In my last post, I zoomed in on a preferred technical architecture for the future digital enterprise. Drawing the conclusion that it is a mission impossible to aim for a single connected environment. Instead, information will be stored in different platforms, both domain-oriented (PLM, ERP, CRM, MES, IoT) and value chain oriented (OEM, Supplier, Marketplace, Supply Chain hub).

In part 3, I posted seven statements that I will be discussing in this series. In this post, I will zoom in on point 2:

Data-driven does not mean we do not need any documents anymore. Read electronic files for documents. Likely, document sets will still be the interface to non-connected entities, suppliers, and regulatory bodies. These document sets can be considered a configuration baseline.

 

System of Record and System of Engagement

In the image below, a slide from 2016,  I show a simplified view when discussing the difference between the current, coordinated approach and the future, connected approach.  This picture might create the wrong impression that there are two different worlds – either you are document-driven, or you are data-driven.

In the follow-up of this presentation, I explained that companies need both environments in the future. The most efficient way of working for operations will be infrastructure on the right side, the platform-based approach using connected information.

For traceability and disconnected information exchanges, the left side will be there for many years to come. Systems of Record are needed for data exchange with disconnected suppliers, disconnected regulatory bodies and probably crucial for configuration management.

The System of Record will probably remain as a capability in every platform or cross-section of platform information. The Systems of Engagement will be the configured real-time environment for anyone involved in active company processes, not only ERP or MES, all execution.

Introducing SysML and SML

This summer, I received a copy of Martin Eigner’s System Lifecycle Management book, which I am reading at his moment in my spare moments. I always enjoyed Martin’s presentations. In many ways, we share similar ideas. Martin from his profession spent more time on the academic aspects of product and system lifecycle than I. But, on the other hand, I have always been in the field observing and trying to make sense of what I see and learn in a coherent approach. I am halfway through the book now, and for sure, I will come back on the book when I have finished.

A first impression: A great and interesting book for all. Martin and I share the same history of data management. Read all about this in his second chapter: Forty Years of Product Data Management

From PDM via PLM to SysLM, is a chapter that everyone should read when you haven’t lived it yourself. It helps you to understand the past (Learning for the past to understand the future). When I finish this series about the model-based and connected approach for products and systems, Martin’s book will be highly complementary given the content he describes.

There is one point for which I am looking forward to is feedback from the readers of this blog.

Should we, in our everyday language, better differentiate between Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and System Lifecycle Management(SysLM)?

In some customer situations, I talk on purpose about System Lifecycle Management to create the awareness that the company’s offering is more than an electro/mechanical product. Or ultimately, in a more circular economy, would we use the term Solution Lifecycle Management as not only hardware and software might be part of the value proposition?

Martin uses consistently the abbreviation SysLM, where I would prefer the TLA SLM. The problem we both have is that both abbreviations are not unique or explicit enough. SysLM creates confusion with SysML (for dyslectic people or fast readers). SLM already has so many less valuable meanings: Simulation Lifecycle Management, Service Lifecycle Management or Software Lifecycle Management.

For the moment, I will use the abbreviation SLM, leaving it in the middle if it is System Lifecycle Management or Solution Lifecycle Management.

 

How to implement both approaches?

In the long term, I predict that more than 80 percent of the activities related to SLM will take place in a data-driven, model-based environment due to the changing content of the solutions offered by companies.

A solution will be based on hardware, the solid part of the solution, for which we could apply a BOM-centric approach. We can see the BOM-centric approach in most current PLM implementations. It is the logical result of optimizing the product lifecycle management processes in a coordinated manner.

However, the most dynamic part of the solution will be covered by software and services. Changing software or services related to a solution has completely different dynamics than a hardware product.

Software and services implementations are associated with a data-driven, model-based approach.

The management of solutions, therefore, needs to be done in a connected manner. Using the BOM-centric approach to manage software and services would create a Kafkaesque overhead.

Depending on your company’s value proposition to the market, the challenge will be to find the right balance. For example, when you keep on selling “disconnected” hardware, there is probably no need to change your internal PLM processes that much.

However, when you are moving to a “connected” business model providing solutions (connected systems / Outcome-based services), you need to introduce new ways of working with a different go-to-market mindset. No longer linear, but iterative.

A McKinsey concept, I have been promoting several times, illustrates a potential path – note the article was not written with a PLM mindset but in a business mindset.

What about Configuration Management?

The different datasets defining a solution also challenge traditional configuration management processes. Configuration Management (CM) is well established in the aerospace & defense industry. In theory, proper configuration management should be the target of every industry to guarantee an appropriate performance, reduced risk and cost of fixing issues.

The challenge, however, is that configuration management processes are not designed to manage systems or solutions, where dynamic updates can be applied whether or not done by the customer.

This is a topic to solve for the modern Connected Car (system) or Connected Car Sharing (solution)

For that reason, I am inquisitive to learn more from Martijn Dullaart’s presentation at the upcoming PLM Roadmap/PDT conference. The title of his session: The next disruption please …

In his abstract for this session, Martijn writes:

From Paper to Digital Files brought many benefits but did not fundamentally impact how Configuration Management was and still is done. The process to go digital was accelerated because of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Forced to work remotely was the disruption that was needed to push everyone to go digital. But a bigger disruption to CM has already arrived. Going model-based will require us to reexamine why we need CM and how to apply it in a model-based environment. Where, from a Configuration Management perspective, a digital file still in many ways behaves like a paper document, a model is something different. What is the deliverable? How do you manage change in models? How do you manage ownership? How should CM adopt MBx, and what requirements to support CM should be considered in the successful implementation of MBx? It’s time to start unraveling these questions in search of answers.

One of the ideas I am currently exploring is that we need a new layer on top of the current configuration management processes extending the validation to software and services. For example, instead of describing every validated configuration, a company might implement the regular configuration management processes for its hardware.

Next, the systems or solutions in the field will report (or validate) their configuration against validation rules. A topic that requires a long discussion and more than this blog post, potentially a full conference.

Therefore I am looking forward to participating in the CIMdata/PDT FALL conference and pick-up the discussions towards a data-driven, model-based future with the attendees.  Besides CM, there are several other topics of great interest for the future. Have a look at the agenda here

 

Conclusion

A data-driven and model-based infrastructure still need to be combined with a coordinated, document-driven infrastructure.  Where the focus will be, depends on your company’s value proposition.

If we discuss hardware products, we should think PLM. When you deliver systems, you should perhaps talk SysML (or SLM). And maybe it is time to define Solution Lifecycle Management as the term for the future.

Please, share your thoughts in the comments.