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May 24th, 2008 was the date I posted my first blog post as a Virtual Dutchman aiming to share PLM related topics for the mid-market.
I tried to stay away from technology and function/feature debates and based on my day to day observations, describe the human side of the PLM – what people do and why . All from a personal perspective and always open to discuss and learn more.
Looking back and reviewing my 86 posts and 233 comments so far, I would like to share a summary around some of the main topics in my blog.
PLM
In 2008, PLM awareness was much lower – at that time one of the reasons for me to start blogging. There was still a need to explain that PLM was a business strategy needed beside ERP and PDM.
PLM will bring more efficiency, and in better quality, new innovative products to the market due to better collaboration between teams and departments.
At that time the big three, Dassault Systemes, Siemens and PTC were all offering a very CAD-centric, complex approach for PLM. There was no real mid-market offering, although their marketing organizations tried to sell as-if a mid-marketing offering existed. Express, Velocity, ProductPoint where are these offerings now ?
Now, In 2012 there is an established PLM awareness as everyone is talking about (their interpretation of) PLM and with Autodesk, a company that knows how to serve the mid-market, also acknowledged there is a need for PLM in their customer base, the term PLM is widespread
The new PLM providers focus on a disconnect between PDM and PLM, as in particular the handling of enterprise data outside the PDM scope is a white space for many mid-market companies that need to operate on a global platform.
PLM & ERP
In the relation between PLM and ERP, I haven’t seen a big change the past four years. The two dominating ERP originated vendors, SAP and Oracle were paying attention to PLM in 2008 in their marketing and portfolio approach.
However their PLM offerings in my perception, haven’t moved much forward. SAP is selling ERP and yes there is a PLM module and Oracle is having PLM systems, but I haven’t seen a real targeted PLM campaign explaining the needs and value of PLM integrated with ERP.
Historically ERP is the main IT-system and gets all the management attention. PLM is more considered something for engineering (and gets less focus and budget). Understanding PLM and how it connects to ERP remains a point of attention and the crucial point of interaction is the manufacturing BOM and the place where it is defined. The two most read posts from my blog are: Where is the MBOM and next Bill of Materials for Dummies – ETO, indicating there is a lot of discussion around this topic.
I am happy to announce here that in October this year during PLM Innovation US, I will present and share my thoughts in more detail with the audience, hoping for good discussions
New trends
There are three new trends that became more clear the past four years.
The first one to mention is the upcoming of Search Based Applications (SBA). Where PLM systems require structured and controlled data, search based applications assist the user by “discovering” data anywhere in the organization, often in legacy systems or possible in modern communication tools.
I believe companies that develop an integrated concept of PLM and SBA can benefit the most. PLM and ERP vendors should think about combining these two approaches in an integrated offering. I wrote about this combined topic in my post: Social Media and PLM explained for Dummies
The second trend is the cloud. Where two-three years ago social media combined with PLM was the hype as a must for product innovation and collaboration, currently cloud is in focus.
Mainly driven and coming for the US, where the big marketing engine from Autodesk is making sure it is on the agenda of mid-market companies.
In Europe there is less a hype at this moment, different countries and many languages to support plus discussions around security take the overhand here.
For me a cloud solution for sure is lowering the threshold for mid-market companies to start implementing PLM. However how to make the change in your company ? It is not only an IT-offering. Like a similar discussion around Open Source PLM, there is still a need to provide the knowledge and change push inside a company to implement PLM correct. Who will provide these skills ?
The third trend is the applicability of PLM systems outside the classical manufacturing industries.
I have been writing about the usage of PLM systems for Owner/Operators and the civil / construction industry, where the PLM system becomes the place to store all plant related information, connected to assets and with status handling. Currently I am participating in several projects in these new areas and the results are promising
People and Change
I believe PLM requires a change in an organization not only from the IT perspective but more important from the way people will work in an organization and the new processes they require.
The change is in sharing information, making it visible and useful for others in order to be more efficient and better informed to make the right decisions much faster.
This is a global trend and you cannot stay away from it. Keeping data locked in your reach might provide job security but in the long term it kills all jobs in the company as competiveness is gone.
The major task here lies with the management that should be able to understand and execute a vision that is beyond their comfort zone. I wrote about this topic in my series around PLM 2.0
Modern companies with a new generation of workers will have less challenges with this change and I will try to support the change with arguments and experiences from the field.
Audience
Since February this year, WordPress provides much more statistics and interesting is the map below indicating in which countries my blog is read. As you can see there are only a few places left on earth where PLM is not studied. Good news !!
Although most of my observations come from working in Europe, it is the US that provides the most readers (30 %) , followed by India (9 %) and on the third place the UK (6 %).
This might be related to the fact that I write my blog in English (not in 100 % native English as someone commented once).
It makes me look forward to be in October in Atlanta during the PLM Innovation US conference to meet face to face with many of my blog readers and share experiences.
Conclusion
Reading back my posts since 2008, it demonstrated for me that the world of PLM is not a static environment. It is even that dynamic that some of the posts I wrote in the early days have become obsolete.
At the end of 2008 I predicted the future of PLM in 2050 – here we are on the right track.
There is still enough blogging to do without falling into repetitions and I am looking forward to your opinion, feedback and topics to discuss.
Related articles
- PLM misconceptions (virtualdutchman.com)
The past three weeks I had time to observe some PLM Vendors marketing messages (Autodesk as the major newbie). Some of these message lead to discussions in blogs or (LinkedIn) forums. Always a good moment to smile and think about reality.
In addition the sessions from PLM Innovation 2012 became available for the attendees (thanks MarketKey – good quality). I had the chance to see the sessions I missed. On my wish list was “The future of PLM Business Models” moderated by Oleg as here according to Oleg some interesting viewpoints came up. This related to my post where I mentioned the various definitions of PLM.
All the above inspired me to write this post, which made me realize we keep on pushing misconceptions around PLM in our customer’s mind, with the main goal to differentiate.
I will address the following four misconceptions. The last one is probably not a surprise, therefore on the last position. Still sometimes taken for granted.
- PLM = PLM
- On the cloud = Open and Upgradeable
- Data = Process Support
- Marketing = Reality
1. PLM = PLM
It is interesting to observe that the definition of PLM becomes more and more a marketing term instead of a common definition which applies to all.
Let me try to formulate again a very generic definition which captures most of what PLM Vendors target to do.
PLM is about connecting and sharing the company’s intellectual property through the whole product lifecycle. This includes knowledge created at the concept phase going through the whole lifecycle till a product is serviced in the field or decommissioned.
Experiences from the field (services / customers / market input) serve again for the other lifecycle phases as input to deliver a better or innovative product.
Innovation is an iterative process. It is not only about storing data, PLM is also covering the processes of managing the data, especially the change processes. Sharing data is not easy. It requires a different mind set, data is not only created for personal or departmental usage, but also should be found and extended by other roles in the organization. This all makes it a serious implementation, as aligning people is a business change, not an IT driven approach.
Based on this (too long) high-level PLM definition, it does not imply you cannot do PLM without a PLM system. You might also have a collection of tools that are able to provide a complete coverage of the PLM needs.
Oleg talks about DIY (Do It Yourself) PLM, and I have seen examples of Excel spreadsheets managing Excel spreadsheets and Email archives. The challenge I see with this type of PLM implementations is that after several years it is extremely difficult for a company to change. Possible reasons: the initial gurus do not longer work for the company, new employees need years of experience to find and interpret the right data.
A quick and simple solution can become a burden in the long term if you analyze the possible risks.
Where in the early years of PLM, it was mainly a Dassault Systemes, Siemens and PTC driven approach with deep CAD integrations, the later years other companies like Aras and now Autodesk, started to change the focus from classical PLM more to managing enterprise metadata. A similar approach SAP PLM is offering. Deep integrations with CAD are the most complex parts of PLM and by avoiding them, you can claim your system is easier to implement, etc., etc.
A Single version of the truth is a fancy PLM expression. It would be nice if this was also valid for the definition of PLM. The PLM Innovation 2012 session at the future of PLM models demonstrated that the vendors in this panel discussion had a complete different opinion about PLM. So how can people inside their company explain to the management and others why the need PLM and which PLM they have in mind ?
2. On the cloud = Open and Upgradeable
During the panel discussion Grant Rochelle from Autodesk mentioned the simplicity of their software and how easy it will be upgradeable in the future. Also he referred to Salesforce.com as a proof point.They provide online updates from the software, without the customer having to do anything.
The above statement is true as long as you keep your business coverage simple and do not anticipate changes in the future. Let me share you an analogy with SmarTeam, how it started in 1995
At that time SmarTeam was insanely configurable. The Data Model Wizard contained several PDM templates an within hours you could create a company specific data model. A non-IT skilled person could add attributes, data types, anything they wanted and build the application, almost the same as Autodesk 360. The only difference, SmarTeam was not on the cloud, but it was running on Windows, a revolution at that time as all serious PDM systems were Unix based.
The complexity came however when SmarTeam started to integrate deeply with CAD systems. These integrations created the need for a more standardized data model per CAD system. And as the SmarTeam R&D was not aware of each and every customer’s implementation, it became hard to define a common business logic in the data (and to remain easily upgradable).
I foresee similar issues with the new cloud based PLM systems. They seem to be very easy to implement (add what you want – it is easy). As long as you do not integrate to other systems it remains safe. Integrating with other and future systems requires either a common data definition (which most vendors do not like) or specific integrations with the cost of upgrading.
In the beginning everything is always possible with a well-defined system. But be aware looking back in history, every 10 years a disruptive wave comes in, changing the scope and upgradability.
And to challenge the cloud-based PLM vendors: in the generic definition of PLM that I shared above, PLM integrates also design data.
3. Data = Process Support
Another misconception, which originates from the beginning of PLM is the idea that once you have support for specific data in your system, you support the process.
First example: Items defined in ERP. When engineers started to use a PDM system and started to define a a new item there were challenges. I had many discussions with IT-departments, that they did not need or wanted items in PDM. ERP was the source for an item, and when a designer needed a new item, (s)he had to create it in ERP. So we have a single definition of the item.
Or the designer had to request a new item number from the ERP system. And please do not request numbers too often as we do not want to waste them was the message.
Ten years later this looks like a joke, as most companies have an integrated PDM/ERP process and understand that the initial definition of a new item comes from PDM and at a certain stage the matured item is shared (and completed) by the ERP system. It is clear that the most efficient manner to create a new item is through PLM as the virtual definition (specs / CAD data) also reside there and information is handled in that context.
A second more actual example is the fact that compliancy is often handled in ERP. It is correct that in the case you manufacture a product for a specific target market, you need to be able to have the compliancy information available.
However would you do this in your ERP system, where you are late (almost at the end) of the design lifecycle or is it more logical that during your design stages at all time you verify and check compliancy ? The process will work much more efficient and with less cost of change when done in PLM but most companies still see ERP as their primary IT system and PLM is an engineering tool.
Finally on this topic a remark to the simplified PLM vendors. Having the ability to store for example requirements in your system does not mean you have support for a complete requirements management process. It is also about the change and validation of requirements, which should be integrated for a relevant role during product definition (often CAD) and validation. As long as the data is disconnected there is not such a big advantage compared to Excel.
4. Marketing = Reality
In the future of PLM Business Models
Oleg showed a slide with the functional architectures of the major PLM Vendors. In the diagram all seems to be connected as a single system, but in reality this is usually not the case.
As certain components / technologies are acquired, they provide the process coverage and only in the future you can imagine it works integrated. You cannot blame marketing for doing so, as their role is to position their products in the most appealing way customers will buy it. Without marketing perhaps no-one would buy a PLM system, when understanding the details 
Autodesk as a newcomer in PLM has a strong background in marketing. This is understandable as similar to Microsoft, their main revenue comes from selling a large volume of products, where the classical PLM vendors often have a combination with services and business change. And therefore a different price point.
When in the eighties Autodesk introduced AutoCAD, it was a simple, open 2D CAD environment, able to run on a PC. Autodesk’s statement at that time: “We provide 80 percent of the functionality for 20 % of the price”.
Does this sound familiar nowadays ?
As AutoCAD was a basic platform allowing customers and resellers to build their solutions on top of it, this became the mid-market success for Autodesk with AutoCAD.
The challenge with Autodesk PLM 360 is that although the same logic seems to make sense, I believe the challenge is not in the flexible platform. The challenge is in the future, when people want to do more complex things with the system, like integrations with design, enterprise collaboration.
At that time you need people who can specify the change, guide the change and implement the change. And this is usually not a DIY job.
Autodesk is still learning to find the right PLM messages I noticed recently. When attending the Autodesk PLM session during PLM Innovation 2012 (end of February), one of their launching customers ElectronVault presented their implementation – it took only two weeks !!! Incredible
However reading Rob Cohee’s blog post the end of March, he mentions ElectronVault again. Quote:
ElectronVault was searching for something like this for over two years and after 6 weeks they have implemented Project Management, EBOM, MBOM, and starting on their APQP project. Six Weeks!!!
As you see, four weeks later the incredible two weeks have become six weeks and again everything is implemented. Still incredible and I am looking forward to meet ElectronVault in the future as I believe they are a typical young company and they will go through all of the maturity phases a company will go through: people, processes and tools (in this order). A tool driven implementation is more likely to slow down in the long term.
Conclusion: Misconceptions are not new. History can teach us a lot about what we experience now. New technology, new concepts can be a break through. However implementing them at companies requires a change in organizations and this has been the biggest challenge the past 100 years.
Related articles
- The Question of PLM or Not to PLM (arnoldit.com)
- Innovation @ PLM Innovation 2012 ? (virtualdutchman.com)
I am just back from an exciting PLM Innovation 2012 conference. With a full program and around 250 participants, it was two intensive days of PLM interaction.
What I liked the most is that the majority of the audience was focusing on PLM business related topics. The mood of PLM has changed.
In this post, I will give an impression of the event, how I experienced it without going into the details of each session.
Several interesting sessions were in parallel so I could not attend them all, but MarketKey, the organizer of the conference confirmed that all presentations are filmed and will become available on-line for participants. So more excitement to come.
First my overall impression: Compared to last year’s conference there was more a focus on the PLM business issues and less on PLM IT or architecture issues (or was it my perception ?)
DAY 1
Gerard Litjens (CIMdata Director European Operations) opened the conference as CIMdata co-hosted the conference. In his overview he started with CIMdata’s PLM definition – PLM is a strategic business approach. (Everyone has his own definition as Oleg noticed too). Next he presented what CIMdata sees as the hottest topics. No surprises here: Extension from PLM to new industries, extending PDM towards PLM, Integration of Social Media, Cloud, Open Source, Enterprise integration and compliance.
Next speaker was Thomas Schmidt (Vice President, Head of Operational Excellence and IS – ABB’s Power Products Division) was challenging the audience with his key note speech: PLM: Necessary but not sufficient. With this title it seemed that the force was against him (thanks Oleg for sharing).
Thomas explained that the challenge of ABB is being a global company and at the same time acting as a ‘local’ company everywhere around the world. In this perspective he placed PLM as part of a bigger framework to support operational excellence and presented some major benefits from a platform approach. I believe the Q&A session was an excellent part to connect Thomas’s initial statements to the PLM focused audience.
Marc Halpern from Gartner gave his vision on PLM. Also Marc started with the Gartner definition of PLM, where they characterized PLM as a discipline. Gartner identified the following 5 major trends: Software everywhere in products, usage of social media for product development and innovation, using analytics tools to support the whole product lifecycle – after sales, service, connecting to the customer. Opportunities for existing products to deliver them through services (media content, transportation)
Next I attended the Autodesk session, a PLM journey using the cloud, where I was eager to learn their approach towards PLM. Autodesk (Mike Lieberman) let Linda Maepa, COO from Electron Vault in the USA explain the benefits of the Autodesk PLM 360 solution. Electron Vault, a young, high-tech company, has implemented the solution within 2 weeks. And here I got disconnected . Also when the suggestion was raised that you do not need time to specify the requirements for the system (old-fashioned stuff),
I suddenly got into a trance and saw a TV advert from a new washing power, with numerous features (program management, new product introduction, …..) that was washing whiter than all the others and a happy woman telling it to the world. I believe if Autodesk wants to be considered as serious in the PLM world it should also work with existing customers and managing the change in these organizations. Usually it takes already more than two weeks to get them aligned and agree on the requirements. Unfortunate I did not have time during the breaks to meet Autodesk at their booth as I would love to continue the discussion about reality as my experience and focus is on mid-market companies. Waiting for a next opportunity.
After Autodesk, I presented in my session what are the main drivers for making the case for PLM. I also started with my favorite PLM definition (a collection of best practices – 2PLM) and explained that PLM starts with the management vision and targets for the future. Is it about efficiency, quality, time to market, knowledge capture or a more challenging task: creating the platform for innovation?
Next I followed the Energy tracks, where I listened to Charles Gagnon from Hydro Quebec, who gave an interesting lecture called: Implementing Open Innovation and Co-Development.
At first glance this is a sensitive topic. When you innovate it is all about creating new intellectual property, and the fear that when working with partners the IP might be out of the company, Charles explained how this process of collaborative innovation was started and monitored. At the end he reported they measured a significant gain in R&D value perceived when working with external partners. And they did not use a PLM system to manage Innovation (to be investigated how they could survive)
After the lunch I continued with Jonas Hagner from WinWinD, a young manufacturer of windmills that are targeted to operate in extreme climate conditions ( a niche market). They are both implementing PLM and ERP in parallel and they did not have to suffer from years of ERP before PLM and therefore could have a more balanced discussion around part information availability / part number and more. Still I believe they have the challenge to connect in an efficient manner the services of the windmills back to their R&D organization, to do a full PLM circle.
Karer consulting together with Siemens Energy presented the case how they have designed and starting the implement the interface between their PLM system (Teamcenter) and ERP system (SAP). What was disappointing to see was that the interface between Teamcenter and SAP was relative complex (bi-directional with engineering activities in both sides) . Almost 1½ years of development of this interface and one of the main reasons, because SAP was first and they start the engineering order in SAP.
Apparently 2 years later Siemens Energy could not implement a clear distinct separation between PLM and ERP anymore and will not have to live with this complex interface. In the past I have written several times about this complexity that companies seem to accept due to political or historical reasons. Sad story for PLM – Where is the MBOM ?.
The day finished with a closing keynote from Peter Bilello, explaining how a successful PLM implementation could look like. Many wise statements that everyone should follow in case you want to come to a successful implementation (and define correctly what success is)
Thanks to Autodesk we had a nice evening reception, discussion and evaluating with peers the first day.
Day 2
Day 2 started for me with an interesting lecture from Peter Fassbender, Head Design Center Fiat Latin America, describing how in Brazil the Fiat Mio experiment used modern social media techniques, like crowdsourcing, communities and user involvement to guide the innovation and development of a potential car. A unique experiment demonstrating that this type of projects are influence the brand reputation positively (if managed correct) and for me an example of what PLM could bring if R&D is connected to the outside world.
Christian Verstraete Chief Technologist – Cloud Strategy from HP gave an inspiring session about the open frontiers of innovation. The speed of business in the past 30 years has increased dramatically (you need to be from an older generation to be aware of this – the definition of response time has changed due to new technologies) Christian pushed everyone to think Out of the Box and to be innovative, which made me wonder how long will companies in the future build standard boring products. Will keep on innovating in this amazing pace as we did in the past 30 years ?
Graeme Hackland, IT/IS director from the UK based Lotus F1 team presented the challenges a F1 team has to face every year due to changing regulations. I visited Lotus F1 last year and was impressed by the fact that over 500 engineers are all working around one carper year to optimize the car mainly for aerodynamics, but next to assure it performs during the years. Thousands of short interactions, changes to be implemented a.s.a.p. challenge the organization to collaborate in an optimum manner. And of course this is where PLM contributes. All the F1 fans could continue to dream and listen to Graeme’s stories but Jeremie Labbe from Processia brought us back to earth by explaining how Processia assisted Lotus F1 in a PLM value assessment as a next step.
Meanwhile I had some side discussions on various PLM topics and went back to the sessions, seeing how David Sherburne, Director of Global R&D Effectiveness from Carestream Health presented his case (open source PLM) and his analysis why an open source PLM model (based on Aras) is very appealing in their case. Indeed the business value perceived and significant lower operational costs for the software are appealing for his organization and for sure will influence the other PLM vendors in their pricing model.
Pierfrancesco Manenti, from IDC Manufacturing Insights gave a clear presentation indicating the future directions for PLM: managing operational complexity, not product complexity. As you could expect from IDC Manufacturing Insights all was well based on surveys in the manufacturing industry and clearly indicating that there is still a lot to do for companies to efficient share and work around a common product development and operational platform. New technologies (the four IT forces: mobility, cloud, social business and big data analytics) will help them to improve.
The closing keynote came from Jason Spyromilio , who was director of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (http://www.eso.org) and he gave us the insights in designing (and building) the biggest eye on the sky. Precision challenges for such a huge telescope mirror, being built in the high mountains of Chili in an earthquake sensitive area demonstrate that all participants are required to contribute their IQ in order to realize such a challenge.
Conclusion: This PLM Innovation 2012 event doubled the 2011 event from a year ago in all dimensions. Thanks to the sponsors, the organization and high quality lectures, I expect next year we could double again – in participants, in content and innovation. It shows PLM is alive. But comming back to the title of this post: I saw some interesting innovation concepts – now how to enabale them with PLM ?
Note: looking at the pictures in this postyou will notice PLM is everywhere. I published this post on February 29th – a unique day which happens only every 4 years. In May this year my blog will be 4 years old.
Last week I started my final preparation for the PLM Innovation Congress 2012 on February 22nd and 23rd in Munich, where I will speak about Making the Case for PLM. Looking forward for two intensive days of knowledge sharing and discussion
The question came to my mind that when you make the case for PLM, you also must be clear about what you mean by PLM. And here I started to struggle a little. I have my perception of PLM, but I am also aware everyone has a different perception about the meaning of PLM.
I wrote about it last year, triggered by a question in the CMPIC group (configuration management) on LinkedIn. The question was Aren’t CM and PLM the same thing ? There was a firm belief from some of the members that PLM was the IT-platform to implement CM.
A few days ago Inge Craninckx posted a question in the PDM PLM CAD network group about the definition of PLM based on a statement from the PLMIG. In short:
“PDM is the IT platform for PLM.”Or, expressed from the opposite viewpoint: “PLM is the business context in which PDM is implemented
The response from Rick Franzosa caught my attention and I extracted the following text:
The reality is that most PLM systems are doing PDM, managing product data via BOM management, vaulting and workflow. In that regard, PDM [read BOM management, vaulting and workflow], IS the IT platform for the, in some ways, unfulfilled promise of PLM.
I fully agree with Rick’s statement and coming back to my introduction about making the case for PLM, we need to differentiate how we implement PLM. Also we have to take into our minds that no vendor, so also not a PLM vendor, will undersell their product. They are all promising J
Two different types of PLM implementation
Originally PLM has started in 1999 by extending the reach of Product Data outside the engineering department. However besides just adding extra functionality to extend the coverage of the lifecycle, PLM also created the opportunity to do things different. And here I believe you can follow two different definitions and directions for PLM.
Let’s start with the non-disruptive approach, which I call the extended PDM approach
Extended PDM
When I worked 6 years ago with SmarTeam on the Express approach, the target was to provide an OOTB (Out of the Box) generic scenario for mid-market companies. Main messages were around quick implementation and extending the CAD data management with BOM and Workflow. Several vendors at that time have promoted their quick start packages for the mid-market, all avoiding one word: change.
I was a great believer of this approach, but the first benchmark project that I governed demonstrated that if you want to do it right, you need to change the way people work, and this takes time (It took 2+ years). For the details: See A PLM success story with ROI from 2009
Cloud based solutions have become now the packaging for this OOTB approach enriched, with the ease of deployment – no IT investment needed (and everyone avoids the word change again).
If you do not want to change too much in your company, the easiest way to make PDM available for the enterprise is to extend this environment with an enterprise PLM layer for BOM management, manufacturing definition, program management, compliancy and more.
Ten years ago, big global enterprises started to implement this approach, using local PDM systems for mainly engineering data management and a PLM system for the enterprise. See picture below:
This approach is now adapted by the Autodesk PLM solution and also ARAS is marketing themselves in the same direction. You have a CAD data management environment and without changing much on that area, you connect the other disciplines and lifecycle stages of the product lifecycle by implementing an additional enterprise layer.
The advantage from this approach is you get a shared and connected data repository of your product data and you are able to extend this with common best practices, BOM management (all the variants EBOM/MBOM/SBOM, …) but also connect the market opportunities and the customer (Portfolio management, Systems engineering)
The big three, Dassault Systemes, Siemens PLM and PTC, provide the above functionality as a complete set of functionalities – either as a single platform or as a portfolio of products (check the difference between marketing and reality).
Oracle and SAP also fight for the enterprise layer from the ERP side, by providing their enterprise PLM functionality as an extension of their ERP functionality. Also here in two different ways: as a single platform or as a portfolio of products. As their nature is on efficient execution, I would position these vendors as the one that drive for efficiency in a company, assuming all activities somehow can be scheduled and predicted
My statement is that extended PDM leads to more efficiency, more quality (as you standardize on your processes) and for many companies this approach is a relative easy way to get into PLM (extended PDM). If your company exists because of bringing new products quickly to the market, I would start from the PDM/PLM side with my implementation.
The other PLM – innovative PLM
Most PLM vendors associate the word PLM in their marketing language with Innovation. In the previous paragraph I avoided on purpose the word Innovation. How do PLM vendors believe they contribute to Innovation?
This is something you do not hear so much about. Yes, in marketing terms it works, but in reality? Only few companies have implemented PLM in a different way, most of the time because they do not carry years of history, numbering systems, standard procedures to consider or to change. They can implement PLM in a different way, as they are open to change.
If you want to be innovative, you need to implement PLM in a more disruptive manner, as you need to change the way your organization is triggered – see the diagram below:
The whole organization works around the market, the customer. Understanding the customer and the market needs at every moment in the organization is key for making a change. For me, an indicator of innovative PLM is the way concept development is connected with the after sales market and the customers. Is there a structured, powerful connection in your company between these people? If not, you do the extended PLM, not the innovative PLM.
Innovative PLM requires a change in business as I described in my series around PLM 2.0. Personally I am a big believer that this type of PLM is the lifesaver for companies, but I also realize it is the hardest to implement as you need people that have the vision and power to change the company. And as I described in my PLM 2.0 series, the longer the company exist, the harder to make a fundamental change.
Conclusion
There are two main directions possible for PLM. The first and oldest approach, which is an extension of PDM and the second approach which is a new customer centric approach, driving innovation. Your choice to make the case for one or the other, based on your business strategy.
Looking forward to an interesting discussion and see you in Munich where I will make the case
Since the past six months I am involved in several discussions related to the (building) construction industry. If you look to this industry, it seems like this is one of the few industries without innovation in its processes.
Someone in the discussion even claimed that if a worker from the middle ages would come back to this century, he would be quickly adapt and understand the way people work. OK, there are some new tools and materials, but the way the building construction industry works has not changed.
And let’s look to productivity. Where in the past 60 years in all industries productivity has increased, I have seen a survey where productivity in this industry has not increased and even decreased a little.
Although the survey ends in 2003, another article caught my attention. Robert Prieto, Senior Vice President from Fluor Corporation wrote end of last year in Engineering News Record his viewpoint: Engineering-Construction Needs a New Model. Reading this article and the comments demonstrates there is a need for innovation in the building construction industry.
Failure costs up to 15 % and delayed deliveries are considered normal business in this industry, where if this would be applied to mid-market companies in the manufacturing industry, they would have gone bankrupt due to claims and lost profit.
If we look at this industry, the first excuse you hear is that every project is unique and that project execution is done by a group of loose connected suppliers, not really pushed to stay within the targeted budget. But you might ask yourself: what is the correct budget?
I noticed that in this industry when a project is estimated, suppliers are asked to deliver their bid and proposed solution based on their understanding. Usually the lowest bid wins the bid.
All participants are aware that not all requirements are clear, but no one wants to ask and invest further as to invest more in accurate cost estimation. This is not anticipated. It is about winning the bid with the lowest trouble and investment.
So who is to blame? First of all, the client who has a short term vision. By selecting the lowest bids and not pushing for in-depth analysis of the project delivery and operational costs in the long term, the situation will not change.
What if the client was using the basics of PLM – Product Lifecycle Management? For me PLM means a connection and sharing of the concept phase, the delivery phase, production phase and maintenance phase.
What I consider as strange is the fact that in the engineering and construction industry these four phases are not connected and often that the maintenance phase (operations) is not taken into account during the concept phase.
And then there is the data handover. After engineering and construction specific data is handed over to the maintenance organization. What is the quality of the data, how applicable is it to the maintenance organization and how does it support maintenance is not clear. There is a disconnect and loss of knowledge as the handover is just based on the minimum data required.
What if the engineering construction industry would use PLM best practices, like:
- Requirements Management – connecting, implementing and validating all the requirements from each stakeholder. Making sure all requirements are considered and negotiated in a structured manner – no excuse for surprises.
- Data sharing with versions and status. Instead of a handover, data becomes mature during the lifecycle of the project. It requires the maintenance organization to be involved from the start
- Standardized validation and approval processes related to requirements and data. These processes might be considered as an overhead but they are the ones that lead to quality, risk and cost management
Conclusion: I believe connecting the engineering and maintenance phase for engineering construction companies will lead to higher productivity and quality. For sure the initial engineering cost will be higher, but during the construction and maintenance phase these costs will be recovered and probable much more – here is the ROI
As my intention was to write shorter blog posts this year, I stop at this point and look forward to your comments for a further discussion.
YOUR THOUGHTS ??
Related articles
- Why PLM 2.0 – Conclusions (virtualdutchman.com)
Last week I started a small series of posts related to the topic PLM 2.0. I was hoping for more comments and discussion about the term PLM 2.0, although I must say I was glad Oleg picked it up in his posts: PLM 2.0 born to die? and Will JT-open enable future of PLM 2.0?
Oleg, as a full-time blogger, of course had the time to draw the conclusions, which will take me another two weeks, hoping meanwhile the discussion evolves. Where Oleg’s focus is on technology and openness (which are important points), I will also explain that PLM 2.0 is a change in doing business, but this will be in next week’s post.
This week I will focus on the current challenges and pitfalls in PLM. And we all know that when somebody talks about challenges, there might be problems.
| Last week | : What is PLM 2.0? |
| This week: | : Challenges in current PLM |
| Next | : Change in business |
| Final post | : Why PLM 2.0 – conclusions |
The Challenges in current PLM
First I want to state that there are several types of definition in the world for PLM, coming from different type of organizations – I listed here two vendor independent definitions:
In industry, product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its conception, through design and manufacture, to service and disposal. PLM integrates people, data, processes and business systems and provides a product information backbone for companies and their extended enterprise.
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the business activity of managing a company’s products all the way across the lifecycle in the most effective way. The objective of PLM is to improve company revenues and income by maximizing the value of the product portfolio
And there are more definitions. Just recently, I noticed on the PlanetPTC blog from Aibhe Coughlan a post where she promoted a definition of PLM published in the Concurrent Engineering blog. Here I got immediate a little irritated reading the first words: “PLM is software designed to enhance process efficiencies ……… and more …”
I do not believe PLM is software. Yes there is software used to automate or implement PLM practices, but this definition starts to neglect the culture and process sides of PLM. And as Oleg was faster – read his more extended comment here
(I am not paid by Oleg to promote his blog, but we seem to have similar interests)
Back to the classical definitions
The Wiki definition gives the impression that you need to have an infrastructure to manage (store) all product data in order to serve as an information backbone for the extended enterprise. It becomes more an IT-project, often sponsored by the IT-department, with the main goal to provide information services to the company in a standardized manner.
This type of PLM implementations tends to be the same type of implementation as an ERP system or other major IT-system. In this type of top-down implementations, the classical best practices for project management should be followed. This means:
- A clear vision
- Management sponsorship
- A steering committee
- A skilled project leader and team
- Committed resources
- Power user involvement
- Communication
- …… and more …
These PLM projects are promoted by PLM vendors and consultants as the best way to implement PLM. And there are a lot of positive things to say about this approach. For many big companies implementing cPDM or PLM was a major step forward. Most of the ROI stories are based on this type of implementations and have been the showcases on PLM events. It is true that data quality increases, therefore efficiency and product quality. Without PLM they would not reach the same competiveness as they have now.
But sometimes these projects go into extreme when satisfying users or IT-guidelines
To avoid the implementation of a ‘new IT-system’, companies often have the strategy that if we already have an ERP-system , let’s customize or extend it, so we can store the additional data and perform workflow processes based on this system.
In a recent webinar, I heard a speaker saying that in their company they had the following automation strategy defined together with IT is:
- First they will see if the needed PLM functionality exists in their ERP system or is part of the portfolio of their ERP provider. If the functionality is there (this means the ERP vendor has the capability to store metadata and a factsheet mentioning the right name), there is no looking outside.
- If the functionality is not there, there will be a discussion with the ERP vendor or implementer to build it on top of their ERP system.
I have seen implementations where the company has developed complete custom user interfaces in order to get user acceptance (the users would not accept the standard graphical interface). At that time, no one raised the flag about future maintenance and evolution of these custom environments. The mood was: we kept it simple – one single system.
I believe this closes the door for real PLM, as storing data in a system does not mean you will use it in an efficient and optimized manner. How will you anticipate on changes in business if it is just doing more with the same system?
And mid-market companies ?
The top-down approach described before is the fear of many mid-market companies, as they remember how painful their first ERP implementation was. And now with PLM it is even more unclear. PLM aims to involve the engineering department, which so far has not worked in a very procedural manner. Informal and ad-hoc communication combined with personal skills within this department was often the key for success.
And now an unfriendly system is brought in, with low or little usability, pushing these creative people to enter data without seeing any benefits. The organization downstream benefits but this will be only noticed later in time. And for the engineering department it will take more effort to change their work methodology focused on innovation. However, in general in the mid-market, the target of a PLM project is to have a Return on Investment (ROI) in a very short timeframe ( 1-2 years). Investing in usability should be even more important for this type of companies as there is less top-down pressure to accept this new PLM system.
And flexibility ?
In the past years we have seen that business is changing – there is a shift in global collaboration and manufacturing and from the recent history we can learn that those big enterprise projects from the past became a threat. Instead of being able to implement new concepts or new technology, the implementation became more and more vendor monolithic as other capabilities and applications do not fit anymore. This is against the concept of openness and being flexible for the future. I believe if PLM becomes as rigid as ERP, it blocks companies to innovate – the challenge for big companies is to find the balance between stability and flexibility (This was the title from Sony Ericsson’s presentation at the PLM forum in Sweden this year)
And again for mid-market companies who do not have the budget or resources to invest in similar projects. They have less a drive to optimize themselves in the same manner as big companies do as flexibility is often their trade mark (and capability to innovate) . So PLM for the mid-market will not work in the classical way.
This is one of the reasons why a mid-market PLM standard has not yet been found (yet ?). From the other hand many mid-market companies are dealing with PLM practices although often it is more close to PDM and CAD data management. And mid-market companies do not change their organization easily – there is more a departmental approach avoiding therefore a change in business.
To summarize the biggest challenges in current PLM described in this post:
- PLM is considered complex to implement
- PLM is a huge IT-project
- PLM requires change and structuring – but what about flexibility
- Where is the PLM value and ROI – user acceptance
- PLM for the mid-market – does it exist ?
Conclusion: I have been writing about the PLM challenges in the past, see the links below if you are interested in more details on a specific topic.
In 2008,I thought that Out-of-the-Box PLM systems and standard functionalities could bring a solution for the mid-market, perhaps future solutions based on the cloud. However I learned that if you want to do real PLM in a modern manner, you need to change the way you do your business – and this I will explain in my upcoming post.
Related links:
Recently I have been reading various interesting articles, it started with Why Amazon can’t Make a Kindle in the USA from Steve Denning and from here I followed several interesting links.
Most of the articles were business driven and not with a focus on technology. However what caught my attention was the similarity of issues that were raised in these articles as-if it was about PLM.
At the end it is a plea/cry for change to be more competitive in the future. With the current economical stand still, I believe there is a need and an opportunity for this change also in PLM. I am not pointing to regime changes all around the world, but somehow they are all connected to this new wave of globalization and openness to information.
And as my domain is PLM, I took PLM 2.0 as the vehicle to describe the change currently in the PLM world. Although PLM 2.0 is a term invented by Dassault Systems, I will use it as the placeholder to describe the changes in PLM.
In four posts I will guide you in the upcoming weeks through the thought process:
| This week | : What is PLM 2.0 ? |
| Next | : Challenges in current PLM |
| Next | : Change in business |
| Final post | : Why PLM 2.0 – conclusions |
I hope you will stay with me when going through these four steps and look forward to your immediate feedback.
What is PLM 2.0 ?
In 2006 Dassault Systems announced PLM 2.0 as the new generation of PLM implemented on their V6 platform. If you go to the 3DS website you see the following definition of PLM 2.0
Look for the header PLM 2.0: PLM Online for All
In the DS definition you will find several keywords that will help us further to understand the PLM 2.0 capabilities:
a typical Dassault Systems viewpoint, as they are coming from the world or 3D CAD and virtualization and the company’s vision is around lifelike – and life is mostly in 3D.
3D as interface towards all product related information is a paradigm shift for companies that were used to display only metadata on boring tabular screens where you navigate on numbers and text. The other major CAD-related PLM vendors of course could follow this paradigm too, as 3D visualization of information is known to them. However when coming from an ERP-based PLM system you will see 3D is something far out of reach for these vendors (at this moment).
This is what I believe is a crucial keyword for all PLM future implementations it builds upon the Business Information concepts that became in fashion 8 years ago. Online means direct access to the actual data. No information conversion, no need for import or export, but sharing and filtering. What you are allowed to see is actual data and an actual status. Imagine what kind of impact working on-line would have on your organization. Evaluation of trends, Key Performance Indicators directly available – still of course the interpretation to be done by experts.
Intellectual Property – a topic that should be on every company’s agenda. The reason a company currently exists and will exist in the future is based on how they manage their unique knowledge. This knowledge can be based on how certain processes are done, which components are chosen, which quality steps are critical and more. Working in a global collaboration environment challenges the company to keep their IP hidden for others, for sure when you talk about online data. Losing your IP means for a company to be vulnerable for the future – read in the referenced blog post from Steve Jennings about DELL.
This is currently the platform for change as technologies are now enabling people and companies to implement applications in a different manner. Not only on premises, but it could be online, Software As A Service, Cloud based solutions and through standardized programming interfaces, companies could implement end-to-end business process without a huge, monolithic impact. Also Web 2.0 provides the platform for communities.
The concept of communities opens new perspectives for collaboration. In general people in a community, have a common interest or task, and they share thoughts, deliverables back to the community across all company borders. This is the power of the community and the collective intelligence built inside such a community. Without company borders it should give the people a better perspective on their market on their business due to the global participation
The vision is there – now ….
All the above keywords are capabilities for the future and in the world of PLM you see that every PLM vendor / implementer is struggling with them. How to implement them consistently across their offering is the major challenge for the upcoming years, assuming PLM 2.0 is considered as the next step.
If you look at the PLM vendors beside Dassault Systems, you see that Siemens and PTC are closest to following the PLM 2.0 approach, without mentioning the term PLM 2.0. Other vendors even refuse to talk about PLM, but they share already similar components, for example Autodesk.
Interesting to see that the ERP-based PLM vendors do not follow this trend in their communication, they are still working on consolidating and completing their ‘classical’ PLM components
But the classical PLM vendors struggle with the change in paradigm too.
- What to do with current, huge and structured implementations ?
- Is PLM 2.0 having the same demands or can it be different ?
Here you see opportunities for new comers in this market as you can implement online collaboration, intellectual property creation/handling and communities in different manners with different types of implementation demands.
So far my introduction in PLM 2.0. Browsing on the web, I did not find too much other viewpoints on this specific terminology, so I am curious about your thoughts or and complementary comments on this topic.
In my next post I will zoom in into the challenges of PLM and relate them to the PLM 2.0 vision
My take on PLM (classical) and PLM 2.0
Referenced in this context – not directly mentioned:
- IBM visionary presentation from 2006 – Michael Neukirchen
- The future of PLM – Martin Ohly (global PLM blog)
- PLM 2.0 technology or facelift – Oleg Shilovitsky
- Social Media and PLM explained for Dummies – Jos Voskuil
- Going Social With Product Development – Jim Brown
During this summer holiday, I was looking back on recent implementations and sales efforts related to PLM. Some had particular challenges regarding the PLM implementation and the relation to the IT department. The role of the IT-department was crucial, but always in a positive manner ? Judge yourself.
First this statement:
In many mid-market companies the choice for PLM is not that clear.
Let me explain what I mean by a typical mid-market company – it is not based on size or turn-over. For me a mid-market company is a company, not allocating the resources to have an overall strategic department and in addition the IT-department is limited to a team of people with a main focus to keep the company operational – ERP first.
The impact of this situation is twofold:
- From one way new business initiatives will mostly come from departments, either sales, marketing, engineering, production, service or IT. Companywide business initiatives are not likely to come from a separate department as each department is working on their own issues.
- Secondly IT often has a tendency to ‘standardize’ on certain environments. Some quotes:
“We love/hate Microsoft”
“SharePoint is our standard”
“If it is not Linux it is not reliable”
“Our ERP provider has also a PLM module, so this is going to be the standard”
And this standardization is often at the end the business killer
So where does PLM come from in a mid-market company ?
Example 1: The IT-department in company XYZ had the opinion there was a need to provide a company infrastructure for document management – people complained about not being able to find the right information. Related to the CAD system in use, it often became a kind of PDM implementation with extended document management. The IT-department provided the infrastructure (we need Oracle / SQL /DB2 – based on their standards) and engineering was allowed on top of that infrastructure to define their PDM environment.
As most of the people involved in this project were very familiar with computers, the implemented system was highly customized, due to specific actions the engineers wanted and what IT envisioned users would require. The overall thought was that other users would automatically get enthusiastic when seeing this implementation
In contrary: the regular users refused to work with the new PDM system – too complex, it takes too much time to fill in information and in situations of heavy customization some users became afraid of the system. Making one mistake was hard to undo and could have a chain reaction of events further down in the organization. They preferred the traditional method of sending documents or Excels to the other departments and getting face-to-face feedback. Of course in case of missing information or a mistake this could be clarified easily too.
Conclusion from all the PLM pessimists: PLM is too complex, PLM is hard to implement.
My intermediate conclusion: Good will to improve the company’s business is important, however you need business people to define and lead the implementation.
Example2: IT in a company ABC developed a custom PLM infrastructure for their users and everyone was happy, till …… business changed. Where several years ago, the users decided that the standard PLM software was not good enough as some details were not supported and the standard system PLM system was able to do too much, IT generously decided to build a complete, nice user environment for their company.
Everybody happy for three years, till recently, due to acquisitions, outsourced contracting (engineering and manufacturing), the IT-department has to hire more people to support more and more custom connections and data exchange. Now in an overheated state they are looking for ways to use PLM standard software instead, however IT does not want to write off the previous investments that easy, the users are not aware of the problems in changing business and the future PLM decision is again driven by IT and not by business,
Internal conclusion: The IT-department was very helpful for the end users, who appreciated the simple to-the-point interface – whispering: Therefore never a change process took place anticipating strategic changes upcoming. The result a kind of dead end.
My intermediate conclusion: If you are a mid-market company and you are not in software development, stay out of it. It is always a temporary and people dependent (who can/will leave at some time).
Just two examples out of many, typically for mid-market companies. I think also larger enterprises sometimes demonstrate the same problematic. Good IT-people and IT-department are crucial for every company. The challenge is to keep the balance between business and IT. The risk is that due to the fact that there is a lack of business strategy resources, the IT-department becomes the business standard.
Conclusion: PLM is about business change and PLM is not an IT-tool. However a PLM implementation requires good and intensive support from IT. The challenge for every company is that the IT-department often has the most skilled people for a company-wide implementation, however the business drivers and strategy should come from outside.
Your thoughts ???
In the past two weeks I had some interesting observations related to the core of PLM. Reading posts and some in-depth discussions with customers lead to the statements below:
Single version of truth ?
First I am going back to the intent of PLM – companies that implement PLM are not looking for a system where they can store information in a single database. Often the single version of the truth story is translated into technology . To illustrate this statement I was explaining a medical device company some weeks before how in PLM practices the interaction of requirements, integrated with regulatory compliance verification speeds up the product development process as deviations are early discovered during the development stage. The astonishing answer from the customer was; “Yes we already store this information in our well-known ERP system – so no need for PLM to handle this”
For this person the conclusion was that once data is stored in a system, it is managed. However what the company never tried was to track each requirement individually (and its possible change) during the engineering process and have a direct connection to regulatory demands.
In that area Excel, people’s knowledge and stored documents were used to collaborate. Off course with the late discovery of errors and several extra iterations due to it. As long as this company does not understand that the PLM system is not yet another tool to store data, but an enabler to work different and more efficient, these tools based statements will not bring them further. But as nobody get fired for selecting a well-known ERP system, but trying to change the way people work is a risk, often the first option is chosen.
And the more conservative the company culture, the more likely this will happen.
Tools do not make a change
In a last week meeting I met a VP of a business group of a real global company. I am stressing the word real as there are many global companies, that actually have one main location where the IP and influence comes from – as compared to the real global companies where all around the world the knowledge and IP of the company is invented and spread from there. Although the discussion was on the current status and quality of the tools in use, during breaks we concluded that although the discussion is about tools, the hardest part for implementing PLM in their company is to master and motivate the changes in the way of working towards the users.
In several blog posts from Oleg (and others) I see the hope that new user interfaces, user data handling can provide a break through here. I partly agree here – in the eighties/nineties we had the single window terminal screens, which were easy to understand (no multi-tasking / no multi-windows). Slowly the current workforce got used to windows (still no multi-tasking) and the new generation (generation-Y) is less and less single tasking and has different ways of solving issues. New interfaces can contribute to the acceptation of a tool, but as in the end we are still doing the same – storing data in a central system without changing the way we work – there is nothing improved
MBOM in PLM
Another interesting statement of this VP was also that they are in the process of bringing all engineering data coming from different disciplines in their R&D / PLM environment. Originally it was the ERP system that was used to combine all data coming from different disciplines. However the disadvantage was that this product definition resided partly in an ERP (there is no concept of a single ERP as manufacturing differ so much globally) and partly in PLM. Their future plan was therefore to extend the coverage of PLM toward the whole preparation for manufacturing – my favorite topic too: see Where is the MBOM ?
Conclusion so far
In day to day relations customers and PLM vendors, implementers are talking about functions and features to implement and where and how data is stored. The major driver should be the concept of changing the way we work to be more efficient, more clever and with higher quality. This is not reached by storing data, but by having the right data available at the right moment. And this moment changes when implementing PLM
- PLM Customers: Make sure that change of doing business is the target of your PLM implementation – do not look for tools only – check with your implementer and vendor which experience they have.
- PLM Implementers: Schedule time and activities during the implementation to understand the business change and the customer to adapt. It is a different type of skill required but as important.
- PLM Vendors: You have a hard time – as all are talking about the tools, you do not want to talk about the changes PLM implies – a pity but most customers do not want to hear this side during their PLM selection process
It has been silent from my side the past – more than two months. Extremely busy and sometimes surprised to see the amounts of post some of my colleagues could produce, with Oleg as the unbeaten number one. During this busy period I was able to observe some interesting trends listed below:
Going Social
Social Media and PLM is one of the favorite topics for both bloggers and some PLM vendors at this moment. New products for community based collaboration or social engineering are promoted. Combined with discussions and statements how the new workforce (Generation Y) should get challenging jobs without doing the ‘old boring stuff’.
True arguments to initiate a change in the way we work. And I agree, must of current PLM systems are not ‘intelligent’ enough to support engineers in a friendly manner. However is there an alternative at this moment ? Below a commercial (in Dutch) promoting that elderly workers are still required for quality.
I discussed the relation PLM and Social Media some time ago in my post Social Media and PLM explained for dummies. In addition my observation from the field, gives me the feeling that in most companies the management is still dominated by the older generation, and most of the time they decide on the tools they will be using. No X and Y at this moment. Therefore I do not see a quick jump to social media integrated with PLM – yes the vision is there – but the readiness of most companies is not yet there.
Cloud
PLM and Cloud are also more and more mentioned by PLM vendors as a new solution specially for the mid-market. And with an optimistic mind you can indeed believe that with a low investment (pay per use) mid-market companies can do their PLM on-line. But why are existing on-line PLM systems not booming at this time ? (Arena / PLMplus / and the major PLM vendors) I believe that there are two key reasons for that:
- Implementing PLM is not equal to installing a system. PLM is a vision to be implemented using a system. And the difficulty is that a vision does not match function and features from a product vendor. There is a need for a driving force inside the company that will support the business change. Where are the consultants and advocates (with experience) for this type of solutions ?
- There is still a reluctance to store intellectual property somewhere on-line in a cloud without direct control and ownership of data. Mid-market companies are not known to choose solutions ahead of the mass. In this type of companies cloud based CAD tools might be an entry point, but all product data – no way they say.
PLM or ERP
Before even talking about new technologies or fundamentals for PLM, I see the biggest challenge for PLM is still to get the recognition as the system for product knowledge (IP) and innovation. In too many companies ERP rules and PLM is considered as a way to capture CAD and engineering data. The main PLM vendors are not addressing this challenge – they neglect ERP (yes we can connect). And ERP vendors like SAP and Oracle are not known for their PLM messages and strategy (yes we have PLM). As ERP is often the major IT-system historically, there is so often the (wrong) opinion that everything should be built and based on one system.
In some publications I have seen the Swiss knife as an example for the multi-functional system with all tools embedded. My question remains – who wants to work only with a Swiss knife when doing professional work ?
I like to have the right tools to do my job
The most important topic around my blog the past 3 years has been around the Manufacturing BOM – where should it be – and where is the MBOM current ?
Sweden – a reality check
Last week I attended the DS PLM forum in Gothenburg to present the vision of using a PLM system as the backbone for plant information management for owners/operators and how ENOVIA supports this vision.
But I also learned Sweden is (one of) the most innovative countries (I need to verify the criteria used but can imagine there is a source of truth). What impressed me more where the presentations from Staffan Lundgren from Sony Ericsson with the title “Living in a world of change – balancing stability and flexibility” and Magnus Olsson from Volvo Cars with the title “Driving operational excellence in a challenging business environment”. Both companies are well known for their robust image. From both speakers you could experience that they are not worried so much about Generation Y, their success is depending on a clear vision and a will to go there. And this basic drive is often missing – PLM is not a product you buy and then business continues as usual
Conclusion
PLM vendors made a lot of noise the past months (events / product announcements) and customers might get the impression that technology and software (or the price of software) are the main criteria for successful PLM. Although not unimportant, I would focus on the vision and to assure this vision is understood and accepted by the company. 
Jos Voskuil's Weblog 
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