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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.
It Is 2021, and after two weeks’ time-out and reflection, it is time to look forward. Many people have said that 2020 was a “lost year,” and they are looking forward to a fresh restart, back to the new normal. For me, 2020 was the contrary of a lost year. It was a year where I had to change my ways of working. Communication has changed, digitization has progressed, and new trends have become apparent.
If you are interested in some of the details, watch the conversation I had with Rob Ferrone from QuickRelease, just before Christmas: Two Santas looking back to 2020.
It was an experiment with video, and you can see there is a lot to learn for me. I agree with Ilan Madjar’s comment that it is hard to watch two people talking for 20 minutes. I prefer written text that I can read at my own pace, short videos (max 5 min), or long podcasts that I can listen to, when cycling or walking around.
So let me share with you some of the plans I have for 2021, and I am eager to learn from you where we can align.
PLM understanding
I plan a series of blog posts where I want to share PLM-related topics that are not necessarily directly implemented in a PLM-system or considered in PLM-implementations as they require inputs from multiple sources. Topics in this context are: Configuration Management, Product Configuration Management, Product Information Management, Supplier Collaboration Management, Digital Twin Management, and probably more.
For these posts, I will discuss the topic with a subject matter expert, potentially a vendor or a consultant in that specific domain, and discuss the complementary role to traditional PLM. Besides a blog post, this topic might also be more explained in-depth in a podcast.
The PLM Doctor is in
Most of you might have seen Lucy from the Charley Brown cartoon as the doctor giving advice for 5¢. As an experiment, I want to set up a similar approach, however, for free.
These are my conditions:
- Only one question at a time.
- The question and answer will be published in a 2- 3 minute video.
- The question is about solving a pain.
If you have such a question related to PLM, please contact me through a personal message on LinkedIn, and I will follow-up.
PLM and Sustainability
A year ago, I started with Rich McFall, the PLM Green Global Alliance. Our purpose to bring people together, who want to learn and share PLM-related practices, solutions, ideas contributing to a greener and more sustainable planet.
We do not want to compete or overlap with more significant global or local organizations, like the Ellen McArthur Foundation or the European Green Deal.
We want to bring people together to dive into the niche of PLM and its related practices. We announced the group on LinkedIn; however, to ensure a persistent referential for all information and interactions, we have launched the website plmgreenaliance.com.
Here I will moderate and focus on PLM and Sustainability topics. I am looking forward to interacting with many of you.
PLM and digitization
For the last two years, I have been speaking and writing about the gap between current PLM-practices, based on shareable documents and files and the potential future based on shareable data, the Model-Based Enterprise.
Last year I wrote a series of posts giving insights on how we reached the current PLM-practices. Discovering sometimes inconsistencies and issues due to old habits or technology changes. I grouped these posts on a single blog page with the title: Learning from the past.
This year I will create a collection of posts focusing on the transition towards a Model-Based Enterprise. Probably the summary page will be called: Working towards the future currently in private mode.
Your feedback
I am always curious about your feedback – to understand in which kind of environment your PLM activities take place. Which topics are unclear? What am I missing in my experience?
Therefore, I created a small anonymous survey for those who want to be interacting with me. On purpose, the link is at the bottom of the post, so when you answer the survey, you get my double appreciation, first for reaching the end of this post and second for answering the survey.
Take the survey here.
Conclusion
Most of us will have a challenging year ahead of us. Sharing and discussing challenges and experiences will help us all to be better in what we are doing. I look forward to our 2021 journey.

Image courtesy of http://www.blagues-et-dessins.com
For those living in the Northern Hemisphere: This week, we had the shortest day, or if you like the dark, the longest night. This period has always been a moment of reflection. What have we done this year?
Rob Ferrone (Quick Release), the Santa on the left (the leftist), and Jos Voskuil (TacIT), the Santa on the right (the rightist), share in a dialogue their highlights from 2020
Wishing you all a great moment of reflection and a smooth path into a Corona-proof future.
It will be different; let’s make it better.
About a year ago we started the PLM Global Green Alliance, further abbreviated as the PGGA. Rich McFall, the main driver behind the PGGA started the website, The PLM Green Alliance, to have a persistent place to share information.
Also, we launched the PLM Global Alliance LinkedIn group to share our intentions and create a community of people who would like to share knowledge through information or discussion.
Our mission statement is:
The mission of the new PLM Green Alliance is to create global connection, communication, and community between professionals who use, develop, market, or support Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) related technologies and software solutions that have value in addressing the causes and consequences of climate change due to human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. We are motivated by the technological challenge to help create a more sustainable and green future for our economies, industries, communities, and all life forms on our planet that depend on healthy ecosystems.
My motivation
My personal motivation to support and join the PGGA was driven by the wish to combine my PLM-world with interest to create a more sustainable society for anyone around the world. It is a challenging combination. For example, PLM is born in the Aerospace and Defense industries, probably not the most sustainable industries.
Having worked with some companies in the Apparel and Retail industry, I have seen that these industries care more about their carbon footprint. Perhaps because they are “volume-industries” closely connected to their consumers, these industries actively build practices to reduce their carbon footprint and impact societies. The sense or non-sense of recycling is such a topic to discuss and analyze.
At that time, I got inspired by a session during the PLM Roadmap / PDT 2019 conference.
Graham Aid‘s from the Ragn-Sells group was a call to action. Sustainability and a wealthy economy go together; however, we have to change our habits & think patterns. You can read my review from this session in this blog post: The weekend after PLM Roadmap / PDT 2019 – Day 1
Many readers of this post have probably never heard of the Ragn-Sells group or followed up on a call for action. I have the same challenge. Being motivated beyond your day-to-day business (the old ways of working) and giving these activities priority above exploring and learning more about applying sustainability in my PLM practices.
And then came COVID-19.
I think most of you have seen the image on the left, which started as a joke. However, looking back, we all have seen that COVID-19 has led to a tremendous push for using digital technologies to modernize existing businesses.
Personally, I was used to traveling every 2 – 3 weeks to a customer, now I have left my home office only twice for business. Meanwhile, I invested in better communication equipment and a place to work. And hé, it remains possible to work and communicate with people.
Onboarding new people, getting to know new people takes more social interaction than a camera can bring.
In the PGGA LinkedIn community, we had people joining from all over the world. We started to organize video meetings to discuss their expectations and interest in this group with some active members.
We learned several things from these calls.
First of all, finding a single timeslot that everyone worldwide could participate in is a challenge. A late Friday afternoon is almost midnight in Asia and morning in the US. And is Friday the best day – we do not know yet.
Secondly, we realized that posts published in our LinkedIn group did not appear in everyone’s LinkedIn feed due to LinkedIn’s algorithms. For professionals, LinkedIn becomes less and less attractive as the algorithms seem to prefer frequency/spam above content.
For that reason, we are probably moving to the PLM Green Alliance website and combine this environment with a space for discussion outside the LinkedIn scope. More to come on the PGGA website.
Finally, we will organize video discussion sessions to ask the participants to prepare themselves for a discussion. Any member of the PGGA can bring in the discussion topics.
It might be a topic you want to clarify or better understand.
What’s next
For December 4th, we have planned a discussion meeting related to the Exponential Roadmap 2019 report, where 36 solutions to halve carbon emission by 2030 are discussed. In our video discussion, we want to focus on the chapter: Digital Industries.
We believe that this topic comes closest to our PLM domain and hopes that participants will share their thinking and potential activities within their companies.
You can download the Exponential Roadmap here or by clicking on the image. More details about the PLM Global Green Alliance you will find in the LinkedIn group. If you want to participate, let us know.
The PGGA website will be the place where more and more information will be collected per theme, to help you understand what is happening worldwide and the place where you can contribute to let us know what is happening at your side.
Conclusion
The PLM Global Green Alliance exists now for a year with 192 members. With approximately five percent active members, we have the motivation to grow our efforts and value. We learned from COVID-19 there is a need to become proactive as the costs of prevention are always lower than the costs of (trying) fixing afterward.
And each of us has the challenge to behave a little differently than before.
Will you be one of them ?
Life goes on, and I hope you are all staying safe while thinking about the future. Interesting in the context of the future, there was a recent post from Lionel Grealou with the title: Towards PLM 4.0: Hyperconnected Asset Performance Management Framework.
Lionel gave a kind of evolutionary path for PLM. The path from PLM 1.0 (PDM) ending in a PLM 4.0 definition. Read the article or click on the image to see an enlarged version to understand the logical order. Interesting to mention that PLM 4.0 is the end target, for sure there is a wishful mind-mapping with Industry 4.0.
When seeing this diagram, it reminded me of Marc Halpern’s diagram that he presented during the PDT 2015 conference. Without much fantasy, you can map your company to one of the given stages and understand what the logical next step would be. To map Lionel’s model with Marc’s model, I would state PLM 4.0 aligns with Marc’s column Collaborating.
In the discussion related to Lionel’s post, I stated two points. First, an observation that most of the companies that I know remain in PLM 1.0 or 2.0, or in Marc’s diagram, they are still trying to reach the level of Integrating.
Why is it so difficult to move to the next stage?
Oleg Shilovitsky, in a reaction to Lionel’s post, confirmed this. In Why did manufacturing stuck in PLM 1.0 and PLM 2.0? Oleg points to several integration challenges, functional and technical. His take is that new technologies might be the answer to move to PLM 3.0, as you can read from his conclusion.
What is my conclusion?
There are many promising technologies, but integration is remaining the biggest problem for manufacturing companies in adopting PLM 3.0. The companies are struggling to expand upstream and downstream. Existing vendors are careful about the changes. At the same time, very few alternatives can be seen around. Cloud structure, new data management, and cloud infrastructure can simplify many integration challenges and unlock PLM 3.0 for future business upstream and especially downstream. Just my thoughts…
Completely disconnected from Lionel’s post, Angad Sorte from Plural Nordic AS wrote a LinkedIn post: Why PLM does not get attention from your CEO. Click on the image to see an enlarged version, that also neatly aligns with Industry 4.0. Coincidence, or do great minds think alike? Phil Collins would sing: It is in the air tonight
Angad’s post is about the historical framing of PLM as a system, an engineering tool versus a business strategy. Angrad believes once you have a clear definition, it will be easier to explain the next steps for the business. The challenge here is: Do we need, or do we have a clear definition of PLM? It is a topic that I do not want to discuss anymore due to a variety of opinions and interpretations. An exact definition will never lead to a CEO stating, “Now I know why we need PLM.”
I believe there are enough business proof points WHY companies require a PLM-infrastructure as part of a profitable business. Depending on the organization, it might be just a collection of tools, and people do the work. Perhaps this is the practice in small enterprises?
In larger enterprises, the go-to-market strategy, the information needs, and related processes will drive the justification for PLM. But always in the context of a business transformation. Strategic consultancy firms are excellent in providing strategic roadmaps for their customers, indicating the need for a PLM-infrastructure as part of that.
Most of the time, they do not dive more in-depth as when it comes to implementation, other resources are needed.
What needs to be done in PLM 1.0 to 4.0 per level/stage is well described in all the diagrams on a high-level. The WHAT-domain is the domain of the PLM-vendors and implementers. They know what their tools and skillsets can do, and they will help the customer to implement such an environment.
The big illusion of all the evolutionary diagrams is that it gives a false impression of evolution. Moving to the next level is not just switching on new or more technology and involve more people.
So the big question is HOW and WHEN to make progress.
HOW to make progress
In the past four years, I have learned that digital transformation in the domain of PLM is NOT an evolution. It is disruptive as the whole foundation for PLM changes. If you zoom in on the picture on the left, you will see the data model on the left, and the data model on the right is entirely different.
On the left side of the chasm, we have a coordinated environment based on data-structures (items, folders, tasks) to link documents.
On the right side of the chasm, we have a connected environment based on federated data elements and models (3D, Logical, and Simulation models).
I have been discussing this topic in the past two years at various PLM conferences and a year ago in my blog: The Challenges of a connected ecosystem for PLM
If you are interested in learning more about this topic, register for the upcoming virtual PLM Innovation Forum organized by TECHNIA. Registration is for free, and you will be able to watch the presentation, either live or recorded for 30 days.
At this moment, the detailed agenda has not been published, and I will update the link once the session is visible. My presentation will not only focus on the HOW to execute a digital transformation, including PLM can be done, but also explain why NOW is the moment.
NOW to make progress
When the COVID19-related lockdown started, must of us thought that after the lockdown, we will be back in business as soon as possible. Now understanding the impact of the virus on our society, it is clear that we need to re-invent ourselves for a sustainable future, be more resilient.
It is now time to act and think differently as due to the lockdown, most of us have time to think. Are you and your company looking forward to creating a better future? Or will you and your company try to do the same non-sustainable rat race of the past and being caught by the next crises.
McKinsey has been publishing several articles related to the impact of COVID19 and the article: Beyond coronavirus: The path to the next normal very insightful
As McKinsey never talks about PLM, therefore I want to guide you to think about more sustainable business.
Use a modern PLM-infrastructure, practices, and tools to remain competitive, meanwhile creating new or additional business models. Realizing concepts as digital twins, AR/VR-based business models require an internal transition in your company, the jump from coordinated to connected. Therefore, start investigating, experimenting in these new ways of working, and learn fast. This is why we created the PLM Green Alliance as a platform to share and discuss.
If you believe there is no need to be fast, I recommend you watch Rebecka Carlsson’s presentation at the PLMIF event. The title of her presentation: Exponential Tech in Sustainability. Rebecca will share insights for business development about how companies can upgrade to new business models based on the new opportunities that come with sustainability and exponential tech.
The reason I recommend her presentation because she addresses the aspect of exponential thinking nicely. Rebecka states we are “programmed” to think local-linear as mankind. Exponential thinking goes beyond our experience. Something we are not used doing until with the COVID19-virus we discovered exponential growth of the number of infections.
Finally, and this I read this morning, Jan Bosch wrote an interesting post: Why Agile Matters, talking about the fact that during the design and delivery of the product to the market, the environment and therefore the requirements might change. Read his post, unless as Jan states:
Concluding, if you’re able to perfectly predict the optimal set of requirements for a system or product years ahead of the start of production or deployment and if you’re able to accurately predict the effect of each requirement on the user, the customer and the quality attributes of the system, then you don’t need Agile.
What I like about Jan’s post is the fact that we should anticipate changing requirements. This statement combined with Rebecka’s call for being ready for exponential change, with an emerging need for sustainability, might help you discuss in your company how a modern New Product Introduction process might look like, including requirements for a sustainable future that might come in later (per current situation) or can become a practice for the future
Conclusion
Now is the disruptive moment to break with the old ways of working. Develop plans for the new Beyond-COVID19-society. Force yourselves to work in more sustainable modes (digital/virtual), develop sustainable products or services (a circular economy), and keep on learning. Perhaps we will meet virtually during the upcoming PLM Innovation Forum?
Note: You have reached the end of this post, which means you took the time to read it all. Now if you LIKE or DISLIKE the content, share it in a comment. Digital communication is the future. Just chasing for Likes is a skin-deep society. We need arguments.
Looking forward to your feedback.
Meanwhile, two weeks of a partial lockdown have passed here in the Netherlands, and we have at least another 3 weeks to go according to the Dutch government. The good thing in our country, decisions, and measures are made based on the advice of experts as we cannot rely on politicians as experts.
I realize that despite the discomfort for me, for many other people in other countries, it is a tragedy. My mental support to all of you, wherever you are.
So what has happened since Time to Think (and act differently)?
All Hands On Deck
In the past two weeks, it has become clear that a global pandemic as this one requires an “All Hands On Deck” mentality to support the need for medical supplies and in particular respiration devices, so-called ventilators. Devices needed to save the lives of profoundly affected people. I have great respect for the “hands” that are doing the work in infectious environments.
Due to time pressure, innovative thinking is required to reach quick results in many countries. Companies and governmental organizations have created consortia to address the urgent need for ventilators. You will not see so much PR from these consortia as they are too busy doing the real work.
Still, you see from many of the commercial participants their marketing messages, why, and how they contribute to these activities.
One of the most promoted capabilities is PLM collaboration on the cloud as there is a need for real-time collaboration between people that are under lockdown. They have no time setting-up environments and learning new tools to use for collaboration.
For me, these are grand experiments, can a group of almost untrained people corporate fast in a new environment.
For sure, offering free cloud software, PLM, online CAD or 3D Printing, seems like a positive and compassionate gesture from these vendors. However, this is precisely the wrong perception in our PLM-world – the difficulty with PLM does not lie necessary in the tools.
It is about learning to collaborate outside your silo.
Instead of “wait till I am done” it should become “this is what I have so far – use it for your progress”. This is a behavior change.
Do we have time for behavioral changes at this moment? Time will tell if the myth will become a reality so fast.
A lot of thinking
The past two weeks were weeks of thinking and talking a lot with PLM-interested persons along the globe using virtual meetings.
As long as the lockdowns will be there I keep on offering free of charge PLM coaching for individuals who want to understand the future of PLM.
Through all these calls, I really became THE VirtualDutchman in many of these meetings (thanks Jagan for the awareness).
I realized that there is a lot of value in virtual meetings, in particular with the video option on. Although I believe video works well when you had met before as most of my current meetings were with people, I have met before face-to-face. Hence, you know each other facial expressions already.
I am a big fan of face-to-face meetings as I learned in the past 20 years that despite all the technology and methodology issues, the human factor is essential. We are not rational people; we live and decide by emotions.
Still, I conclude that in the future, I could do with less travel, as I see the benefits from current virtual meetings.
Less face-to-face meetings will help me to work on a more sustainable future as I am aware of the impact flying has on the environment. Also, talking with other people, there is the notion that after the lockdowns, virtual conferencing might become more and more a best practice. Good for the climate, the environment, and time savings – bad for traditional industries like aircraft carriers, taxis, and hotels. I will not say 100 % goodbye but reduce.
A Virtual PLM conference!
I was extremely excited to participate in the upcoming PLM Innovation Forum (PLMIF) starting on April 28th, organized by TECHNIA. I have been visiting the event in the past a few times in Stockholm. It was a great place to meet many of the people from my network.
This time I am even more excited as the upcoming PLMIF will be a VIRTUAL conference with all the aspects of a real conference – read more about the conference here.
There will be an auditorium where lectures will be given, there are virtual booths, and it will be a place to network virtually. In my next post, I hope to zoom in on the conference.
Sustainability, a circular economy, and modern PLM should go together. Since 2014, these topics have been on the agenda of the joint CIMdata Roadmap/PDT conferences. Speakers like Amir Rashid KTH Sweden, Ken Webster Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and many others have been talking about the circular economy.
The Scandinavian mindset for an inclusive society for people and the environment for sure, has influenced the agenda. The links above lead to some better understanding of what is meant by a circular economy and a sustainable future, as also the short YouTube movie below:
The circular economy is crucial for a sustainable future. Therefore, I am looking forward to participating in the upcoming PLM Innovation Forum on April 28th, where it will be all about digitalization for sustainable product development and manufacturing. Hopefully, with the right balance towards the WHY-side of our brain, not so much about WHAT.
You are welcomed to register for free here: the virtual PLM Innovation Forum – we might meet there (virtually).
The PLM Green Alliance
The PLM Green Alliance had been announced some months ago, started by Rich McFall and supported by Bjorn Fidjeland, Oleg Shilovitsky, and me.
It was the first step to proactively bringing people together to discuss topics like reducing our carbon footprint, sharing and brainstorming about innovations that will lead to a sustainable future for ourselves and our children, grand-grand-children. The idea behind the PLM Green Alliance is that a proactive approach is much cheaper in the long term as we can still evaluate and discuss options.
This brings me back to the All hands On Deck approach we currently use for fighting the COVID-19 virus.
In a crisis mode, the damage to the people and the economy is severe. Besides, in a crisis mode, a lot of errors will be made, but don’t blame or joke about these people that are trying. Without failure, there is no learning.
We are in a potential time of disruption as the image shows below, but we do not have the complete answers for the future
Think about how you could pro-actively work on a sustainable future for all of us. This will be my personal target, combined with explaining and coaching companies related to topics of modern PLM, during the current lockdown and hopefully long after. The PLM Green Alliance is eager to learn from you and your companies where they are contributing to a more sustainable and greener future.
Do not feel your contribution is not needed, as according to research done by the Carr Center’s Erica Chenoweth: The ‘3.5% rule’: How a small minority can change the world. It could be an encouragement to act instead of watching who will determine your future.
Conclusion
While learning to live in a virtual world, we might be realizing that the current crisis is an opportunity to switch faster to a more sustainable and inclusive society. For PLM moving to data-driven, cloud-based environments, using a Model-Based approach along the whole lifecycle, is a path to reduce friction when delivering innovations. From years to weeks? Something we wished to have today already. Stay safe!
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.
For me, the joint conference from CIMdata and Eurostep is always a conference to look forward too. The conference is not as massive as PLM-Vendor conferences (slick presentations and happy faces); it is more a collection of PLM-practitioners (this time a 100+) with the intent to discuss and share their understanding and challenges, independent from specific vendor capabilities or features. And because of its size a great place to network with everyone.
Day 1 was more a business/methodology view on PLM and Day 2 more in-depth focusing on standards and BIM. In this post, the highlights from the first day.
The State of PLM
Peter Bilello, CIMdata’s president, kicked of with a review of the current state of the PLM industry. Peter mentioned the PLM-market grew by 9.4 % to $47.8 billion (more than the expected 7 %). Good for the PLM Vendors and implementers.
However, Peter also mentioned that despite higher spending, PLM is still considered as a solution for engineering, often implemented as PDM/CAD data management. Traditional organizational structures, marketing, engineering, manufacturing, quality were defined in the previous century and are measured as such.
This traditional approach blocks the roll-out of PLM across these disciplines. Who is the owner of PLM or where is the responsibility for a certain dataset are questions to solve. PLM needs to transform to deliver end-to-end support instead of remaining the engineering silo. Are we still talking about PLM in the future? See Peter’s takeaways below:
We do not want to open the discussion if the the name PLM should change – too many debates – however unfortunate too much framing in the past too.
The Multi View BOM
Fred Feru from Airbus presented a status the Aerospace & Defense PLM action group are working on: How to improve and standardize on a PLM solution for multi-view BOM management, in particular, the interaction between the EBOM and MBOM. See below:
You might think this is a topic already solved when you speak with your PLM-vendor. However, all existing solutions at the participant implementations rely on customizations and vary per company. The target is to come up with common requirements that need to be addressed in the standard methodology. Initial alignment on terminology was already a first required step as before you standardize, you need to have a common dictionary. Moreover, a typical situation in EVERY PLM implementation.
An initial version was shared with the PLM Editors for feedback and after iterations and agreement to come with a solution that can be implemented without customization. If you are interested in the details, you can read the current status here with Appendix A en Appendix B.
Enabling the Circular Economy for Long Term Prosperity
Graham Aid gave a fascinating presentation related to the potentials and flaws of creating a circular economy. Although Graham was not a PLM-expert (till he left this conference), as he is the Strategy and Innovation Coordinator for the Ragn-Sells Group, which performs environmental services and recycling across Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Estonia. Have a look at their website here.
Graham shared with us the fact that despite logical arguments for a circular economy – it is more profitable at the end – however, our short term thinking and bias block us from doing the right things for future generations.
Look at the missing link for a closed resource-lifecycle view below.
Graham shared weird examples where scarce materials for the future currently were getting cheaper, and therefore there is no desire for recycling them. A sound barrier with rubble could contain more copper than copper ore in a mine.
In the PLM-domain, there is also an opportunity for supporting and working on more sustainable products and services. It is a mindset and can be a profitable business model. In the PDT 2014 conference, there was a session on circular product development with Xerox as the best example. Circular product development but also Product As A Service can be activities that contribute to a more sustainable world. Graham’s presentation was inspiring for our PLM community and hopefully planted a few seeds for the future. As it is all about thinking long-term.
With the PLM Green Alliance, I hope we will be able to create a larger audience and participation for a sustainable future. More about the PLM Green Alliance next week.
The Fundamental Role of PLM in Data-driven Product Portfolio Management
Hannu Hannila (Polar) presented his study related to data-driven product portfolio management and why it should be connected to PLM. For many companies, it is a challenge to understand which products are performing well and where to invest. These choices are often supported by Data Damagement as Hannu called it.
An example below:
The result of this fragmented approach is that organizations make their decisions on subjective data and emotions. Where the assumption is that 20 % of the products a company is selling is related to 80 % of the revenue, Hannu found in his research companies where only 10 % of the products were contributing to the revenue. As PPM (Product Portfolio Management) often is based on big emotions – who shouts the loudest mentality, influenced by the company’s pet products and influence by the HIPPO (HIghest Paid Person in the Office). So how to get a better rationale?
Hannu explained a data-driven framework that would provide the right analytics on management level, depending on overall data governance from all disciplines and systems. See below:
I liked Hannu’s conclusions as it aligns with my findings:
- To be data-driven, you need Master Data Management and Data Governance
- Product Portfolio Management is the driving discipline for PLM, and in a modern digital enterprise, it should be connected.
Sponsor sessions
Sponsors are always needed to keep a conference affordable for the attendees. The sponsor sessions on day 1 were of good quality. Here a quick overview and a link if you want to invest further
Configit – explaining the value of a configurator that connects marketing, technical and sales, introducing CLM (Configuration Lifecycle Management) – a new TLA
Aras – explaining their view on what we consider the digital thread
Variantum – explaining their CPQ solution as part of a larger suite of cloud offerings
Quick Release – bringing common sense to PLM implementations, similar to what I am doing as PLM coach – focusing on the flow of information
SAP – explaining the change in focus when a company moves toward a product as a service model
SharePLM – A unique company addressing the importance of PLM training delivered through eLearning
Conclusion
The first day was an easy to digest conference with a good quality of presentations. I only shared 50 % of the session as we already reached 1000+ words. The evening I enjoyed the joint dinner, being able to network and discuss in depth with participants and finished with a social network event organized by SharePLM. Next week part 2.
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