roundtable discussion and its content, let´s look at other PLM vendors in alphabetical order:
Aras
Aras INNOVATOR– the word INNOVATOR it is already in the name but when you read more clearly what is stated at the Aras website, you see the word INNOVATOR is more targeting themselves (the software / the delivery model) instead of customer oriented INNOVATION. There the message is more about streamlining and connecting people and businesses (efficiency / collaboration). So not much INNOVATION here related to PLM is my conclusion
STATS: Aras + Innovation: 11.200.000 hits on Google
Dassault Systèmes
When looking for Dassault Systèmes and INNOVATION I found an interesting statement on their website.
Dassault Systems launched its Passion for Innovation program in 2005. The program is based on a simple guiding principle: it is often the case that outstanding ideas do not come to fruition due to lack of appropriate resources. At Dassault Systèmes, all employees are free to install CATIA on their workstation. The idea of the program is to provide this opportunity to everyone
Is INNOVATION a result of the CAD tool ? not related to PLM ? I am sure there must a better story – but where is it ? There is a lot of talk about innovation, but related to PLM ?
STATS: Dassault Systèmes+ Innovation 1.340.000 hits on Google
Oracle Agile PLM
Oracle Agile PLM has a clear statement how they support INNOVATION:
Accelerate innovation through ideation management and collaboration, product portfolio management and analytics, data consolidation and cleansing, and a rich enterprise product record
I am not sure from this statement if we know the source wrote it. Marketing or a serious attempt to describe how Agile supports INNOVATION. I would love to learn a refined statement here that I understand.
STATS: Oracle PLM + Innovation: 150.000 hits on Google
PTC
PTC does not give a direct association with INNOVATION. When I searched for PTC and INNOVATION the first suggestion was: Did you mean HTC INNOVATION ?
Also when searching the PTC website, INNOVATION was hard to find. Interesting I noticed that the first main tab on the left was Discover our software capabilities. I was expecting that PTC like most PLM vendors would start from the business and not from the products.
STATS: PTC + Innovation 3.450.000 hits on Google
SAP PLM
On the SAP PLM website I found a tab called Innovation Management and here SAP PLM gave a clear explanation which practices contribute to INNOVATION Management. SAP mentions here:
- Strategy and planning
- Managing innovative ideas
- Program and project management
- Portfolio management
As I expected SAP will not hint in any direction towards CAD tools and their focus is mainly on the management side. I would love to learn the part of managing innovative ideas as this is the challenging part. Ideas and management ?
STATS: SAP PLM + Innovation 131.000 hits on Google
Siemens PLM
On the Siemens PLM website you have to search for INNOVATION and when you do a search, you are mainly directed to blog articles, The word-cloud next to the blog did not show the word INNOVATION in bold, showing it is not a common used word. Digging deeper, I found a blog post related to an Innovation Leadership Summit, which suggests again there is a relation between PLM and INNOVATION. The closest match I found here was:
The HBR survey found that enterprises rely on PLM and IT to manage all this complexity, including new sustainability and regulatory requirements. PLM solutions track the ideation process, monitor progress, identify laggard projects, and facilitate collaboration. Leading organizations leverage PLM to improve new product development processes and outcomes
That´s all. So my conclusion here is that also Siemens PLM not naturally connects PLM and Innovation.
STATS: Siemens PLM + Innovation 901.000 hits on Google
Common rumors
Without mentioning names, I hear stories from PLM implementations (or should I call it extended PDM implementations) that have created such a massive lock-in on the current state of the company, that changing the processes or innovating is almost a mission impossible. Exact what Clayton Christensen mentions in his Innovator´s Dilemma.
So having played the devil´s advocate role, I hope I made my statement that there is no real relation between PLM and INNOVATION despite it seems these two words are mentioned together as if they are linked.
Call for action
Therefore I challenge all vendors and companies that have a proven relation between PLM and INNOVATION to come to this debate and make their statement.
Where are the mythbusters that will crack the statement:
PLM has nothing to do with INNOVATION?
Looking forward to your responses.
Jos Voskuil's Weblog 
9 comments
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March 3, 2012 at 11:24 pm
Dick Bourke
Good show, ole chap. Well written.
Thanks Dick, your opinion: is there a significant link between PLM and Innovation ?
Best Regards Jos
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March 5, 2012 at 1:38 pm
Dejan Vitorovic
This lack of arguments that support the connection between the PLM and innovation is surprising but absolutely amazing discovery. Since the age of the early dawn of the PLM which might feel very close to the age of the dinosaurs you could find those 2 words close to each other… I will try to contribute with my 50 cents on how PLM scenarios can support or stimulate the innovation.
To produce a winning product the innovation is a necessity… Innovation has many faces though. It is not necessarily totally new idea or technology. It can be a usage of one or the couple of old ideas/technologies in a new way (according to TRIZ there are only 40 of those). One of scenarios where PLM helps creativity is easiness of reuse of already existing solutions and creating “something new”. This is very easily done with PLM. Except this you will have a possibility to comprehend and manage changes – probably the most important part of the innovation process.
Let us take another simple example (I am apologizing in advance to the readers under age of 30 for not necessarily being able to connect here ). Compare the difference between using CAD tool and drawing board. CAD does not make you more creative as a designer but can help you make changes and concentrate on the important issues not needing to manually update how the adding of a specific geometry affects everything around it and not to talk about understanding the effect on stress analysis. Add to that, the layer of document-, project-, requirements- and portfolio management… and I will not take your time explaining the analogy between the CAD example above and the last mentioned ones. Having tools for those areas bring more order, eliminates the obvious mistakes and encourages testing of different approaches when facing a problem i.e stimulates the innovation.
The biggest strength is when you like in Dassault Systemes V6 can interconnect seamlessly between all the above mentioned areas, being able to perform cross-functional analyses, set the conditions between those and run tests scenarios on the single platform. This will give you strong platform to base your decision on – and this hits the target right in the middle – “renew and change” are the fundamentals of innovation.
In many cases the complexity of the products/problems would make the innovation collapse or would be extremely difficult and expensive to test the feasibility of the new concepts without the PLM.
So in my opinion the myth is BUSTED: PLM will definitely make you use your time and resources more effectively which will give you the potential to be more focused and innovative.
Thanks Dejan for being the first and for breaking the myth.
I understand you see PLM as an enabler to work more efficient, to have more and complete information when analyzing / defining new concepts and even by working more efficient, people can focus even more time on innovation. Looking forward how other vendors or PLM INNOVATION advocates will answer the case
Best regards
Jos
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March 6, 2012 at 9:29 am
Bhushan Teli
HI Jos,
I agree Dejan Vitorovic on
” PLM will definitely make you use your time and resources more effectively”
I have been associated with diffrent PLM platform more than 5 yrs & in diffrent roles but I have not noticed INNOVATION through PLM.
PLM has it’s own benifits but nothing direcly related to INNOVATION.
PLM & INNOVATION is just the Marketing Tag line nothing more than that
Regards,
Bhushan Teli
Thanks Bhushan – so you are supporting both statements. Dejan stating you have more time for innovation by working more eficient and my statement PLM and INNOVATION are just connected by marketing
Best regards
Jos
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March 6, 2012 at 8:01 pm
Adrian Mack
Per Wiki – Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society. Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a new idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself.
While::::
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, process or discovery.
Briefly PLM – A business strategy that assists ” firms” plan and achieve product-process innovation.
Word is Firms or organizations not individuals not invention.
Unfortunately, people from countries with English as second language will misunderstand it quickly.
Unfortunately – Carl is saying the right things, but he is not saying it in terms of PLM strategy that has defined rules to innovate with products for firms with sole purpose of making profit.
Now practical talk: –
As consumer of PLM “applications” my strategy is to bring new products or enhancing my current products or processes or innovation but not invention, it can be limited to use of CAD or CAE or any collaborative product or process life-cycle management application. I may not need the entire end-to-end PLM suite which includes design authoring to end of life software applications.
The Question we should be asking – Why PLM strategy helps innovate? Have consumers of PLM “applications” any proof to innovate? The answer is yes, unfortunately comments is not the place to put it all here. But I would say as a consumer of PLM, I am least interested in what are the meanings of innovation or invention. I just care, if I can produce better or more effective products that the market will accept and I am able to do so with my suite of PLM applications by re using existing data within defined rules.
Adrian thanks for comments. I understand from you theoretical introduction that even for the word innovation there is a reason for discussion about its meaning. Also consulting an English dictionary give different opinion. But as I agree with you we are not interested in the exact definition but more in understanding the relation between PLM and what is understood by Innovation. Am I making the right conclusion that by using PLM praktices you claim it helps you to bring Innovation to the market and for that reason you believe PLM and INNOVATION are connected ?
Best regards
Jos
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March 8, 2012 at 2:33 am
Adrian Mack
Look at Oxford Dictionary. This will make you re-think. – Changes in something established by introducing new products ===PLM
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/innovate?region=us&q=innovate
verb
[no object]
make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products:
the company’s failure to diversify and innovate competitively
[with object] introduce (something new, especially a product):
innovating new products, developing existing ones
Adrian thanks for your academic proof. Apparently you are one of the few reacting on this post’s provocative title
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March 8, 2012 at 11:50 pm
Kirk McGahey
Not speaking for Siemens PLM, but as a customer facing employee, I find the conclusion that “… Siemens PLM not naturally connects PLM and Innovation” comes across as a hasty generalization, especially when based on a simple web site search.
For years, our tag line was “Managing the Process of Innovation”, meaning our customer’s innovation. The ethos behind this statement has long been deeply embedded in our culture, and still is.
“Innovation” absent real life context conjures up a fond image of two buddies toiling away in their garage, deep into the night. This isn’t exactly what we encounter in the field, at least not the garage part.
To my PLM customers, innovation doesn’t end with the creativity applied to the form and function of a great, new product. It’s extends out to making the right product profitably in an increasingly complex, dynamic and treacherous global marketplace. This inevitably means internal heavy lifting, such as reversing cultural inertia, dismantling costly processes, and securing support amid the trepidation that accompanies any major transition.
Vision, sound leadership, skill, intelligence, commitment, enthusiasm, perseverance and teamwork are all essential to innovation, and to every successful PLM initiative. Conversely, the absence of any of these qualities, not PLM, will kill innovation, and ultimately the business.
The product development environment my customers work in sounds harsh and unforgiving only because it is. PLM, properly used, merely enables them to make the going tougher still for their competition.
Thanks Kirk for your statement and I am glad you made your plea for PLM and Innovation.
As you can imagine my post was intended to be provocative as this is what I hear from people in the field – PLM is blocking Innovation. I played the role of the devil´s advocate and I am glad you gave some of the arguments I would made also to defend PLM and Innovation.
Best regards
Jos
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March 26, 2012 at 9:51 pm
George Hielscher
Jos – great topic, and you are getting wonderful, thought-provoking comments.
I believe PLM aids innovation in several ways. I agree with Kirk, and might be just restating what he said, but with a very different perspective (as a PLM implementor and application developer).
1) Formalization of Data and Process Relationships
PLM helps us clean up our processes and data by formalizing relationships between them. Standard business processes that have been done for decades can sometimes be replaced by real-time database searches due to the expanded data and relationships in the PLM database. Just the effort of formalizing and consolidating processes and relationships across many organizations helps identify tasks and data that can be eliminated.
I am often surprised by how much work is done by one department to collect and package data (from CAD models and CAE analyses), which is then passed to another department, extracted into a different data organization and dissected to feed to next set of processes. The extensive data and process relationships in the PLM database allow triggers in the database and workflow model to initiate the next set of processes.
2) Process Automation Reduces Distractions
PLM, with the extensive data and process relationships, allows automation of the tedious, straightforward tasks. The users spend less time and energy on tedious tasks such as identifying the person responsible for a specific task (for example, the person responsible to solve a specific type of conflict in the design, for a given system, discipline and physical location). The users can think at a higher level, can immediately see the impacts of a change, and can focus more on the creative ideas. In other words, users focus more of their attention on innovation.
3) Who knows?
Innovation can come from almost anywhere. But after the initial creative idea, often prompted by a new perspective on the old data, innovation requires a lot of good information and hard work. The PLM database provides the information needed for innovation, and provides the tool to apply the new perspective. (The same hard work is still required.)
My conclusion – PLM, when fully implemented, will be one of the biggest enablers of innovation that we have ever seen (for large companies). The PLM database (which may be an interacting collection of databases from various tools) will enable and promote innovation in complex collections of processes and products.
Thanks George and I agree with your statements as you might be able to discover from my later post: PLM and Innovation
Best regards
Jos
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August 1, 2012 at 2:18 am
Set Sail
as practitioner of most CADs and most PLMs in the past decade in two discrete manufacturing companies where new product development is the only way to prosper, in my humble opinion I would say:
1. the only support to Innovation is provided by 3D Direct modeling, 3D printing and digital mock-ups. These allow the particular smart out of the box engineer (an extremely rare individual) to PLAY with different design intents, get inspiration from similar objects, delete everything and start fromscratch again and again until the ah-ah moment when s/he is the able to focus the design intent in a CAD model and possibly a physical object.
2. provided us boring old executives approve such amazing innovation (one good reason to change company is to move to risk taking ones) , then it is the duty of scores of other very disciplined engineers to execute all those steps required to bring the first idea / prototype into a real, cost effective, robust, maintanable product. Here, give them PLM and your chances of succes are higher. Give them an erp …and you save the money.
a jolly good reason to look into PTC is NOT their PLM, rather their direct modeling with creo.
Dear Set Sail (nice alias) thanks for your feedback as it somehow demonstrates the misconceptions that exist. Invention does not come from the CAD tool and Innovation, the process of bringing inventions to the market is more than a 3D virtual product (or 3D printed product). I agree with you that in many mid-market companies (specially the one that exist for many years – risk and innovation are not on the agenda of the older exec management – why to do things different and risk the last years of my carreer might be a consideration.
Still I believe Invention comes from the individual that understands the best a customer demand/dream and by combining information from different disciplines comes to hsi/her idea. So far no tools used, although you might use tools to understand market and customer trends. Next comes the discussion if this idea is going to be worth to invest in, compare it to startup companies, many fail and a few become successful – still investors fund all of them till a certain level – portfolio management is the key here.
And then when you have the right idea it need to go to market as fast as possible. 3D CAD and 3D printing can help you to analyze, simulation and improve the product and shorten the iterations in the development cycle. But bringing a product to the market means so much more, also chosing the right suppliers, manufacturer location(s) etc. This are all related activities required to bring a product to the market. As said many times before – it starts with people, then the processes to enable people to do their work supported by tools.
Best regards
Jos
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August 1, 2012 at 11:08 pm
Set Sail
Thanks Jos, I guess we agree on two fundamental aspects: the SUPPORT provided by some tools, and the INDIVIDUAL being the fundamental ingredient for innovation.
My alias stems from being a Sailor that turned CIO that turned boss of Operations (inc. Engineering) and Customer Care, and thus having to set sail properly for real first, and metaphorically later 🙂
At our medium sized 1,200 people we only have 4 that really innovate our product lines, and find it interesting their first two steps has not IT involvement at all.
First they ask WHY ? is a given process not improvable in some manner or fashion, then they ask WHAT ? they can do to solve that demand, problem, dream and soon after direct modeling kicks into action as it is fast. Once their design intent is defined in a virtual model or scaled down physical one, or real one, then they pass the ball.
This is certainly not a universal recipe but has worked for this company for 40 years, not too bad.
Thanks for your blog, precious
Thanks for your feedback and giving some insight how your company works and probably many company rely of the few individuals that challenge themselves all the time – the strength of many mid-market companies – success
Jos
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