This Friday, February 26th, we had a PLM Green Global Alliance (PGGA) core team meeting to discuss our current status and next steps for 2021. If you are a PGGA member, you joined us because of the PLM Green Global Alliance LinkedIn group. The LinkedIn group is currently our primary channel for social interaction with the outside world.

Meanwhile, in the background, Rich McFall has been working on structuring the PLM Green Alliance website, which you can find here.

The PLM Green Alliance website is the place where we consolidate information and will experiment with forum discussions. LinkedIn is not the place to serve as an archive for information. Neither is LinkedIn a place for discussion on sensitive topics. Viewpoints on LinkedIn might even damage your current or future career if you have a controversial opinion. More about the forum discussions soon.

The PLM Green Alliance website

Therefore, the PLM Green Alliance website will be the place where interested parties can obtain information and active members can participate in forum discussions.
As a reminder, all our actions are related to PLM and PLM-related technologies – a niche environment bringing PLM-related skills and a Green and Sustainable society together.

Our actions are driven by a personal interest to contribute. With the limited time and means, we are aware of the differences with more prominent and professional organizations addressing a much broader scope and audience.

What makes us unique is the focus on PLM and PLM-related practices/technologies.

The PLM Green Themes

Although the website is still under development, our intentions become visible through the home page header.  I want to zoom in on the area where we are currently focusing, the PLM Green Themes.

We decided on five PLM Green Themes, with each of them having their dedicated moderation and focus. Although the themes can overlap, they will help us to specialize and dive deeper into specific topics.

PLM and Climate Change

You might argue PLM and its related technologies do not directly impact activities related to climate change. However, as the moderators of this theme group, Klaus Brettschneider, and Richard McFall state:

The goal of this PLM Green discussion forum and working group on Climate Change is to promote activities to understand, analyze and reduce human-generated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through PLM-enabling technologies. We hope to help to answer the question of what the role and value of PLM technologies is in addressing the most critical challenge facing humankind this century, climate change.

And although there are still individuals with other opinions, the group will focus on the targeted outcome: reducing greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. What are the types of innovations that make this possible? Find interesting posts here and start contributing.

PLM and Sustainability

This theme will be moderated by me, Jos Voskuil. We are still looking for one or more volunteers to extend our capabilities here.

The topic of sustainability is again broad, as you can read on the Sustainability theme page.
To be more precise, the page states:

Specific topics we wish to discuss further in this forum include how PLM can be used to:

  • Make products and processes more efficient and greener.
  • Understand and measure the impact on the carbon footprint of design decisions and production processes, along with changes to them.
  • Develop, distribute, and use new sources of renewable green energy.
  • Design products and their lifecycles to be sustainable.
  • Recycle, reuse, or repurpose assets, materials, and natural resources.
  • Enhance the resiliency and Sustainability of infrastructures, communities, and economies.

In my early 2021 survey asked participants their viewpoint on PLM and Sustainability. As you can see from the scores, the majority of us are currently observing what is happening.

One of the interesting “other” responses I highlighted here: “I am not sure if you mean real sustainability or just greenwashing.”

Good point. Greenwashing is needed when you know you have something to fix/hide. We are not fixing or hiding; we will discuss and share information and probably dismantle greenwashing attempts.

PLM and Green Energy

Green energy is an important topic on its own as many of the issues related to a green and sustainable society are dealing with the transition from limited fossil energy sources to a sustainable energy model. The moderator of this theme group, Bjorn Fidjeland, is well known for his skills and coaching on PLM in the context of Plant Lifecycle Management through his PLMpartner website.

Of course, we are looking for an additional moderator to support Bjorn, so feel free to contact Bjorn through the website if you can and want to contribute. The theme group objectives are:

…. to share experiences, examples, and best practices in a collaborative mode to promote discussion, learning, and understanding with respect to the mentioned focus areas. We also plan to publish our own “industry heads up” news, articles and case studies illustrating all that is happening in the global race towards “going green” and a low-carbon economy.

PLM and a Circular Economy

As the Circular Economy is itself an innovation, it provides an opportunity to innovate business models and reimagine how we consider something to be a product, a service, or a product as a service. Similarly, a more circular way of thinking requires different expectations when it comes to Information Technology systems, including PLM, that support the enablement of these new business models and the execution of their commercial strategies.

This theme group is currently moderated by a real passionate follower of the Circular Economy, Hannes Lindfred, and also here we are looking to another volunteer.

A year ago, I saw Hannes Lindfred presentation at the TECHNIA PLM Innovation Forum and wrote about his lecture as one of the highlights from the first day.

See my blog post: The Weekend after the PLM Innovation Forum, where I mention his session in the Business drivers for Sustainable Manufacturing paragraph.

The circular economy framework nicely aligns with concepts like “Product as a Service” or Outcome-based services. The original manufacturer becomes responsible for the full lifecycle of their products. A theme group, I expect we can make a lot of progress through sharing.

Accordingly, the main objective within our theme discussion group is to provide a support network for PLM professionals who seek to overcome the legacy linear economy mindset that may be systemic in their jobs, products, employers, or industries. We hope to incite the development and use of road maps for employing both existing and new PLM technologies to implement Circular Economy principles and best practices.

 

PLM and Industry 4.0

A topic that is closely related to PLM is Industry 4.0. At first glance, Industry 4.0 is an initiative to manufacture products smarter, more flexible, more automated, more modular by using new technologies and practices, all with the goal for (initially German) companies to become more competitive.

We are pleased that the PLM and Industry 4.0 theme group’s moderator is Lionel Grealou, quite active in the area of knowledge sharing related to PLM. A second moderator would be more than welcome too for this theme.

Recently Lionel published this interesting article on engineering.com: Exploring the Intersection of PLM and Industry 4.0. In this article, Lionel touches briefly on the potential contribution of Industry 4.0 towards a circular economy, new business models, and waste reduction, thanks to the interaction of PLM and Industry 4.0.  There is a lot to explore, as Lionel states on the theme group introduction page:

This PLM Green theme group’s plan will explore the “intersection” of how PLM strategies and technologies enable the vision of Industry 4.0 for a more sustainable circular economy. In doing so, we plan to investigate the following questions concerning their green value:

  • How do data and product connectivity contribute to feeding smart factories and enhancing the product lifecycle practice?
  • How to improve feedback loops and data integration upstream-downstream of new product development to contribute positively to the circular economy?
  • How to drive downstream waste reduction by improving data traceability and accessibility with better product analytics throughout its lifecycle?
  • How to link more tightly manufacturing planning and execution?
  • How to more robustly connect and integrate engineering, manufacturing, and service/maintenance process operations?
  • How to reduce time to market, with both product development and production cost optimization, integrating co-creation from the design office to the shop floor?
  • How to align the digital and the physical worlds, delivering more customer-centric products enabled by fully horizontally-integrated PLM strategies, taking an ecosystem approach to collaboration, leveraging more agile and continual release processes?
  • How to reduce pre-launch costs and generate downstream manufacturing improvements?

Much more to do.

As you can see, the PLM Green Global Alliance is transforming slowly, as we are not marketing people, web designers, or a sponsored organization. We rely on our networks and your inputs to reach the next level of interaction. The majority of the PLM Themes need a second moderator to keep the workload balanced.

Do you want to contribute?

In the core team meeting, we also discussed improving ways to make the PLM Green Alliance more interactive, shifting and balancing the LinkedIn group’s activities and the persistent PLM Green Alliance website.

Conclusion

As a person, I cannot do big things for our future society; however, I can do small things. And if we all make sure our “small things” are directed to the same outcome, we achieve big things without a revolution. Be part of the active PLM Global Green Alliance with your small things.