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Last week I shared my thoughts related to my observation that the ROI of PLM is not directly visible or measurable, and I explained why. Also, I explained that the alignment of an organization requires a myth to make it happen. A majority of readers agreed with these observations. Some others either misinterpreted the headlines or twisted the story in favor of their opinion.
A few came from Oleg Shilovitsky and as Oleg is quite open in his discussions, it allows me to follow-up on his statements. Other people might share similar thoughts but they haven’t had the time or opportunity to be vocal. Feel free to share your thoughts/experiences too.
Some misinterpretations from Oleg’s post: PLM circa 2020 – How to stop selling Myths
- The title “How to stop selling Myths” is the first misinterpretation.
We are not selling myths – more below. - “Jos Voskuil’s recommendation is to create a myth. In his PLM ROI Myths article, he suggests that you should not work on a business case, value, or even technology” is the second misinterpretation, you still need a business case, you need value and you need technology.
And I got some feedback from Lionel Grealou, who’s post was a catalyst for me to write the PLM ROI Myth post. I agree I took some shortcuts based on his blog post. You can read his comments here. The misinterpretation is:
- “Good luck getting your CFO approve the business change or PLM investment based on some “myth” propaganda :-)” as it is the opposite, make your plan, support your plan with a business case and then use the myth to align
I am glad about these statements as they allow me to be more precise, avoiding misperceptions/myth-perceptions.
A Myth is bad
Some people might think that a myth is bad, as the myth is most of the time abstract. I think these people do not realize that there a lot of myths that they are following; it is a typical social human behavior to respond to myths. Some myths:
- How can you be religious without believing in myths?
- In this country/world, you can become anything if you want?
- In the past, life was better
- I make this country great again
The reason human beings need myths is that without them, it is impossible to align people around abstract themes. Try for each of the myths above to create an end-to-end logical story based on factual and concrete information. Impossible!
Read Yuval Harari’s book Sapiens about the power of myths. Read Steven Pinker’s book Enlightenment Now to understand that statistics show a lot of current myths are false. However, this does not mean a myth is bad. Human beings are driven by social influences and myths – it is our brain.
Unless you have no social interaction, you might be immune to myths. With brings me to quoting Oleg once more time:
“A long time ago when I was too naive and too technical, I thought that the best product (or technology) always wins. Well… I was wrong. “
I went through the same experience, having studied physics and mathematics makes you think extremely logical. Something I enjoyed while developing software. Later, when I started my journey as the virtualdutchman mediating in PLM implementations, I discovered logical alone does not work in businesses. The majority of decisions are done based on “gut feelings” still presented as reasonable cases.
Unless you have an audience of Vulcans, like Mr. Spock, you need to deal with the human brain. Consider the myth as the envelope to pass the PLM-project to the management. C-level acts by myths as so far I haven’t seen C-level management spending serious time on understanding PLM. I will end with a quote from Paul Empringham:
I sometimes wish companies would spend 6 months+ to educate themselves on what it takes to deliver incremental PLM success BEFORE engaging with software providers
You don’t need a business case
Lionel is also skeptical about some “Myth-propaganda” and I agree with him. The Myth is the envelope, inside needs to be something valuable, the strategy, the plan, and the business case. Here I want to stress one more time that most business cases for PLM are focusing on tool and collaboration efficiency. And from there projecting benefits. However, how well can we predict the future?
If you implement a process, let’s assume BOM-collaboration done with Excel by BOM-collaboration based on an Excel-on-the-cloud-like solution, you can measure the differences, assuming you can measure people’s efficiency. I guess this is what Oleg means when he explains OpenBOM has a real business case.
However, if you change the intent for people to work differently, for example, consult your supplier or manufacturing earlier in the design process, you touch human behavior. Why should I consult someone before I finish my job, I am measured on output not on collaboration or proactive response? Here is the real ROI challenge.
I have participated in dozens of business cases and at the end, they all look like the graph below:
The ROI is fantastic – after a little more than 2 years, we have a positive ROI, and the ROI only gets bigger. So if you trust the numbers, you would be a fool not to approve this project. Right?
And here comes the C-level gut-feeling. If I have a positive feeling (I follow the myth), then I will approve. If I do not like it, I will say I do not trust the numbers.
Needless to say that if there was a business case without ROI, we do not need to meet the C-level. Unless, and it happens incidental, at C-level, there was already a decision we need PLM from Vendor X because we played golf together, we are condemned together or we believe the same myths.
In reality, the old Gartner graph from realized benefits says it all. The impact of culture, processes, and people can make or break a plan.
You do not need an abstract story for PLM
Some people believe PLM on its own is a myth. You just need the right technology and people will start using it, spreading it out and see how we have improved business. Sometimes email is used as an example. Email is popular because you can with limited effort, collaborate with people, no matter where they are. Now twenty years later, companies are complaining about the lack of traceability, the lack of knowledge and understanding related to their products and processes.
PLM will always have the complexity of supporting traceability combined with real-time collaboration. If you focus only on traceability, people will complain that they are not a counter clerk. If you focus solely on collaboration, you miss the knowledge build-up and traceability.
That’s why PLM is a mix of governance, optimized processes to guarantee quality and collaboration, combined with a methodology to tune the existing processes implemented in tools that allow people to be confident and efficient. You cannot translate a business strategy into a function-feature list for a tool.
Conclusion
Myths are part of the human social alignment of large groups of people. If a Myth is true or false, I will not judge. You can use the Myth as an envelope to package your business case. The business case should always be a combination of new ways of working (organizational change), optimized processes and finally, the best tools. A PLM tool-only business case is to my opinion far from realistic
Now preparing for PI PLMx London on 3-4 February – discussing Myths, Single BOMs and the PLM Green Alliance
It’s the beginning of the year. Companies are starting new initiatives, and one of them is potentially the next PLM-project. There is a common understanding that implementing PLM requires a business case with ROI and measurable results. Let me explain why this understanding is a myth and requires a myth.
I was triggered by a re-post from Lionel Grealou, titled: Defining the PLM Business Case. Knowing Lionel is quite active in PLM and digital transformation, I was a little surprised by the content of the post. Then I noticed the post was from January 2015, already 5 years old. Clearly, the world has changed (perhaps the leadership has not changed).
So I took this post as a starting point to make my case.
In 2015, we were in the early days of digital transformation. Many PLM-projects were considered as traditional linear projects. There is the AS-IS situation, there is the TO-BE situation. Next, we know the (linear) path to the solution and we can describe the project and its expected benefits.
It works if you understand and measure exactly the AS-IS situation and know almost entirely the TO-BE situation (misperception #1).
However, implementing PLM is not about installing a new transactional system. PLM implementations deal with changing ways-of-working and therefore implementing PLM takes time as it is not just a switch of systems. Lionel was addressing this point:
“The inherent risks associated with any long term business benefit driven projects include the capability of the organization to maintain a valid business case with a benefit realization forecast that remains above the initial baseline. The more rework is required or if the program delivery slips, the more the business case gets eroded and the longer the payback period.”
Interestingly here is the mentioning “..the business case gets eroded” – this is most of the time the case. Lionel proposes to track business benefits. Also, he mentions the justification of the PLM-project could be done by considering PLM as a business transformation tool (misperception #2) or a way to mitigate risk,s due to unsupported IT-solutions (misperception #3).
Let’s dive into these misperceptions
#1 Compare the TO-BE and the AS-IS situation
Two points here.
- Does your company measure the AS-IS situation? Do you know how your company performs when it comes to PLM related processes? The percentage of time spent by engineers for searching for data has been investigated – however, PLM goes beyond engineering. What about product management, marketing, manufacturing, and service? Typical performance indicators mentioned are:
- Time To Market (can you measure?)
- Developing the right product – better market responsiveness (can you measure?)
- Multidisciplinary collaboration (can you measure?)
- Do you know the exact TO-BE situation? In particular, when you implement PLM, it is likely to be in the scope of a digital transformation. If you implement to automate and consolidate existing processes, you might be able to calculate the expected benefits. However, you do not want to freeze your organization’s processes. You need to implement a reliable product data infrastructure that allows you to enhance, change, or add new processes when required. In particular, for PLM, digital transformation does not have a clear target picture and scope yet. We are all learning.
#2 PLM is a business transformation tool
Imagine you install the best product innovation platform relevant for your business and selected by your favorite consultancy firm. It might be a serious investment; however, we are talking about the future of the company, and the future is in digital platforms. So nothing can go wrong now.
Does this read like a joke? Yes, it is, however, this is how many companies have justified their PLM investment. First, they select the best tool (according to their criteria, according to their perception), and then business transformation can start. Later in time, the implementation might not be so successful; the vendor and/or implementer will be blamed. Read: The PLM blame game
When you go to PLM conferences, you will often hear the same mantras: Have a vision, Have C-level sponsoring/involved, No Big Bang, it is a business project, not an IT-project, and more. And vendor-sponsored sessions always talk about amazing fast implementations (or did they mean installing the POC ?)
However, most of the time, C-level approves the budget without understanding the full implications (expecting the tool will do the work); business is too busy or does not get enough allocated time to supporting implementation (expecting the tool will do the work). So often the PLM-project becomes an IT-project executed mainly by the cheapest implementation partner (expecting the tool will do the work). Again this is not a joke!
A business transformation can only be successful if you agree on a vision and a learning path. The learning path will expose the fact that future value streams require horizontal thinking and reallocation of responsibilities – breaking the silos, creating streams.
Small teams can demonstrate these benefits without disrupting the current organization. However, over time the new ways of working should become the standard, therefore requiring different types of skills (people), different ways of working (different KPIs and P&L for departments), and ultimate different tools.
As mentioned before, many PLM-projects start from the tools – a guarantee for discomfort and/or failure.
#3 – mitigate risks due to unsupported IT-solutions
Often PLM projects are started because the legacy environment becomes outdated. Either because the hardware infrastructure is no longer supported/affordable or the software code dependencies on the latest operating systems are no longer guaranteed.
A typical approach to solve this is a big-bang project – the new PLM system needs to contain all the old data and meanwhile, to justify the project, the new PLM system needs to bring additional business value. The latter part is most of the time not difficult to identify as traditional PLM implementations most of the time were in reality, cPDM environments with a focus on engineering only.
However, the legacy migration can have such a significant impact on the new PLM-system that it destroys the potential for the future. I wrote about this issue in The PLM Migration Dilemma
How to approach PLM ROI?
A PLM-project never will get a budget or approval from the board when there is no financial business case. Building the right financial business case for PLM is a skill that is often overlooked. During the upcoming PI PLMx London conference (3 – 4 February), I will moderate a Focus Group where we will discuss how to get PLM on the Exec’s agenda.
Two of my main experiences:
- Connect your PLM-project to the business strategy. As mentioned before, isolated PLM fails most of the time because business transformation, organizational change and the targeted outcome are not included. If PLM is not linked to an actual business strategy, it will be considered as a costly IT-project with all its bad connotations. Have a look at my older post: PLM, ROI and disappearing jobs
- Create a Myth. Perhaps the word Myth is exaggerated – it is about an understandable vision. Myth connects nicely to the observations from behavioral experts that our brain does not decide on numbers but by emotion. Big decisions and big themes in the world or in a company need a myth: “Make our company great again” could be the tagline. In such a case people get aligned without a deep understanding of what is the impact or business case; the myth will do the work – no need for a detailed business case. A typical human behavior, see also my post: PLM as a myth.
Conclusion
There should never be a business case uniquely for PLM – it should always be in the context of a business strategy requiring new ways of working and new tools. In business, we believe that having a solid business case is the foundation for success. Sometimes an overwhelming set of details and numbers can give the impression that the business case is solid. Consultancy firms are experts in this area to build a business case based on emotion. They know how to combine numbers with a myth. Therefore look at their approach – don’t be too technical / too financial. If the myth will hold, at the end depends on the people and organization, not on the investments in tools and services.
In my previous post, I shared my observations from the past 10 years related to PLM. It was about globalization and digitization becoming part of our daily business. In the domain of PLM, the coordinated approach has become the most common practice.
Now let’s look at the challenges for the upcoming decade, as to my opinion, the next decade is going to be decisive for people, companies and even our current ways of living. So let’s start with the challenges from easy to difficult
Challenge 1: Connected PLM
Implementing an end-to-end digital strategy, including PLM, is probably business-wise the biggest challenge. I described the future vision for PLM to enable the digital twin –How PLM, ALM, and BIM converge thanks to the digital twin.
Initially, we will implement a digital twin for capital-intensive assets, like satellites, airplanes, turbines, buildings, plants, and even our own Earth – the most valuable asset we have. To have an efficient digital continuity of information, information needs to be stored in connected models with shared parameters. Any conversion from format A to format B will block the actual data to be used in another context – therefore, standards are crucial. When I described the connected enterprise, this is the ultimate goal to be reached in 10 (or more) years. It will be data-driven and model-based
Getting to connected PLM will not be the next step in evolution. It will be disruptive for organizations to maintain and optimize the past (coordinated) and meanwhile develop and learn the future (connected). Have a look at my presentation at PLM Roadmap PDT conference to understand the dual approach needed to maintain “old” PLM and work on the future.
Interesting also my blog buddy Oleg Shilovitsky looked back on the past decade (here) and looked forward to 2030 (here). Oleg looks at these topics from a different perspective; however, I think we agree on the future quoting his conclusion:
PLM 2030 is a giant online environment connecting people, companies, and services together in a big network. It might sound like a super dream. But let me give you an idea of why I think it is possible. We live in a world of connected information today.
Challenge 2: Generation change
At this moment, large organizations are mostly organized and managed by hierarchical silos, e.g., the marketing department, the R&D department, Manufacturing, Service, Customer Relations, and potentially more.
Each of these silos has its P&L (Profit & Loss) targets and is optimizing itself accordingly. Depending on the size of the company, there will be various layers of middle management. Your level in the organization depends most of the time on your years of experience and visibility.
The result of this type of organization is the lack of “horizontal flow” crucial for a connected enterprise. Besides, the top of the organization is currently full of people educated and thinking linear/analog, not fully understanding the full impact of digital transformation for their organization. So when will the change start?
In particular, in modern manufacturing organizations, the middle management needs to transform and dissolve as empowered multidisciplinary teams will do the job. I wrote about this challenge last year: The Middle Management dilemma. And as mentioned by several others – It will be: Transform or Die for traditionally managed companies.
The good news is that the old generation is retiring in the upcoming decade, creating space for digital natives. To make it a smooth transition, the experts currently working in the silos will be missed for their experience – they should start coaching the young generation now.
Challenge 3: Sustainability of the planet.
The biggest challenge for the upcoming decade will be adapting our lifestyles/products to create a sustainable planet for the future. While mainly the US and Western Europe have been building a society based on unlimited growth, the effect of this lifestyle has become visible to the world. We consume with the only limit of money and create waste and landfill (plastics and more) form which the earth will not recover if we continue in this way. When I say “we,” I mean the group of fortunate people that grew up in a wealthy society. If you want to discover how blessed you are (or not), just have a look at the global rich list to determine your position.
Now thanks to globalization, other countries start to develop their economies too and become wealthy enough to replicate the US/European lifestyle. We are overconsuming the natural resources this earth has, and we drop them as waste – preferably not in our backyard but either in the ocean or at fewer wealth countries.
We have to start thinking circular and PLM can play a role in this. From linear to circular.
In my blog post related to PLM Roadmap/PDT Europe – day 1, I described Graham Aid’s (Ragn-Sells) session:
Enabling the Circular Economy for Long Term Prosperity.
He mentioned several examples where traditional thinking just leads to more waste, instead of starting from the beginning with a sustainable model to bring products to the market.
Combined with our lifestyle, there is a debate on how the carbon dioxide we produce influences the climate and the atmosphere. I am not a scientist, but I believe in science and not in conspiracies. So there is a problem. In 1970 when scientists discovered the effect of CFK on the Ozone-layer of the atmosphere, we ultimately “fixed” the issue. That time without social media we still trusted scientists – read more about it here: The Ozone hole
I believe mankind will be intelligent enough to “fix” the upcoming climate issues if we trust in science and act based on science. If we depend on politicians and lobbyists, we will see crazy measures that make no sense, for example, the concept of “biofuel.” We need to use our scientific brains to address sustainability for the future of our (single) earth.
Therefore, together with Rich McFall (the initiator), Oleg Shilovitsky, and Bjorn Fidjeland (PLM-peers), we launched the PLM Green Alliance, where we will try to focus on sharing ideas, discussion related to PLM and PLM-related technologies to create a network of innovative companies/ideas. We are in the early stages of this initiative and are looking for ways to make it an active alliance. Insights, stories, and support are welcome. More to come this year (and decade).
Challenge 4: The Human brain
The biggest challenge for the upcoming decade will be the human brain. Even though we believe we are rational, it is mainly our primitive brain that drives our decisions. Thinking Fast and Slow from Daniel Kahneman is a must-read in this area. Or Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that shape our decisions. Note: these books are “old” books from years ago. However, due to globalization and social connectivity, they have become actual.
Our brain does not like to waste energy. If we see the information that confirms our way of thinking, we do not look further. Social media like Facebook are using their algorithms to help you to “discover” even more information that you like. Social media do not care about facts; they care about clicks for advertisers. Of course, controversial headers or pictures get the right attention. Facts are no longer relevant, and we will see this phenomenon probably this year again in the US presidential elections.
The challenge for implementing PLM and acting against human-influenced Climate Change is that we have to use our “thinking slow” mode combined with a general trust in science. I recommend reading Enlightenment now from Steven Pinker. I respect Steven Pinker for the many books I have read from him in the past. Enlightenment Now is perhaps a challenging book to complete. However, it illustrates that a lot of the pessimistic thinking of our time has no fundamental grounds. As a global society, we have been making a lot of progress in the past century. You would not go back to the past anymore.
Back to PLM.
PLM is not a “wonder tool/concept,” and its success is mainly depending on a long-term vision, organizational change, culture, and then the tools. It is not a surprise that it is hard for our brains to decide on a roadmap for PLM. In 2015 I wrote about the similarity of PLM and acting against Climate Change – read it here: PLM and Global Warming
In the upcoming PI PLMx London conference, I will lead a Think Tank session related to Getting PLM on the Executive’s agenda. Getting PLM on an executive agenda is about connecting to the brain and not about a hypothetical business case only. Even at exec level, decisions are made by “gut feeling” – the way the human brain decides. See you in London or more about this topic in a month.
Conclusion
The next decade will have enormous challenges – more than in the past decades. These challenges are caused by our lifestyles AND the effects of digitization. Understanding and realizing our biases caused by our brains is crucial. There is no black and white truth (single version of the truth) in our complex society.
I encourage you to keep the dialogue open and to avoid to live in a silo.
Last week I shared the first impression from my favorite conference, the PLM Roadmap / PDT conference organized by CIMdata and Eurostep. You can read some of the highlights here: The weekend after PLM Roadmap / PDT 2019 Day 1.
Click on the logo to see what was the full agenda. In this post, I will focus on some of the highlights of day 2.
Chernobyl, The megaproject with the New Arch
Christophe Portenseigne from the Bouygues Construction Group shared with us his personal story about this megaproject, called Novarka. 33 years ago, reactor #4 exploded and has been confined with an object shelter within six months in 1986. This was done with heroic speed, and it was anticipated that the shelter would only last for 20 – 30 years. You can read about this project here.
The Novarka project was about creating a shelter for Confinement of the radioactive dust and protection of the existing against external actions (wind, water, snow…) for the next 100 years!
And even necessary, the inside the arch would be a plant where people could work safely on the process of decommissioning the existing contaminated structures. You can read about the full project here at the Novarka website.
What impressed me the most the personal stories of Christophe taking us through some of the massive challenges that need to be solved with innovative thinking. High complexity, a vast number of requirements, many parties, stakeholders involved closed in June 2019. As Christophe mentioned, this was a project to be proud of as it creates a kind of optimism that no matter how big the challenges are, with human ingenuity and effort, we can solve them.
A Model Factory for the Efficient Development of High Performing Vehicles
Eric Landel, expert leader for Numerical Modeling and Simulation at Renault, gave us an interesting insight into an aspect of digitalization that has become very valuable, the connection between design and simulation to develop products, in this case, the Renault CLIO V, as much as possible in the virtual world. You need excellent simulation models to match future reality (and tests). The target of simulation was to get the highest safety test results in the Europe NCAP rating – 5 stars.
The Renault modeling factory implemented a digital loop (below) to ensure that at the end of the design/simulation, a robust design would exist. Eric mentioned that for the Clio, they did not build a prototype anymore. The first physical tests were done on cars coming from the plant. Despite the investment in simulation software, a considerable saving in crash part over cost before TGA (Tooling Go Ahead).
Combined with the savings, the process has been much faster than before. From 10 weeks for a simulation loop towards 4 weeks. The next target is to reduce this time to 1 week. A real example of digitization and a connected model-based approach.
From virtual prototype to hybrid twin
ESI – their sponsor session Evolving from Virtual Prototype Testing to Hybrid Twin: Challenges & Benefits was an excellent complementary session to the presentation from Renault
PLM, MBSE and Supply chain – challenges and opportunities
Nigel Shaw’s presentation was one of my favorite presentations, as Nigel addressed the same topics that I have been discussing in the past years. His focus was on collaboration between the OEM and supplier with the various aspects of requirements management, configuration management, simulation and the different speeds of PLM (focus on mechanical) and ALM (focus on software)
How can such activities work in a digitally-connected environment instead of a document-based approach? Nigel looked into the various aspects of existing standards in their domains and their future. There is a direction to MBE (Model-Based Everything) but still topics to consider. See below:
I agree with Nigel – the future is model-based – when will be the issue for the market leaders.
The ISO AP239 ed3 Project and the Through Life Cycle Interoperability Challenge
Yves Baudier from AFNET, a reference association in France regarding industry digitation, digital threads, and digital processes for Extended Enterprise/Supply chain. All about a digital future and Yves presentation was about the interoperability challenge, mentioning three of my favorite points to consider:
- Data becoming more and more a strategic asset – as digitalization of Industry and Services, new services enabled by data analytics
- All engineering domains (from concept design to system end of life) need to develop a data-centric approach (not only model-centric)– An opportunity for PLM to cover the full life-cycle
- Effectivity and efficiency of data interoperability through the life-cycle is now an essential industry requirement – e.g., “virtual product” and “digital twin” concepts
All the points are crucial for the domain of PLM.
In that context, Yves discussed the evolution of the ISO 10303-239 standard, also known as PLCS. The target with ISO AP239 ed3 is to become the standard for Aerospace and Defense for the full product lifecycle and through this convergence being able to push IT/PLM Vendors to comply – crucial for a digital enterprise
Time for the construction / civil industry
Christophe Castaing, director of digital engineering at Egis, shared with us their solution framework to manage large infrastructure projects by focusing on both the Asset Information (BIM-based) and the collaborative processes between the stakeholders, all based on standards. It was a broad and in-depth presentation – too much to share in a blog post. To conclude (see also Christophe’s slide below) in the construction industry more and more, there is the desire to have a digital twin of a given asset (building/construction), creating the need for standard information models.
Pierre Benning, IT director from Bouygues Public Works gave us an update on the MINnD project. MINnD standing for Modeling INteroperable INformation for sustainable INfrastructures in xD, a French research project dedicated to the deployment of BIM and digital engineering in the infrastructure sector. Where BIM has been starting from the construction industry, there is a need for a similar, digital modeling approach for civil infrastructure. In 2014 Christophe Castaing already reported the activities of the MINnD project – see The weekend after PDT 2014. Now Pierre was updating us on what are the activities for MINnD Season 2 – see below:
As you can see, again, the interest in digital twins for operations and maintenance. Perhaps here, the civil infrastructure industry will be faster than traditional industries because of its enormous value. BIM and GIS reconciliation is a precise topic as many civil infrastructures have a GIS aspect – Road/Train infrastructure for example. The third bullet is evident to me. With digitization and the integration of contractors and suppliers, BIM and PLM will be more-and-more conceptual alike. The big difference still at this moment: BIM has one standard framework where PLM-standards are still not in a consolidation stage.
Digital Transformation for PLM is not an evolution
If you have been following my blog in the past two years, you may have noticed that I am exploring ways to solve the transition from traditional, coordinated PLM processes towards future, connected PLM. In this session, I shared with the audience that digital transformation is disruptive for PLM and requires thinking in two modes.
Thinking in two modes is not what people like, however, organizations can run in two modes. Also, I shared some examples from digital transformation stories that illustrate there was no transformation, either failure or smoke, and mirrors. You can download my presentation via SlideShare here.
Fireplace discussion: Bringing all the Trends Together, What’s next
We closed the day and the conference with a fireplace chat moderated by Dr. Ken Versprille from CIMdata, where we discussed, among other things, the increasing complexity of products and products as a service. We have seen during the sessions from BAE Systems Maritime and Bouygues Construction Group that we can do complex projects, however, when there are competition and time to deliver pressure, we do not manage the project so much, we try to contain the potential risk. It was an interactive fireplace giving us enough thoughts for next year.
Conclusion
Nothing to add to Håkan Kårdén’s closing tweet – I hope to see you next year.
This is the moment of the year, where at least in my region, most people take some time off to disconnect from their day-to-day business. For me, it is never a full disconnect as PLM became my passion, and you should never switch off your passion.
On August 1st, 1999, I started my company TacIT, the same year the acronym PLM was born. I wanted to focus on knowledge management, therefore the name TacIT. Being dragged into the SmarTeam world with a unique position interfacing between R&D, implementers and customers I found the unique sweet spot, helping me to see all aspects from PLM – the vendor position, the implementer’s view, the customer’s end-user, and management view.
It has been, and still, is 20 years of learning and have been sharing most in the past ten years through my blog. What I have learned is that the more you know, the more you understand that situations are not black and white. See one of my favorite blog pictures below.
So there is enough to overthink during the holidays. Some of my upcoming points:
From coordinated to connected
Instead of using the over-hyped term: Digital Transformation, I believe companies should learn to work in a connected mode, which has become the standard in our daily life. Connected means that information needs to be stored in databases somewhere, combined with openness and standards to make data accessible. For more transactional environments, like CRM, MES, and ERP, the connected mode is not new.
In the domain of product development and selling, we have still a long learning path to go as the majority of organizations is relying on documents, be it Excels, Drawings (PDF) and reports. The fact that they are stored in electronic file formats does not mean that they are accessible. There is still manpower needed to create these artifacts or to extract the required information from them.
The challenge for modern PLM is to establish new best practices around a model-based approach for systems engineering (MBSE), for engineering to manufacturing (MBD/MBE) and operations (Digital Twins). All these best practices should be generic and connected ultimately. I wrote about these topics in the past, have a look at:
PLM Vendors are showing pieces of the puzzle, but it is up to the implementers to establish the puzzle, without knowing in detail what the end result will be. This is the same journey of Columbus. He had a boat and a target towards the unknown. He discovered a country with a small population, nowadays a country full of immigrants who call themselves natives.
However, the result was an impressive transformation.
Reading about transformation
Last year I read several books to get more insight into what motivates us, and how can we motivate people to change. In one way, it is disappointing to learn that we civilized human beings most of the time to not make rational decisions but act based on our per-historic brain.
Thinking, Fast and Slow from Daniel Kahneman was one of the first books in that direction as a must-read to understand our personal thinking and decision processes.
I read Idiot Brain: What Your Head Is Really Up To from Dean Burnett, where he explains this how our brain appears to be sabotaging our life, and what on earth it is really up to. Interesting to read but could be a little more comprehensive
I got more excited from Dan Ariely”s book: Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions as it was structured around topics where we handle completely irrational but predictable. And this predictability is used by people (sales/politicians/ management) to drive your actions. Useful to realize when you recognize the situation
These three books also illustrate the flaws of our modern time – we communicate fast (preferable through tweets) – we decide fast based on our gut feelings – so you realize towards what kind of world we are heading. Going through a transformation should be considered as a slow, learning process. Like reading a book – it takes time to digest.
Once you are aiming at a business transformation for your company or supporting a company in its transformation, the following books were insightful:
Leading Digital: Turning Technology into Business Transformation by George Westerman, Didier Bonnet and Andrew McAfee is maybe not the most inspiring book, however as it stays close to what we experience in our day-to-day-life it is for sure a book to read to get a foundational understanding of business transformation.
The book I liked the most recent was Leading Transformation: How to Take Charge of Your Company’s Future by Nathan Furr, Kyle Nel, Thomas Zoega Ramsoy as it gives examples of transformation addressing parts of the irrational brain to get a transformation story. I believe in storytelling instead of business cases for transformation. I wrote about it in my blog post: PLM Measurable or a myth referring to Yuval Harari’s book Homo Sapiens
Note: I am starting my holidays now with a small basket of e-books. If you have any recommendations for books that I must read – please write them in the comments of this blog
Discussing transformation
After the summer holidays, I plan to have fruitful discussions around topics close to PLM. Working on a post and starting a conversation related to PLM, PIM, and Master Data Management. The borders between these domains are perhaps getting vaguer in a digital enterprise.
Further, I am looking forward to a discussion around the value of PLM assisting companies in developing sustainable products. A sustainable and probably circular economy is required to keep this earth a place to live for everybody. The whole discussion around climate change, however, is worrying as we should be Thinking – not fast and slow – but balanced.
A circular economy has been several times a topic during the joint CIMdata PLM Roadmap and PDT conferences, which bring me to the final point.
On 13th and 14th November this year I will participate again in the upcoming PLM Roadmap and PDT conference. This time in La Defense, Paris, France. I will share my experiences from working with companies trying to understand and implement pieces of a digital transformation related to PLM.
There will be inspiring presentations from other speakers, all working on some of the aspects of moving to facets of a connected enterprise. It is not a marketing event, it is done by professionals, serving professionals. Therefore I hope if you are passioned about the new aspects of PLM, no matter how you name label them, come and join, discuss and most of all, learn.
Conclusion
Modern life is about continuous learning – make it a habit. Even a holiday is again a way to learn to disconnect.
How disconnected I was you will see after the holidays.
This is the moment of the year to switch-off from the details. No more talking and writing about digital transformation or model-based approaches. It is time to sit back and relax. Two years ago I shared the PLM Songbook, now it is time to see one or more movies. Here are my favorite top five PLM movies:
Bruce Almighty
Bruce Nolan, an engineer in Buffalo, N.Y., is discontented with almost everything in the company despite his popularity and the love of his draftswoman Grace. At the end of the worst day of his life, Bruce angrily ridicules and rages against PLM and PLM responds. PLM appears in human form and, endowing Bruce with divine powers op collaboration, challenges Bruce to take on the big job to see if he can do it any better.
A movie that makes you modest and you realize there is more than your small ecosystem.
The good, the bad and the ugly
Blondie (The Good PLM consultant) is a professional who is out trying to earn a few dollars. Angel Eyes (The Bad PLM Vendor) is a PLM salesman who always commits to a task and sees it through, as long as he is paid to do so. And Tuco (The Ugly PLM Implementer) is a wanted outlaw trying to take care of his own hide. Tuco and Blondie share a partnership together making money off Tuco’s bounty, but when Blondie unties the partnership, Tuco tries to hunt down Blondie. When Blondie and Tuco come across a PLM implementation loaded with dead bodies, they soon learn from the only survivor (Bill Carson – the PLM admin) that he and a few other men have buried a stash of value on a file server. Unfortunately, Carson dies, and Tuco only finds out the name of the file server, while Blondie finds out the name on the hard disk. Now the two must keep each other alive in order to find the value. Angel Eyes (who had been looking for Bill Carson) discovers that Tuco and Blondie met with Carson and knows they know the location of the value. All he needs is for the two to ..
A movie that makes you realize that it is a challenging journey to find the value out of PLM. It is not only about execution – but it is also about all the politics of people involved – and there are good, bad and ugly people on a PLM journey.
The Grump
The Grump is a draftsman in Finland from the past. A man who knows that everything used to be so much better in the old days. Pretty much everything that’s been done after 1953 has always managed to ruin The Grump’s day. Our story unfolds The Grump opens a 3D Model on his computer, hurting his brain. He has to spend a weekend in Helsinki to attend a model-based therapy. Then the drama unfolds …….
A movie that makes you realize that progress and innovation do not come from grumps. In every environment when you want to do a change of the status quo, grumps will appear. With the exciting Finish atmosphere, a perfect film for Christmas.
Deliverance
The Cahulawassee River Valley company in Northern Georgia is one of the last analog companies in the state, which will soon change with the imminent implementation of a PLM system in the company, breaking down silos everywhere. As such, four Atlanta city slickers, alpha male Lewis Medlock, generally even-keeled Ed Gentry, slightly condescending Bobby Trippe, and wide-eyed Drew Ballinger decide to implement PLM in one trip, with only Lewis and Ed having experience in CAD. They know going in that the area is ethnoculturally homogeneous and isolated, but don’t understand the full extent of such until they arrive and see what they believe is the result of generations of inbreeding. Their relatively peaceful trip takes a turn for the worse when half way through they encounter a couple of hillbilly moonshiners. That encounter not only makes the four battle their way out of the PLM project intact and alive but threatens the relationships of the four as they do.
This movie, from 1972, makes you realize that in the early days of PLM starting a big-bang implementation journey into an area that is not ready for it, can be deadly, for your career and friendship. Not suitable for small children!
Diamonds Are Forever or Tron (legacy)
James Bond’s mission is to find out who has been drawing diamonds, which are appearing on blogs. He adopts another identity in the form of Don Farr. He joins up with CIMdata and acts as if he is developing diamonds, but everyone is hungry for these diamonds. He also has to avoid Mr. Brouwer and Mr. Kidd, the dangerous couple who do not leave anyone in their way when it comes to model-based. And Ernst Stavro Blofeld isn’t out of the question. He may have changed his looks, but is he linked with the V-shape? And if he is, can Bond finally defeat his ultimate enemy?
Sam Flynn, the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn, looks into his father’s disappearance and finds himself pulled into the same world of virtual twins and augmented reality where his father has been living for 20 years. Along with Kevin’s loyal confidant Quorra, father and son embark on a life-and-death journey across a visually-stunning cyber universe that has become far more advanced and exceedingly dangerous. Meanwhile, the malevolent program IoT, who dominates the digital world, plans to invade the real world and will stop at nothing to prevent their escape
I could not decide about number five. The future is bright with Boeing’s new representation of Systems Engineering, see my post on CIMdata’s PLM Europe roadmap event where Don Farr presented his diamond(s). However, the future is also becoming a mix of real with virtual and here Tron (legacy) will help my readers to understand the beauty of a mixed virtual and real world. You can decide – or send me your favorite PLM movies.
Note: All movie reviews are based on IMBd.com story lines, and I thank the authors of these story lines for their contribution and hope they agree with the PLM-related twist. Click on the image to find the full details and original review.
Conclusion
2018 has been an exciting year with a lot of buzzwords combined with the reality that the current PLM approach is incompatible with the future. How we can address this issue more in 2019 – first at PI PLMx 2019 in London (be there – last chance to meet people in the UK when they are still Europeans and share/discuss plans for the upcoming year)
Wishing you all the best during the break and a happy and prosperous 2019
During my holiday I have read some interesting books. Some for the beauty of imagination and some to enrich my understanding of the human brain.
Why the human brain? It is the foundation and motto of my company: The Know-How to Know Now.
In 2012 I wrote a post: Our brain blocks PLM acceptance followed by a post in 2014 PLM is doomed, unless …… both based on observations and inspired by the following books (must read if you are interested in more than just PLM practices and technology):
- The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
- On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
In 2014, Digital Transformation was not so clear. We talked about disruptors, but disruption happened outside our PLM comfort zone.
Now six years later disruption or significant change in the way we develop and deliver solutions to the market has become visible in the majority of companies. To stay competitive or meaningful in a global market with changing customer demands, old ways of working no longer bring enough revenue to sustain. The impact of software as part of the solution has significantly changed the complexity and lifecycle(s) of solutions on the market.
Most of my earlier posts in the past two years are related to these challenges.
What is blocking Model-Based Definition?
This week I had a meeting in the Netherlands with three Dutch peers all interested and involved in Model-Based Definition – either from the coaching point of view or the “victim” point of view. We compared MBD-challenges with Joe Brouwer’s AID (Associated Information Documents) approach and found a lot of commonalities.
No matter which method you use it is about specifying unambiguously how a product should be manufactured – this is a skill and craftsmanship and not a technology. We agreed that a model-based approach where information (PMI) is stored as intelligent data elements in a Technical Data Package (TPD) will be crucial for multidisciplinary usage of a 3D Model and its associated information.
If we would store the information again as dumb text in a view, it will need human rework leading to potential parallel information out of sync, therefore creating communication and quality issues. Unfortunate as it was a short meeting, the intention is to follow-up this discussion in the Netherlands to a broader audience. I believe this is what everyone interested in learning and understanding the needs and benefits of a model-based approach (unavoidable) should do. Get connected around the table and share/discuss.
We realized that human beings indeed are often the blocking reason why new ways of working cannot be introduced. Twenty-five years ago we had the discussion moving from 2D to 3D for design. Now due to the maturity of the solutions and the education of new engineers this is no longer an issue. Now we are in the next wave using the 3D Model as the base for manufacturing definition, and again a new mindset is needed.
There are a few challenges here:
- MBD is still in progress – standards like AP242 still needs enhancements
- There is a lack of visibility on real reference stories to motivate others.
(Vendor-driven stories often are too good to be true or too narrow in scope) - There is no education for (modern) business processes related to product development and manufacturing. Engineers with new skills are dropped in organizations with traditional processes and silo thinking.
Educate, or our brain will block the future!
The above points need to be addressed, and here the human brain comes again into the picture. Our unconscious, reptile brain is continuously busy to spend a least amount of energy as described in Thinking, Fast and Slow. Currently, I am reading the Idiot Brain: What Your Head Is Really Up To by Dean Burnett, another book confirming that our brain is not a logical engine making wise decisions
And then there is the Dunning-Kruger effect, explaining that the people with the lowest skills often have the most outspoken opinion and not even aware of this flaw. We see this phenomenon in particular now in social media where people push their opinion as if they are facts.
So how can we learn new model-based approaches and here I mean all the model-based aspects I have discussed recently, i.e., Model-Based Systems Engineering, Model-Based Definition/ Model-Based Enterprise and the Digital Twin? We cannot learn it from a book, as we are entering a new era.
First, you might want to understand there is a need for new ways of working related to complex products. If you have time, listen to Xin Guo Zhang’s opening keynote with the title: Co-Evolution of Complex Aeronautical Systems & Complex SE. It takes 30 minutes so force yourself to think slow and comprehend the message related to the needed paradigm shift for systems engineering towards model-based systems engineering
Also, we have to believe that model-based is the future. If not, we will find for every issue on our path a reason not to work toward the ultimate goal.
You can see this in the comments of my earlier post on LinkedIn, where Sami Grönstrand writes:
I warmly welcome the initiative to “clean up” these concepts (It is time to clean up our model-based problem and above all, await to see live examples of transformations — even partial — coupled with reasonable business value identification.
There are two kinds of amazing places: those you have first to see before you can believe they exist.
And then those kinds that you have to believe in first before you can see them…
And here I think we need to simplify en enhance the Model-Based myth as according to Yuval Harari in his book Sapiens, the power of the human race came from creating myths to align people to have long-term, forward-looking changes accepted by our reptile brain. We are designed to believe in myths. Therefore, the need for a Model-based myth.In my post PLM as a myth? from 2017, I discussed this topic in more detail.
Conclusion
There are so many proof points that our human brain is not as reliable as we think it is. Knowing less about these effects makes it even harder to make progress towards a digital future. This post with all its embedded links can keep your brain active for a few hours. Try it, avoid to think fast and avoid assuming you know it all. Your thoughts?
Learning & Discussing more?
Still time to register for CIMdata PLM Roadmap and PDT Europe
Although I have a PLM-twisted brain, I try to read in my free time books and articles that have no direct link with PLM. My main interest goes to people. How do they behave and decide in a society, in a company? What makes them decide to change an existing business?
I am currently reading the book from Yuval Noah Harari, called Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. I still have to finish the book but got intrigued by the following text when he tried to explain why homo sapiens was able to motivate and mobilize larger groups than a tribe:
How did Homo sapiens manage to a critical threshold, eventually founding cities comprising tens of thousands of inhabitants and empires ruling hundreds of millions? The secret was probably the appearance of fiction. Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths.
Here my PLM-twisted brain woke up. What if we could create a digital PLM myth? Currently, a lot of the PLM arguments are about functions and features, technical capabilities and perceived Return On Investment (ROI). For a digital transformation ROI is hard to estimate as the future state is not known and stable. What if the future state is a myth? I will think about it when I finish the book and write the myth 🙂
Meanwhile, the rest of this blog post will be a reprint of a post I wrote almost five years ago in a similar context. PLM (old and new) are concepts against our evolution history. Enjoy and discover.
Our brain blocks PLM acceptance (Aug 2012)
The brain has become popular in the Netherlands in the past two years. Brain scientists have been publishing books sharing their interpretations on various topics of human behavior and the brain.
The common theme of all: The brain is influencing your perceptions, thoughts, and decisions without you even being aware of it.
< added this post: in April 2013 Daniel Kahneman published his book Thinking Fast and Slow I referred in my post from May 2014 to this book – PLM is doomed, unless …>
Some even go that far by claiming certain patterns in the brain can be a proof if you have a certain disorder. It can be for better or for worse.
“It was not me that committed this crime; it was my brain and more…”
Anyway, this post will be full of quotes as I am not the brain expert, still giving the brain an important role (even in PLM)
“My brain? That´s my second favorite organ” – Woody Allen
It is good to be aware of the influence of the brain. I wrote about this several times in the past, when discussing PLM vendor/implementer selection or when even deciding for PLM. Many of my posts are related to the human side of justifying and implementing PLM.
As implementing PLM for me primary is a business change instead of a combination of IT-tools to implement, it might be clear that understanding the inhibitors for PLM change are important to me.
In the PLM communities, we still have a hard job to agree between each other what is the meaning of PLM and where it differs from ERP. See for example this post, and in particular, the comments on LinkedIn (if you are a member of this group): PLM is a business process, not a (software) tool
Moreover, why it is difficult for companies to implement PLM beside ERP (and not as an extension of ERP) – search for PLM and ERP and you find zillions of thoughts and answers (mine too).
The brain plays a major role in the Why PLM we have ERP battle (blame the brain). A week ago I read an older publication from Charles Roxburgh (published in May 2003 by McKinsey) called: Hidden flaws in strategy subtitle: Can insights from behavioral economics explain why good executives back bad strategies.
COULD read, hear and download the full article when you are a registered user. Unfortunate the link has been broken now>
The article has been written long before the financial and global crises were on the agenda and Mr. Roxburgh describes 8 hidden flaws that influence our strategic decision making (and PLM is a strategy). Note all quotes below are from his publication.
Flaw 1: Overconfidence
We often make decisions with too much confidence and optimism as the brain makes us feel overconfident and over-optimistic about our own capabilities.
Flaw 2: Mental accounting
Avoiding mental accounting traps should be easier if you adhere to a basic rule: that every pound (or dollar or euro) is worth exactly that, whatever the category. In this way, you will make sure that all investments are judged on consistent criteria and be wary of spending that has been reclassified. Be particularly skeptical of any investment labeled “strategic.”
Here I would relate to the difference in IT-spending and budget when you compare ERP and PLM. ERP spending is normal (or strategic) where PLM spending is not understood.
Flaw 3: The status quo bias
People would rather leave things as they are. One explanation for the status quo bias is an aversion to loss—people are more concerned about the risk of loss than they are excited by the prospect of gain.
Another reason why adopting and implementing PLM in an organization is more difficult than for example just automating what we already do.
Flaw 4: Anchoring
Anchoring can be dangerous—particularly when it is a question of becoming anchored to the past
PLM has been anchored with being complex and expensive. Autodesk is trying to change the anchoring. Other PLM-like companies stop talking about PLM due to the anchoring and name what they do differently: 3DExperience, Business Process Automation, …..
Flaw 5: The sunk-cost effect
A familiar problem with investments is called the sunk-cost effect, otherwise known as “throwing good money after bad.” When large projects overrun their schedules and budgets, the original economic case no longer holds, but companies still keep investing to complete them.
I have described several cases in the past anonymously; where companies kept on investing and customizing their ERP environment to achieve PLM goals. Although it never reached the level of acceptance and quality a PLM system could offer, stopping these projects was impossible.
Flaw 6: The herding instinct
This desire to conform to the behavior and opinions of others is a fundamental human trait and an accepted principle of psychology.
Warren Buffett put his finger on this flaw when he wrote, “Failing conventionally is the route to go; as a group, lemmings may have a rotten image, but no individual lemming has ever received bad press.”
A quote in a quote but so true. Innovative thinking, introducing PLM in a company requires a change. Who needs to be convinced? If you do not have consensus (which usually happens as PLM is vague) you battle against the other lemmings.
Flaw 7: Misestimating future hedonistic states
Social scientists have shown that when people undergo major changes in circumstances, their lives typically are neither as bad nor as good as they had expected—another case of how bad we are at estimating. People adjust surprisingly quickly, and their level of pleasure (hedonistic state) ends up, broadly, where it was before
A typical situation every PLM implementation faces: users complaining they cannot work as efficient anymore due to the new system and their work will be a mess if we continue like this. Implementers start to customize quickly, and we are trapped. Let these people ‘suffer’ with the right guidance and motivation for some months (but this is sometimes not the business model the PLM implementer pushes as they need services as income)
Flaw 8: False consensus
People tend to overestimate the extent to which others share their views, beliefs, and experiences—the false-consensus effect. Research shows many causes, including these:
-
confirmation bias, the tendency to seek out opinions and facts that support our own beliefs and hypotheses
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selective recall, the habit of remembering only facts and experiences that reinforce our assumptions
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biased evaluation, the quick acceptance of evidence that supports our hypotheses, while contradictory evidence is subjected to rigorous evaluation and almost certain rejection; we often, for example, impute hostile motives to critics or question their competence
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group-think, the pressure to agree with others in team-based cultures
Although positioned as number 8 by Mr. Roxburgh, I would almost put it on the top when referring to PLM and PLM selection processes. So often a PLM decision has not been made in an objective manner, and PLM selection paths are driven to come to the conclusion we already knew. (Or is this my confirmation bias too )
Conclusion
As scientists describe, and as Mr. Roxburgh describes our strategic thinking is influenced by the brain, and you should be aware of that. PLM is a business strategy and when rethinking your PLM strategy tomorrow, be prepared to avoid these flaws mentioned in this post today.
Happy New Year to all of you and I am wishing you all an understandable and digital future. This year I hope to entertain you again with a mix of future trends related to PLM combined with old PLM basics. This time, one of the topics that are popping up in almost every PLM implementation – numbering schemes – do we use numbers with a meaning, so-called intelligent numbers or can we work with insignificant numbers? And of course, the question what is the impact of changing from meaningful numbers towards unique meaningless numbers.
Why did we create “intelligent” numbers?
Intelligent part numbers were used to help engineers and people on the shop floor for two different reasons. As in the early days, the majority of design work was based on mechanical design. Often companies had a one-to-one relation between the part and the drawing. This implied that the part number was identical to the drawing number. An intelligent part number could have the following format: A4-95-BE33K3-007.A
Of course, I invented this part number as the format of an intelligent part number is only known to local experts. In my case, I was thinking about a part that was created in 1995, drawn on A4. Probably a bearing of the 33K3 standard (another intelligent code) and its index is 007 (checked in a numbering book). The version of the drawing (part) is A
A person, who is working in production, assembling the product and reading the BOM, immediately knows which part to use by its number and drawing. Of course the word “immediately” is only valid for people who have experience with using this part. And this was in the previous century not so painful as it is now. Products were not so sophisticated as they are now and variation in products was limited.
Later, when information became digital, intelligent numbers were also used by engineering to classify their parts. The classification digits would assist the engineer to find similar parts in a drawing directory or drawing list.
And if the world had not changed, there would be still intelligent part numbers.
Why no more intelligent part numbers?
There are several reasons why you would not use intelligent part numbers anymore.
An intelligent number scheme works in a perfect world where nothing is changing. In real life companies merge with other companies and then the question comes up: Do we introduce a new numbering scheme or is one of the schemes going to be the perfect scheme for the future?If this happened a few times, a company might think: Do we have to through this again and again? As probably topic #2 has also occurred.- The numbering scheme does not support current products and complexity anymore. Products change from mechanical towards systems, containing electronic components and embedded software. The original numbering system has never catered for that. Is there an overreaching numbering standard? It is getting complicated, perhaps we can change ? And here #3 comes in.
As we are now able to store information in a digital manner, we are able to link to this complex part number a few descriptive attributes that help us to identify the component. Here the number is becoming less important, still serving as access to the unique metadata. Consider it as a bar code on a product. Nobody reads the bar code without a device anymore and the device connected to an information system will provide the right information. This brings us to the last point #4.- In a digital enterprise, where data is flowing between systems, we need unique identifiers to connect datasets between systems. The most obvious example is the part master data. Related to a unique ID you will find in the PDM or PLM system the attributes relevant for overall identification (Description, Revision, Status, Classification) and further attributes relevant for engineering (weight, material, volume, dimensions).
In the ERP system, you will find a dataset with the same ID and master attributes. However here they are extended with attributes related to logistics and finance. The unique identifier provides the guarantee that data is connected in the correct manner and that information can flow or connected between systems without human interpretation or human-spent processing time.
And this is one of the big benefits of a digital enterprise, reducing overhead in data handling, often reducing the cost of data handling with 50 % or more (people / customizations)
What to do now in your company?
There is no business justification just to start renumbering parts just for future purposes. You need a business reason. Otherwise, it will only increase costs and create a potential for migration errors. Moving to meaningless part numbers can be the best done at the moment a change is required. For example, when you implement a new PLM system or when your company merges with another company. At these moments, part numbering should be considered with the future in mind.
And the future is no longer about memorizing part classifications and numbers, even if you are from the generation that used to structure and manage everything inside your brain. Future businesses rely on digitally connected information, where a person based on machine interpretation of a unique ID will get the relevant and meaningful data. Augmented reality (picture above) is becoming more and more available. It is now about human beings that need to get ready for a modern future.
Conclusion
Intelligent part numbers are a best practice from the previous century. Start to think digital and connected and try to reduce the dependency of understanding the part number in all your business activities. Move towards providing the relevant data for a user. This can be an evolution smoothening a future PLM implementation step.
Looking forward to discussing this topic and many other PLM related practices with you face to face during the Product Innovation conference in Munich. I will talk about the PLM identity change and lead a focus group session about PLM and ERP integration. Looking from the high-level and working in the real world. The challenge of every PLM implementation.
- It does not make sense to define the future of PLM
- PLM is not an engineering solution anymore
- Linearity of business is faster becoming a holdback
- The Product in PLM is no longer a mechanical Product
- Planet Lifecycle Management has made a next major step
It does not make sense to define the future of PLM
At the beginning of this year, there was an initiative to define the future of PLM for 2025 to give companies, vendors, implementors a guidance to what is critical and needed for PLM in 2015. Have a read here: The future of PLM resides in Brussels.
I believe it is already hard to agree what has been the recognized scope of PLM in the past 10 years, how can we define the future of PLM for the next 10 years. There are several trends currently happening (see the top 5 above) that all can either be in or out of scope for PLM. It is no longer about the definition of PLM; it is dynamically looking towards how businesses adapt their product strategy to new approaches.
Therefore, I am more curious how Product Innovation platforms or Business Innovation platforms will evolve instead of focusing on a definition of what should be PLM in 2025. Have a further look here, such as, The Next Step in PLM’s Evolution: Its Platformization a CIMdata positioning paper.
Conclusion: The future is bright and challenging, let´s not fence it in by definitions.
PLM is not an engineering solution anymore
More and more in all the discussions I had this year with companies looking into PLM, most of them see now PLM as a product information backbone throughout the lifecycle, providing a closed-loop of information flow and visibility across all discipline.
End-to-end visibility, End-to-end tractability, Real-time visibility were some of the buzz-words dropped in many meetings.
These words really express the change happening. PLM is no longer an engineering front-end towards ERP; PLM interacts at each stage of the product lifecycle with other enterprise systems.
End-to-end means when products are manufactured we still follow them through the manufacturing process (serialization) and their behavior in the field (service lifecycle management/field analytics).
All these concepts require companies to align in a horizontal manner, instead of investing in optimizing their silos. Platformization, as discussed above, is a logic step for extending PLM.
Conclusion: If you implement PLM now, start thinking first about the end-to-end flow of information. Or to be more concrete: Don´t be tempted to start with engineering first. It will lock your new PLM again in an extended PDM silo.
Linearity of business is faster becoming a holdback
Two years ago I started talking about: Did you notice PLM is changing ? This topic was not in the mainstream of PLM discussions two years ago. Now with the introduction of more and more software in products (products become systems), the linear process of bringing a product to the market has become a holdback.
The market /your customers expect faster and incremental innovations/ upgrades preferably without having to invest again in a new product. If you look back, the linear product development approach has not changed since the Second World War. We automated more and more the linear process. Remember the New Product Introduction hype around 2004 -2006, where companies started to extend the engineering process with a governance process to follow a product´s introduction from its early concept phase toward a globally available product. This process is totally linear. I wrote about it in my post: from a linear world to fast and circular, where the word circular is also addressing the change of delivering products as a service instead of deliver once and scrap them.
One of my favorite presentations is from Chris Armbruster: Rethinking Business for Exponential Times – enjoy if you haven´t seen this one.
Conclusion: The past two years the discussion related to modern, data-driven dynamic products and services has increased rapidly. Now with IoT, it has become a hype to be formalized soon as life goes faster and faster.
The Product in Product Lifecycle Management is no longer a mechanical Product
I have mentioned it already in the previous point, the traditional way of working, designed and targeting a linear product development process, is no longer enough to support the product lifecycle.
When I started to implement PDM systems in the nineties, we tried to keep electrical engineering outside the scope as we had no clue how to manage their information in the context of a mechanical design. It was very rudimentary. Now PLM best practices exist to collaborate and synchronize around the EBOM in an integrated manner.
The upcoming challenge now is due to the software used in products, which turn them into systems. And not only that, software can be upgraded in a minute. So the classical ECR / ECO processes designed for hardware are creating too much overhead. Agile is the motto for software development processes. Now, we (PLM consultants/vendors) are all working on concepts and implementations where these worlds come together. PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), ALM (Asset Lifecycle Management) and SysLM (System Lifecycle Management as introduced by Prof. Martin Eigner – have a read here) are all abbreviations representing particular domains that need to flow together.
Conclusion: For most companies their products become systems with electronics and software. This requires new management and governance concepts. The challenge for all vendors & implementors.
Planet Lifecycle Management has made a next major step
Finally good news came in the beginning of December, where for the first time all countries agreed that our planet needs to have a sustainable lifecycle. Instead of the classical lifecycle from cradle to grave we want to apply a sustainable lifecycle to this planet, when it is still possible. This decision is a major breakthrough pushing us all to leave the unsustainable past behind and to innovate and work on the future. The decisions taken in Paris should be considered as a call for innovative thinking. PLM can learn from that as I wrote earlier this year in my post PLM and Global Warming
Conclusion: 2015 was a year where some new trends became clear. Trends will become commodity faster and faster. A challenge for all of us to stay connected and understand what is happening. Never has the human brain challenged before to adapt to change with such an impact.
Closing 2015 means for me a week of quietness and stepping out of the fast lane. I wish you all a healthy 2016 with a lot of respect, compromises and changing viewpoints. The current world is too complex to solve issues by one-liners.
Take your time to think and reflect – it works!
SEE AND HEAR YOU BACK IN 2016
Topics discussed in 2014-2015
PLM Basics
- The importance of a PLM data model: EBOM – MBOM
- EBOM and (CAD) Documents
- Some more EBOM methodology
- Products, BOMs, and Parts
- The Importance of a PLM data model
- Classification
PLM and Business Change
- Modern PLM brings Power to the People
- The Innovator’s dilemma and Generation change
- The importance of change management with PLM
- PLM and Global warming
- Breaking down the silos with data
- From a linear world to fast and circular ?
From a linear world to a circular and fast-blog
Jos Voskuil's Weblog 
Jos, what a ride you have had! And looking at some of the spaghetti system architectures of even today's businesses,…
Congratulations, Jos! I'm very happy that you'll stay active in the PLM world and continue with your blogs - during…
Jos, welcome to the world of (part-time) retirement. Enjoy your AOW. Thanks Dick, you have the experience now - enjoy…
Thanks for all the valuable thoughts you have shared with us Jos, hope your 'new career' will bring you lots…
Great.. Congratulations on reaching yet another milestone... your blog is very thought proving and helps us to think in multiple…