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In April this year, I published the post PLM and Modularity in which I had a dialogue with Daniel Strandhammar from Brick Strategy. Daniel and his colleague Bjorn Eriksson published the book “the Modular Way” written during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
We promised a recorded follow-up discussion with readers from the book. The follow-up initially planned for somewhere in May happened last week in June, with a significant contribution from the participants.
Theodor Ernstson, Henk Jan Pels, Jan Johansson and François Sychowicz shared their impression of the book with Daniel and Bjorn. Next, the following questions were posed and discussed:
- Modular design as a concept is already more than 50 years old, using different definitions, approaches and methodologies. In the book, an interesting list of steps is proposed. Is this list shared across modularity experts, or are they specific to this book?
- Do you see different ways of approaching modularity depending on the industry, or is it the same?
- When implementing modularization, which departments need to change their way of working most?
- How big a factor is the use of common technology in modularization?
- How do you position modularization vs. system engineering?
- As a measure of module quality, the concept of “independent” modules is often used to avoid that adding or changing a module might cause another module to fail. Have you seen this happening in your projects, and do you consider the concept of an “independent” module realizable?
- How do we make modularization stand out on the C-level agenda?
Watch the discussion here:
We felt that with this discussion, we only touched the tip of the iceberg. Each of the questions could be a theme for a deep conversation for some of us. Perhaps also for you – feel free to comment on this post or express your opinion. Based on the feedback, I am happy to moderate more detailed discussions related to modularity.
Conclusion
Reading books makes sense. Having a discussion afterward with some readers and the authors makes even more sense. Normally we would do this during a physical conference, meanwhile enjoying a drink or a snack. However, having a global and sustainable model of discussing and learning these virtual events might be the future. An entry point for enriching your network and knowledge.
For a year, we are now used to virtual events. PI PLMx 2020 in London was my last real event where I met people. When rereading my post about this event (the weekend after PI PLMx), I wrote that it was not a technology festival. Many presentations were about business change and how to engage people in an organization.
The networking discussions during the event and evenings were the most valuable parts of the conference.
And then came COVID-19. ☹
Shortly after, in April 2020, I participated in the TECHNIA Innovation Forum, which was the first virtual conference with a setup like a conference. A main stage, with live sessions, virtual booths, and many prerecorded sessions related to various PLM topics.
You can read my experience related to the conference in two posts: the weekend after PLMIF and My four picks from PLMIF. A lot of content available for 30 days. However, I was missing the social interaction, the people.
My favourite conference for 2020 was the CIMdata PLM Roadmap / PDT Fall 2020 conference in November. The PLM Roadmap/PDT conferences are not conferences for a novice audience; you have to be skilled in the domain of PLM most of the time with a strong presence from Aerospace and Defense companies.
The Fall 2020 theme: “Digital Thread—the PLM Professionals’ Path to Delivering Innovation, Efficiency, and Quality” might sound like a marketing term.
We hear so many times the words Digital Thread and Digital Twin. However, this conference was with speakers, active practitioners, from the field. I wrote about this conference in two posts: The weekend after PLM Roadmap / PDT 2020 – Part 1 and Part 2. I enjoyed the conference; however, I was missing social interaction.
The Digital Twin
Beyond the marketing hype, there is still a lot to learn and discuss from each other. First of all, it is not about realizing a digital twin; a business need should be the driver to investigate the possibility of a digital twin.
I am preparing a longer blog post on this topic to share learnings from people in the field. For example, in November 2020, I participated in the Netherlands in a Digital Twin Conference, focusing on real-life cases.
Companies shared their vision and successes. It was clear that we are all learning to solve pieces of the big puzzle; there are small successes. However, without marketing language, this type of event becomes extremely helpful for further discussion and follow-up.
Recently, I enjoyed the panel discussions during the PI DX Spotlight session: Digital Twin-Driven Design. The PI DX Spotlight sessions are a collection of deep dives in various themes – have a look for the upcoming schedule here.
In the Digital Twin-Driven Design session, I enjoyed the session: What does a Digital Twin mean to your Business and Defining Requirements?
The discussion was moderated by Peter Bilello, with three interesting panellists with different industrial backgrounds. (Click on the image for the details). I have to re-watch some of the Spotlight sessions (the beauty of a virtual event) to see how they fit in the planned Digital Twin post.
The Cenit/Keonys Innovation day
On March 23rd (this Tuesday), Cenit & Keonys launch their virtual Innovation Day, another event that, before COVID-19, would have been a real people event. I am mentioning this event in particular, as I was allowed to interview fifteen of their customers about their day-to-day work, PLM-related plans, and activities.
All these interviews have been recorded and processed in such a manner that within 5 to 8 minutes, you get an understanding of what people are doing.
To prepare for these interviews, I spoke with each of them before the interview. I wanted to understand the passion for their work and where our interests overlap.
I will not mention the individual interviews in this post, as I do not want to spoil the event. I talked with various startups (do they need PLM?) and established companies that started a PLM journey. I spoke with simulation experts (the future) and dimensional management experts (listen to these interviews to understand what it means). And ultimately, I interviewed a traditional porcelain family brand using 3D printing and 3D design, and at the other end, the German CIO of the year from 2020
(if you Google a little, you will easily find the companies involved here)
The most common topics discussed were:
- What was the business value of your PLM-related activity?
- Did COVID-19 impact your business?
- What about a cloud-based solution, and how do people align?
- If relevant, what are your experiences with a Model-Based Definition?
- What about sustainability?
I hope you will take the opportunity to register and watch these interviews as, for me, they were an excellent opportunity to be in touch with the reality in the field. As always, we keep on learning.
The Modular Way
Modularity is a popular topic in many board meetings. How often have you heard: “We want to move from Engineering To Order to more Configure To Order”? Or another related incentive: “We need to be cleverer with our product offering and reduced the number of different parts”.
Next, the company buys a product that supports modularity, and management believes the work has been done. Of course, not. Modularity requires a thoughtful strategy.
Illustration from the book: The Modular Way
The book can be a catalyst for such companies that want to invest in modularity but do not know where and how to start. The book is not written academically. It is more a story taking you along the steps needed to define, implement, and maintain modularity. Every step has been illustrated by actual cases and their business motivation and achieved benefits where possible. I plan to come back with Bjorn and Daniel in a dedicated post related to PLM and Modularity.
Conclusion
Virtual Events are probably part of our new future. A significant advantage is the global reach of such events. Everyone can join from anywhere connected around the world. Besides the larger events, I look forward to discovering more small and targeted discussion events like PI DX Spotlights. The main challenge for all – keep it interactive and social.
Let us know your favourite virtual event !!
In the last two weeks, three events were leading to this post.
First, I read John Stark’s recent book Products2019. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the full reach of product lifecycle related activities. See my recent post: Products2019, a must-read if you are new to PLM
Afterwards, I talked with John, discussing the lack of knowledge and teaching of PLM, not to be confused by PLM capabilities and features.
Second, I participated in an exciting PI DX USA 2020 event. Some of the sessions and most of the roundtables provided insights to me and, hopefully, many other participants. You can get an impression in the post: The Weekend after PI DX 2020 USA.
A small disappointment in that event was the closing session with six vendors, as I wrote. I know it is evident when you put a group of vendors in the arena, it will be about scoring points instead of finding alignment. Still, having criticism does not mean blaming, and I am always open to having a dialogue. For that reason, I am grateful for their sponsorship and contribution.
Oleg Shilovitsky mentioned cleverly that this statement is a contradiction.
“How can you accuse PLM vendors of having a limited view on PLM and thanking them for their contribution?”
I hope the above explanation says it all, combined with the fact that I grew up in a Dutch culture of not hiding friction, meanwhile being respectful to others.
We cannot simplify PLM by just a better tool or technology or by 3D for everybody. There are so many more people and processes related to product lifecycle management involved in this domain if you want a real conference, however many of them will not sponsor events.
It is well illustrated in John Stark’s book. Many disciplines are involved in the product lifecycle. Therefore, if you only focus on what you can do with your tool, it will lead to an incomplete understanding.
If your tool is a hammer, you hope to see nails everywhere around you to demonstrate your value
The thirds event was a LinkedIn post from John Stark – 16 groups needing Product Lifecycle Knowledge, which for me was a logical follow-up on the previous two events. I promised John to go through these 16 groups and provide my thoughts.
Please read his post first as I will not rewrite what has been said by John already.
CEOs and CTOs
John suggested that they should read his book, which might take more than eight hours. CEOs and CTOs, most of the time, do not read this type of book with so many details, so probably mission impossible.
They want to keep up with the significant trends and need to think about future business (model).
New digital and technical capabilities allow companies to move from a linear, coordinated business towards a resilient, connected business. This requires exploring future business models and working methods by experimenting in real-life, not Proof of Concept. Creating a learning culture and allowing experiments to fail is crucial, as you only learn by failing.
CDO, CIOs and Digital Transformation Executives
They are the crucial people to help the business to imagine what digital technologies can do. They should educate the board and the business teams about the power of having reliable, real-time data available for everyone connected. Instead of standardizing on systems and optimizing the siloes, they should assist and lead in new infrastructure for connected services, end-to-end flows delivered on connected platforms.
These concepts won’t be realized soon. However, doing nothing is a big risk, as the traditional business will decline in a competitive environment. Time to act.
Departmental Managers
These are the people that should worry about their job in the long term. Their current mission might be to optimize their department within its own Profit & Loss budget. The future is about optimizing the information flow for the whole value chain, including suppliers and customers.
I wrote about it in “The Middle Management Dilemma.” Departmental Managers should become more team leaders inspiring and supporting the team members instead of controlling the numbers.
Products Managers
This is a crucial role for the future, assuming a product manager is not only responsible for the marketing or development side of the product but also gets responsibility for understanding what happens with the product during production and sales performance. Understanding the full lifecycle performance and cost should be their mission, supported by a digital infrastructure.
Product Developers
They should read the book Products2019 to be aware there is so much related to their work. From this understanding, a product developer should ask the question:
“What can I do better to serve my internal and external customers ?”
This question will no arise in a hierarchical organization where people are controlled by managers that have a mission to optimize their silo. Product Developers should be trained and coached to operate in a broader context, which should be part of your company’s mission. Too many people complain about usability in their authoring and data management systems without having a holistic understanding of why you need change processes and configuration management.
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) deployers
Here I have a little bit of the challenge that this might be read as PLM-system users. However, it should be clear that we mean here people using product data at any moment along the product lifecycle, not necessarily in a single system.
This is again related to your company’s management culture. In the ideal world, people work with a purpose and get informed on how their contribution fits the company’s strategy and execution.
Unfortunately, in most hierarchical organizations, the strategy and total overview get lost, and people become measured resources.
New Hires and others
John continues with five other groups within the organization. I will not comment on them, as the answers are similar to the ones above – it is about organization and culture.
Educators and Students
This topic is very close to my heart, and one of the reasons I continue blogging about PLM practices. There is not enough attention to product development methodology or processes. Engineers can get many years of education in specific domains, like product design principles, available tools and technologies, performing physical and logical simulations.
Not so much time is spent on educating current best practices, business models for product lifecycle management.
Check in your country how many vendor-independent methodology-oriented training you can find. Perhaps the only consistent organization I know is CIMdata, where the challenge is that they deliver training to companies after students have graduated. It would be great if education institutes would embed serious time for product lifecycle management topics in their curriculum. The challenge, of course, the time and budget needed to create materials and, coming next, prioritizing this topic on the overall agenda.
I am happy to participate to a Specialized Master education program aiming at the Products and Buildings Digital Engineering Manager (INGENUM). This program organized by Arts Et Metiers in France helps create the overview for understanding PLM and BIM – in the French language as before COVID-19 this was an on-site training course in Paris.
Hopefully, there are more institutes offering PLM eductation – feel free to add them in the comments of this post.
Consultants, Integrators and Software Company Employees
Of course, it would be nice if everyone in these groups understands the total flow and processes within an organization and how they relate to each other. Too often, I have seen experts in a specific domain, for example, a 3D CAD-system having no clue about revisioning, the relation of CAD to the BOM, or the fundamentals of configuration management.
Consultants, Integrators and Software Company Employees have their own challenges as their business model is often looking for specialized skills they can sell to their clients, where a broader and general knowledge will come from experience on-the-job.
And if you are three years working full-time on a single project or perhaps work in three projects, your broader knowledge does not grow fast. You might become the hammer that sees nails everywhere.
For that reason, I recommend everyone in my ecosystem to invest your personal time to read related topics of interest. Read LinkedIn-posts from others and learn to differentiate between marketing messages and people willing to share experiences. Don’t waste your time on the marketing messages and react and participate in the other discussions. A “Like” is not enough. Ask questions or add your insights.
In the context of my personal learning, I mentioned that I participated in the DigitalTwin-conference in the Netherlands this week. Unfortunately, due to the partial lockdown, mainly a virtual event.
I got several new insights that I will share with you soon. An event that illustrated Digital Twin as a buzzword might be hype, however several of the participants illustrated examples of where they applied or plan to apply Digital Twin concepts. A great touch with reality.
Another upcoming conference that will start next week in the PLM Roadmap 2020 – PDT conference. The theme: Digital Thread—the PLM Professionals’ Path to Delivering Innovation, Efficiency, and Quality is not a marketing theme as you can learn from the agenda. Step by step we are learning here from each other.
Conclusion
John Stark started with the question of who should need Product Lifecycle Knowledge. In general, Knowledge is power, and it does not come for free. Either by consultancy, reading or training. Related to Product Lifecycle Management, everyone must understand the bigger picture. For executives as they will need to steer the company in the right direction. For everyone else to streamline the company and enjoy working in a profitable environment where you contribute and can even inspire others.
An organization is like a human body; you cannot have individual cells or organs that optimize themselves only – we have a name for that disease. Want to learn more? Read this poem: Who should be the boss?
In the series learning from the past to understand the future, we have almost reached the current state of PLM before digitization became visible. In the last post, I introduced the value of having the MBOM preparation inside a PLM-system, so manufacturing engineering can benefit from early visibility and richer product context when preparing the manufacturing process.
Does everyone need an MBOM?
It is essential to realize that you do not need an EBOM and a separate MBOM in case of an Engineering To Order primary process. The target of ETO is to deliver a unique customer product with no time to lose. Therefore, engineering can design with a manufacturing process in mind.
The need for an MBOM comes when:
- You are selling a specific product over a more extended period of time. The engineering definition, in that case, needs to be as little as possible dependent on supplier-specific parts.
- You are delivering your portfolio based on modules. Modules need to be as long as possible stable, therefore independent of where they are manufactured and supplier-specific parts. The better you can define your modules, the more customers you can reach over time.
- You are having multiple manufacturing locations around the world, allowing you to source locally and manufacture based on local plant-specific resources. I described these options in the previous post
The challenge for all companies that want to move from ETO to BTO/CTO is the fact that they need to change their methodology – building for the future while supporting the past. This is typically something to be analyzed per company on how to deal with the existing legacy and installed base.
Configurable EBOM and MBOM
In some previous posts, I mentioned that it is efficient to have a configurable EBOM. This means that various options and variants are managed in the same EBOM-structure that can be filtered based on configuration parameters (date effectivity/version identifier/time baseline). A configurable EBOM is often called a 150 % EBOM
The MBOM can also be configurable as a manufacturing plant might have almost common manufacturing steps for different product variants. By using the same process and filtered MBOM, you will manufacture the specific product version. In that case, we can talk about a 120 % MBOM
Note: the freedom of configuration in the EBOM is generally higher than the options in the configurable MBOM.
The real business change for EBOM/MBOM
So far, we have discussed the EBOM/MBOM methodology. It is essential to realize this methodology only brings value when the organization will be adapted to benefit from the new possibilities. 
One of the recurring errors in PLM implementations is that users of the system get an extended job scope, without giving them the extra time to perform these activities. Meanwhile, other persons downstream might benefit from these activities. However, they will not complain. I realized that already in 2009, I mentioned such a case: Where is my PLM ROI, Mr. Voskuil?
Now let us look at the recommended business changes when implementing an EBOM/MBOM-strategy
- Working in a single, shared environment for engineering and manufacturing preparation is the first step to take.
Working in a PLM-system is not a problem for engineers who are used to the complexity of a PDM-system. For manufacturing engineers, a PLM-environment will be completely new. Manufacturing engineers might prepare their bill of process first in Excel and ultimately enter the complete details in their ERP-system. ERP-systems are not known for their user-friendliness. However, their interfaces are often so rigid that it is not difficult to master the process. Excel, on the other side, is extremely flexible but not connected to anything else.
And now, this new PLM-system requires people to work in a more user-friendly environment with limited freedom. This is a significant shift in working methodology. This means manufacturing engineers need to be trained and supported over several months. Changing habits and keep people motivated takes energy and time. In reality, where is the budget for these activities? See my 2016 post: PLM and Cultural Change Management – too expensive?
- From sequential to concurrent
Once your manufacturing engineers are able to work in a PLM-environment, they are able to start the manufacturing definition before the engineering definition is released. Manufacturing engineers can participate in design reviews having the information in their environment available. They can validate critical manufacturing steps and discuss with engineers potential changes that will reduce the complexity or cost for manufacturing. As these changes will be done before the product is released, the cost of change is much lower. After all, having engineering and manufacturing working partially in parallel will reduce time to market.
Reducing time to market by concurrent engineering
One of the leading business drivers for many companies is introducing products or enhancements to the market. Bringing engineering and manufacturing preparation together also means that the PLM-system can no longer be an engineering tool under the responsibility of the engineering department.
The responsibility for PLM needs to be at a level higher in the organization to ensure well-balanced choices. A higher level in the organization automatically means more attention for business benefits and less attention for functions and features.
From technology to methodology – interface issues?
The whole EBOM/MBOM-discussion often has become a discussion related to a PLM-system and an ERP-system. Next, the discussion diverted to how these two systems could work together, changing the mindset to the complexity of interfaces instead of focusing on the logical flow of information.
In an earlier PI Event in München 2016, I lead a focus group related to the PLM and ERP interaction. The discussion was not about technology, all about focusing on what is the logical flow of information. From initial creation towards formal usage in a product definition (EBOM/MBOM).
What became clear from this workshop and other customer engagements is that people are often locked in their siloed way of thinking. Proposed information flows are based on system capabilities, not on the ideal flow of information. This is often the reason why a PLM/ERP-interface becomes complicated and expensive. System integrators do not want to push for organizational change, they prefer to develop an interface that adheres to the current customer expectations.
SAP has always been promoting that they do not need an interface between engineering and manufacturing as their data management starts from the EBOM. They forgot to mention that they have a difficult time (and almost no intention) to manage the early ideation and design phase. As a Dutch SAP country manager once told me: “Engineers are resources that do not want to be managed.” This remark says all about the mindset of ERP.
After overlooking successful PLM-implementations, I can tell the PLM-ERP interface has never been a technical issue once the methodology is transparent. A company needs to agree on logical data flow from ideation through engineering towards design is the foundation.
It is not about owning data and where to store it in a single system. It is about federated data sets that exist in different systems and that are complementary but connected, requiring data governance and master data management.
The SAP-Siemens partnership
In the context of the previous paragraph, the messaging around the recently announced partnership between SAP and Siemens made me curious. Almost everyone has shared an opinion about the partnership. There is a lot of speculation, and many questions were imaginarily answered by as many blog posts in the field. Last week Stan Przybylinski shared CIMdata’s interpretations in a webinar Putting the SAP-Siemens Partnership In Context, which was, in my opinion, the most in-depth analysis I have seen.
For what it is worth, my analysis:
- First of all, the partnership is a merger of slide decks at this moment, aiming to show to a potential customer that in the SAP/Siemens-combination, you find everything you need. A merger of slides does not mean everything works together.
- It is a merger of two different worlds. You can call SAP a real data platform with connected data, where Siemens offering is based on the Teamcenter backbone providing a foundation for a coordinated approach. In the coordinated approach, the data flexibility is lower. For that reason, Mendix is crucial to make Siemens portfolio behave like a connected platform too.
You can read my doubts about having a coordinated and connected system working together (see image above). It was my #1 identified challenge for this decade: PLM 2020 – PLM the next decade (before COVID-19 became a pandemic and illustrated we need to work connected) - The fact that SAP will sell TC PLM and Siemens will sell SAP PPM seems like loser’s statement, meaning our SAP PLM is probably not good enough, or our TC PPM capabilities are not good enough. In reality, I believe they both should remain, and the partnership should work on logical data flows with data residing in two locations – the federated approach. This is how platforms reside next to each other instead of the single black hole.
- The fact that standard interfaces will be developed between the two systems is a subtle sales argument with relatively low value. As I wrote in the “from technology to methodology”-paragraph, the challenges are in the organizational change within companies. Technology is not the issue, although system integrators also need to make a living.
- What I believe makes sense is that both SAP and Siemens, have to realize their Industry 4.0 end-to-end capabilities. It is a German vision now for several years and it is an excellent vision to strive for. Now it is time to build the two platforms working together. This will be a significant technical challenge mainly for Siemens as its foundation is based on a coordinated backbone.
- The biggest challenge, not only for this partnership, is the organizational change within companies that want to build an end-to-end connected solution. In particular, in companies with a vast legacy, the targeted industries by the partnership, the chasm between coordinated legacy data and intended connected data is enormous. Technology will not fix it, perhaps smoothen the pain a little.
Conclusion
With this post, we have reached the foundation of the item-centric approach for PLM, where the EBOM and MBOM are managed in a real-time context. Organizational change is the biggest inhibitor to move forward. The SAP-Siemens partnership is a sales/marketing approach to create a simplified view for the future at C-level discussions.
Let us watch carefully what happens in reality.
Next time potentially the dimension of change management and configuration management in an item-centric approach.
Or perhaps Martijn Dullaart will show us the way before, following up on his tricky poll question
I usually write a post after participating in a PLM conference. Last week, I participated in TECHNIA’s PLM Innovation Forum, which was a 100 % virtual event with over 1500 registered participants from 58 countries. These numbers show the power of a virtual conference during these difficult times. It is an excellent option for a sustainable future – less travel to be there.
The additional beauty of this event is that, although the live sessions are over, all the content will be available until May 31st. You can still join!
It was (and is) a well-organized and massive event with over 70 sessions; the majority pre-recorded. As you can imagine 70 live sessions in two days would be too massive to grasp. Today the Friday after the event, I have been watching other sessions that have my interest, and it felt like another conference day.
TECHNIA, globally the largest Dassault Systèmes (DS) implementer after DS themselves as Jonas Geyer, Technia’s CEO, mentioned in his introduction speech, illustrated the breadth of their industry and technology skills complementary or based on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
TECHNIA was supported by Dassault Systèmes Execs and subject experts. In addition, a larger group of companies and interest groups supported the conference, even our humble PLM Green Alliance as you can see in the image above.
I followed the full two live days in real-time, meanwhile man sitting in my virtual booth to chat with virtual visitors. To my surprise, the anxiety during the conference felt like a physical conference – you get energized.
The positive point for me, no finger food or a standing lunch and decent coffee when needed. The point to enhance and learn for this type of event, is to make the booth a little more human – perhaps supported by video?
At the end, a great event, and if you are interested in the Dassault Systèmes/TECHNIA combined offering, supported by customer stories, take the chance till the end of May to register and browse the rich content.
Now I will share some of my picks from the live event. Another post will come based on my additional discoveries and networking discussions.
The B.CONNECT project
Fabien Hoefer and Philip Haller both from B.Braun, a medical device, and pharmaceutical company, with a wide range of products. Their massive PLM-project, approx. sixty persons involved was driven by the fact that every product has a lot of related data stored in different silos that it becomes impossible to have the correct understanding and status and to maintain it for the product and service lifecycle, on average, 10 – 15 years.
Their target is a real PLM-platform implementation connecting the people, the processes, data, and systems. Their aim is really about the “connected” approach, a characteristic of a digital company.
As you can still watch the presentation, look at the following topics discussed:
- focus on product archetypes instead of division (portfolio management)
- data templates based on classification, global and specific data sets (data governance)
- the need to have a Master Data Management in place (data governance)
- the unique product identifier (remember the FFF-discussion in my blog)
- data-driven documentation (a perfect example of a digital PLM implementation)
- platform strategy (one application for one capability in a heterogeneous systems environment)
- Ownership of the PLM implementation at board level (it is not an engineering tool)
- in the Q&A – the mix of waterfall & agile – the hybrid approach (as in the medical world the validation of the system is required – a point we missed in the SmarTeam FDA toolkit – validation of a system is needed when the system/processes change)
In the Q&A session, it was clear that the big elephant in the room, the migration, has been identified, but no answers yet. See my presentation to understand the reference to the elephant. I am curious about B. Braun’s approach, given my experience with PLM digital transformations. Will it be entirely digital or hybrid.
Looking forward to learning more from Fabien or Philip.
Business drivers for Sustainable Manufacturing
This session, presented by Hannes Lindfred from TECHNIA, was one of my favorite presentations, as it links tightly to what we want to achieve with the PLM Green Alliance.
The subtitle of the presentation says it all: “How PLM can support Supply chain transparency, Circular economy, and System oriented product development”.
In a relaxed and entertaining manner, he explained the concepts and the needs of a circular economy, combined with examples from reality. In particular, I liked his closing statement linking the potential of digitization, modern PLM, and the circular economy. We have to learn to think and act circular. Highly recommended to watch!
Leading PLM Trends & Potential Disruptors
A PLM conference would not be a PLM-conference if Peter Bilello from CIMdata would not be speaking. We share a lot of insights related to digital transformation and the understanding it requires the involvement of PLM. However, it is not the traditional PLM that is needed.
PLM needs to be rethought, think about the concept of a Product Innovation Platform. A digital platform is required if we want end-to-end digitalization; otherwise, we keep working in optimized silos.
Peter shared some survey results (see below) from early this year. It illustrates that most companies currently invest in traditional PDM aspects. Restating the need for our PLM communities to learn and educate and rethink aspects of PLM and learn to communicate them.
Remarkably similar to some of the aspects I explained in my: From Coordinated to Connected presentations. Changing to data, changing workforce, changing processes meaning systems thinking. Another plea for everyone to invest in learning. See his concluding remarks:
The closing Q&A session was interesting, addressing additive manufacturing, the graph database, and potential PLM disruptors coming from outside the traditional PLM space.
I recommend, pay attention to the closing questions – so many good points to put PLM in perspective.
From Coordinated to Connected & Sustainable
Of course, I recommend you watch my presentation. It is one of the few opportunities to hear in a short time all the thoughts and concepts that I developed over the past 5 – 6 years. It saves you reading all my blog posts, which are less structured than this presentation.
I recommend you to watch this presentation in the context of Peter Bilello’s presentation as there are a lot of similarities, told in different words.
After my presentation, I appreciated the Q&A part, as it allowed me to point to some more of the related topics: Legacy CAD-issues – the incompatibility of the past and future data, Management vision and the Perception of ROI.
Professional PLM
Raise your standards and your horizons
An interesting presentation to watch, after seeing Peter Bilello’s presentation and my presentation, is the one given by Roger Tempest. Roger is another veteran in the PLM-world and co-founder of the PLM Interest group. For many years Roger is striving to get the PLM professional recognized and certified. We both share the experience that being a PLM consultant is not a profession to become wealthy.
One of the reasons might be that the scope of PLM and what is the required skill level is not precise. PLM considered as an engineering tool and PLM having so many diverse definitions.
The challenge of Roger’s approach is that it tries to capture people within a standardized PLM framework, which becomes apparent in the Q&A session. Currently, he is in the stage of building a steering group, “looking for companies that are fairly committed to PLM”. So which companies are the ones interested in PLM to commit time and resources to build a professional PLM body? This can be only academic people and PLM Vendors/Implementers. The last group will probably not likely agree on standardization.
Also related to the question about the different industries and maturity levels for companies came with an unsatisfactory answer. He talks about “absolute” PLM and no need to compare PLM with other industries. Here I believe there is such a fundamental difference in the meaning of PLM when talking to the traditional manufacturing companies as compared to high-tech/software-driven industries. I inserted here Marc Halpern’s maturity/technology diagram that I have been referencing in my presentation too.
The final question about vendors joining the PLM standardization group seems to be a utopia. As I expressed in my presentation, referring to Marc Halpern’s business maturity diagram, the vendors show us the vision of various business aspects related to PLM.
Marc already indicated this is the phase of the Product Innovation Platform.
As long as the professional PLM organization is focusing on defining the standard, I foresee the outside world will move faster and be more diverse than a single PLM expert can handle. A typical issue with many other standards as you can see below.
What’s Next
I hope to see and participate more in virtual PLM conferences as it allows much larger audiences to connect compared to traditional conferences. However, there are things to improve, and therefore I want to propose some enhancements:
Make sure during the “live” sessions, there is the experience of “being live and connected”. Even when streaming a pre-recorded lecture, always follow-up immediately with a live Q&A session. I found the Q&A sessions very educative as they clarify or put the presentation in a broader context.
The current virtual booth as only a chat room is too primitive – it reminded me of the early days of internet communication – discussion groups in ASCII-terminal mode through Compuserve (remember). A booth could become a virtual meeting space on its own – all, of course, depending on the amount of bandwidth available. The feeling of “The Doctor is in”
It is great that the content is available for 30 days, and I agree there is a need for a time limit on the content; otherwise, the conference becomes more a library. What I would like to see after the “live” days to still have a kind of place for sharing. What are your favorite presentations, and why should others look at it?
Conclusion
A great event and learning experience for me. Virtual conferences are the future for sure, and I encourage others to develop this type of conferences related to PLM further. It is a way to share knowledge and discuss topics in a sustainable manner. In the upcoming 30 days, I will come back to the conference one more time, based on interesting topics discovered or discussion related to the content.
Meanwhile, I encourage you too – if you are still in lockdown and if there is time to study – this is one of these unique opportunities.
After two reposts, I have finally the ability to write with full speed, and my fingers were aching, having read some postings in the past four weeks. It started with Verdi Ogewell’ s article on Engineering.com Telecom Giant Ericsson Halts Its PLM Project with Dassault’s 3DEXPERIENCE followed by an Aras blog post Don’t Be a Dinosaur from Mark Reisig, and of course, I would say Oleg Shilovitsky’s post: What to learn from Ericsson PLM failure?
Setting the scene
Verdi’s article is quite tendentious based on outside observations and insinuations. I let you guess who sponsored this article. If I had to write an article about this situation,
I would state: Ericsson and Dassault failed to migrate the old legacy landscape into a new environment – an end-to-end migration appeared to be impossible.
The other topics mentioned are not relevant to the current situation.
Mark is chiming in on Verdi’s truth and non-relevant points to data migration, suggesting PLM is chosen over dinner. Of course, decisions are not that simple. It is not clear from Mark’s statement, who are the Dinosaurs:
Finally, don’t bet your future on a buzzword. Before making a huge PLM investment, take the time to make sure your PLM vendor has an actual platform. Have them show you their spider chart. And here’s the hard reality: they won’t do it, because they can’t.
Don’t be a dinosaur—be prepared for the unexpected with a truly resilient digital platform.
I would state, “Don’t bet your future on a spider chart” if you do not know what the real problem is.
Oleg’s post finally is more holistic, acknowledging that a full migration might not be the right target, and I like his conclusion:
Flexibility Vs. Out of the box products – which one do you prefer? Over-customize a new PLM to follow old processes? To use a new system as an opportunity to clean existing processes? To move 25,000 people from one database to another is not a simple job. It is time to think about no upgrade PLM systems. While a cloud environment is not an option for mega-size OEMs like Ericsson, there is an opportunity for OEM IT together with the PLM vendor to run a migration path. The last one is a costly step. But… without this step, the current database oriented single-version of truth PLM paradigm is doomed.
The Migration Problem
I believe migration of data – and sometimes the impossibility of data migration – is the biggest elephant in the room when dealing with PLM projects. In 2015 during the PI PLM conference in Dusseldorf, I addressed this topic for the first time: The Challenge of PLM Upgrades.
You can find the presentation on SlideShare here.
I shared a similar example to the Ericsson case from almost 10 years ago. At that time, one of the companies I was working with wanted to replace their mainframe application, which was managing the configuration of certain airplanes. The application managed the aircraft configuration structures in tables and where needed pointing to specifications in a document repository. The two systems were not connected; integrity was guaranteed through manual verification procedures.
The application was considered as the single version of the truth, and has been treated like that for decades. The reason for migration was that all the knowledge of the application disappeared, tables were documented, but the logic was not. And besides this issue, the maintenance costs for the mainframe was also high – also at that time vendor lock-in existed.
The idea was to implement SmarTeam – flexible data model – rapid deployment based on windows technology -to catch two birds with one stone, i.e., latest microsoft technology and meanwhile direct link to the controlled documents. As they were using CATIA V5, the SmarTeam-integration was a huge potential benefit. For the migration of data, the estimate was two months. What could go wrong?
Well, technically, almost nothing went wrong. The challenge was to map the relational tables to the objects in the SmarTeam data model. And as the relational tables contained a mix of document and item attributes, splitting these tables was not always easy. Sometimes the same properties were with different values in the original table – which one was the truth? The migration took almost two years also due to limited availability of the last knowledgeable resource who could explain the logic.
After the conversion, the question still remained if the migrated data was accurate? Perhaps 99 %?
But what if it was critical? For this company, it was significant, but not mission critical like in Ericsson, where a lot of automation and rules are linked together between loads of systems.
So my point: Dassault has failed at Ericsson and so will Siemens or Aras or any other PLM vendor as the migration issue is not in the technology – we should stop thinking about this kind of migrations.
Who are the dinosaurs?
Mark is in a way suggesting that when you use PLM software from the “old” PLM vendors, you are a dinosaur. Of course, this is a great marketing message, but the truth is that it is not the PLM vendor to blame. Yes, some have more friction than the other in some instances, but in my opinion, there is no ultimate single PLM vendor.
Have a look at the well-known Daimler case from some years ago, which made the news because Daimler decided to replace CATIA by NX. Not because NX was superior – it was about maintaining the PLM backbone Smaragd which would be hard to replace. Even in 2010, there was already the notion that the existing data management infrastructure is hard to replace. See a more neutral article about this topic from Monica Schnitger if you want: Update: Daimler chooses NX for Smaragd. Also here in the end, it became a complete Siemens account for compatibility reasons.
When you look at the significant wins Aras is mentioning in their customer base, GM, Schaeffler or Airbus, you will probably discover Aras is more the connection layer between legacy systems, old PLM or PDM systems. They are not the new PLM replacing old PLM. A connection layer creates a digital thread, connecting various data sources for traceability but does not provide digital continuity as the data in the legacy systems is untouched. Still it is an intermediate step towards a hybrid environment.
For me the real dinosaurs are these large enterprises that have been implementing their proprietary PLM environments in the previous century and have built a fully automated infrastructure based on custom data models with a lot of proprietary rules. This was the case in Ericsson, but most traditional automotive and aerospace companies share this problem, as they were the early PLM adopters. And they are not the only ones. Many industrial manufacturing companies suffer from the past, opposite to their Asian competitors who can start with less legacy.
What’s next?
It would be great if the PLM community focused more on the current incompatibility of data between current/past concepts and future digital needs and discuss solution paths (for sure standards will pop-up)
Incompatibility means: Do not talk about migration but probably focus on a hybrid landscape with legacy data, managed in a coordinated manner, and modern, growing digital PLM processes based on a connected approach.
This is the discussion I would like to see, instead of vendors claiming that their technology is the best. None of the vendors will talk about this topic – like the old “Rip-and-Replace” approach is what brings the most software revenue combined with the simplification that there is only OnePLM. It is interesting to see how many companies have a kind of OnePLM or OneXXX statement.
The challenge, of course, is to implement a hybrid approach. To have the two different PLM-concepts work together, there is a need to create a reliable overlap. The reliable overlap can come from an enterprise data governance approach if possible based on a normalized PLM data model. So far all PLM vendors that I know have proprietary data models, only ShareAspace from Eurostep is based on the PLCS standard, but their solutions are most of the time part of a larger PLM-infrastructure (the future !)
To conclude: I look forward to discussing this topic with other PLM peers that are really in the field, discovering and understanding the chasm between the past and the future. Contact me directly or join us as the PLM Roadmap and PDT Europe 13-14 November in Paris. Let’s remain fact-based!
(as a matter of fact you can still contribute – call for papers still open)
In this post, I will explain the story behind my presentation at PI PLMx London. You can read my review of the event here: “The weekend after ……” and you can find my slides on SlideShare: HERE.
For me, this presentation is a conclusion of a thought process and collection of built-up experiences in the past three to five years, related to the challenges digital transformation is creating for PLM and what makes it hard to go through compared to other enterprise business domains. So here we go:
Digital transformation or disruption?
Slide 2 (top image) until 5 are dealing with the common challenges of business transformation. In nature, the transformation from a Caterpillar (old linear business) to a Butterfly (modern, agile, flexible) has the cocoon stage, where the transformation happens. In business unfortunate companies cannot afford a cocoon phase, it needs to be a parallel change.
Human beings are not good at change (slide 3 & 4), and the risk is that a new technology or a new business model will disrupt your business if you are too confident – see examples from the past. The disruption theory introduced by Clayton Christensen in his book, the Innovators Dilemma is an excellent example of how this can happen. Some of my thoughts are in The Innovator’s dilemma and generation change (2015)
Although I know some PLM vendors consider themselves as disruptor, I give them no chance in the PLM domain. The main reason: The existing PLM systems are so closely tied to the data they manage, that switching from one PLM system to a more modern PLM system does not pay off. The data models are so diverse that it is better to stay with the existing environment.
What is clear for modern digital businesses is that if you could start from scratch or with almost no legacy you can move faster forward than the rest. But only if supported by a strong leadership , a(understandable) vision and relentless execution.
The impression of evolution
Marc Halpern’s slide presented at PDT 2015 is one of my favorite slides, as it maps business maturity to various characteristics of an organization, including the technologies used.
Slide 7 till 18 are zooming in on the terms Coordinated and Connected and the implications it has for data, people and business. I have written about Coordinated and Connected recently: Coordinated or Connected (2018)
A coordinated approach: Delivering the right information at the right moment in the proper context is what current PLM implementations try to achieve. Allowing people to use their own tools/systems as long as they deliver at the right moment their information (documents/files) as part of the lifecycle/delivery process. Very linear and not too complicated to implement you would expect. However it is difficult ! Here we already see the challenge of just aligning a company to implement a horizontal flow of data. Usability of the PLM backbone and optimized silo thinking are the main inhibitors.
In a connected approach: Providing actual information for anyone connected in any context the slide on the left shows the mental picture we need to have for a digital enterprise. Information coming from various platforms needs to be shareable and connected in real-time, leading, in particular for PLM, to a switch from document-based deliverables to models and parameters that are connected.
Slide 15 has examples of some models. A data-driven approach creates different responsibilities as it is not about ownership anymore but about accountability.
The image above gives my PLM-twisted vision of which are the five core platforms for an enterprise. The number FIVE is interesting as David Sherburne just published his Five Platforms that Enable Digital Transformation and in 2016 Gartner identified Five domains for the digital platform .- more IT-twisted ? But remember the purpose of digital transformation is: FIVE!
From Coordinated to Connected is Digital Transformation
Slide 19 till 27 further elaborate on the fact that for PLM there is no evolutionary approach possible, going from a Coordinated technology towards a Connected technology.
For three reasons: different type of data (document vs. database elements), different people (working in a connected environment requires modern digital skills) and different processes (the standard methods for mechanical-oriented PLM practices do not match processes needed to deliver systems (hardware & software) with an incremental delivery process).
Due to the incompatibility of the data, more and more companies discover that a single PLM-instance cannot support both modes – staying with your existing document-oriented PLM-system does not give the capabilities needed for a model-driven approach. Migrating the data from a traditional PLM-environment towards a modern data-driven environment does not bring any value. The majority of the coordinated data is not complete and with the right quality to use a data-driven environment. Note: in a data-driven environment you do not have people interpreting the data – the data should be correct for automation / algorithms.
The overlay approach, mentioned several times in various PLM-blogs, is an intermediate solution. It provides traceability and visibility between different data sources (PLM, ALM, ERP, SCM, …). However it does not make the information in these systems better accessible.
So the ultimate conclusion is: You need both approaches, and you need to learn to work in a hybrid environment !
What can various stakeholders do?
For the management of your company, it is crucial they understand the full impact of digital transformation. It is not about a sexy customer website, a service platform or Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality case for the shop floor or services. When these capabilities are created disconnected from the source (PLM), they will deliver inconsistencies in the long-term. The new digital baby becomes another silo in the organization. Real digital transformation comes from an end-to-end vision and implementation. The result of this end-to-end vision will be the understanding that there is a duality in data, in particular for the PLM domain.
Besides the technicalities, when going through a digital transformation, it is crucial for the management to share their vision in a way it becomes a motivational story, a myth, for all employees. As Yuval Harari, writer of the book Sapiens, suggested, we (Home Sapiens) need an abstract story, a myth to align a larger group of people to achieve a common abstract goal. I discussed this topic in my posts: PLM as a myth? (2017) and PLM – measurable or a myth?
Finally, the beauty of new digital businesses is that they are connected and can be monitored in real-time. That implies you can check the results continuously and adjust – scale of fail!
Consultants and strategists in a company should also take the responsibility, to educate the management and when advising on less transformational steps, like efficiency improvements: Make sure you learn and understand model-based approaches and push for data governance initiatives. This will at least narrow the gap between coordinated and connected environments.
This was about strategy – now about execution:
For PLM vendors and implementers, understanding the incompatibility of data between current PLM practices – coordinated and connected – it will lead to different business models. Where traditionally the new PLM vendor started first with a rip-and-replace of the earlier environment – no added value – now it is about starting a new parallel environment. This implies no more big replacement deals, but more a long-term. strategic and parallel journey. For PLM vendors it is crucial that being able to offer to these modes in parallel will allow them to keep up their customer base and grow. If they would choose for coordinated or connected only it is for sure a competitor will work in parallel.
For PLM users, an organization should understand that they are the most valuable resources, realizing these people cannot make a drastic change in their behavior. People will adapt within their capabilities but do not expect a person who grew up in the traditional ways of working (linear / analogue) to become a successful worker in the new mode (agile / digital). Their value lies in transferring their skills and coaching new employees but do not let them work in two modes. And when it comes to education: permanent education is crucial and should be scheduled – it is not about one or two trainings per year – if the perfect training would exist, why do students go to school for several years ? Why not give them the perfect PowerPoint twice a year?
Conclusions
I believe after three years of blogging about this theme I have made my point. Let’s observe and learn from what is happening in the field – I remain curious and focused about proof points and new insights. This year I hope to share with you new ideas related to digital practices in all industries, of course all associated with the human side of what we once started to call PLM.
Note: Oleg Shilovitsky just published an interesting post this weekend: Why complexity is killing PLM and what are future trajectories and opportunities? Enough food for discussion. One point: The fact that consumers want simplicity does not mean PLM will become simple – working in the context of other information is the challenge – it is human behavior – team players are good in anticipating – big egos are not. To be continued…….
I was happy to take part at the PI PLMx London event last week. It was here and in the same hotel that this conference saw the light in 2011 – you can see my blog post from that event here: PLM and Innovation @ PLMINNOVATION 2011.
At that time the first vendor-independent PLM conference after a long time and it brought a lot of new people together to discuss their experience with PLM. Looking at the audience that time, many of the companies that were there, came back during the years, confirming the value this conference has brought to their PLM journey.
Similar to the PDT conference(s) – just announced for this year last week – here – the number of participants is diminishing.
Main hypotheses:
- the PLM-definition has become too vague. Going to a PLM conference does not guarantee it is your type of PLM discussions you expect to see?
- the average person is now much better informed related to PLM thanks to the internet and social media (blogs/webinars/ etc.) Therefore, the value retrieved from the PLM conference is not big enough any more?
- Digital Transformation is absorbing all the budget and attention downstream the organization not creating the need and awareness of modern PLM to the attention of the management anymore. g., a digital twin is sexier to discuss than PLM?
What do you think about the above three hypotheses – 1,2 and/or 3?
Back to the conference. The discussion related to PLM has changed over the past nine years. As I presented at PI from the beginning in 2011, here are the nine titles from my sessions:
2011 PLM – The missing link
2012 Making the case for PLM
2013 PLM loves Innovation
2014 PLM is changing
2015 The challenge of PLM upgrades
2016 The PLM identity crisis
2017 Digital Transformation affects PLM
2018 PLM transformation alongside Digitization
2019 The challenges of a connected Ecosystem for PLM
Where the focus started with justifying PLM, as well as a supporting infrastructure, to bring Innovation to the market, the first changes became visible in 2014. PLM was changing as more data-driven vendors appeared with new and modern (metadata) concepts and cloud, creating the discussion about what would be the next upgrade challenge.
The identity crisis reflected the introduction of software development / management combined with traditional (mechanical) PLM – how to deal with systems? Where are the best practices?
Then from 2017 on until now Digital Transformation and the impact on PLM and an organization became the themes to discuss – and we are not ready yet!
Now some of the highlights from the conference. As there were parallel sessions, I had to divide my attention – you can see the full agenda here:
How to Build Critical Architecture Models for the New Digital Economy
The conference started with a refreshing presentation from David Sherburne (Carestream) explaining their journey towards a digital economy. According to David, the main reason behind digitization is to save time, as he quoted Harvey Mackay an American Businessman and Journalist,
Time is free, but it is priceless. You cannot own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you have lost it, you never can get it back
I tend to agree with this simplification as it makes the story easy to explain to everyone in your company. Probably I would add to that story that saving time also means less money spent on intermediate resources in a company, therefore, creating a two-sided competitive advantage.
David stated that today’s digital transformation is more about business change than technology and here I wholeheartedly agree. Once you can master the flow of data in your company, you can change and adapt your company’s business processes to be better connected to the customer and therefore deliver the value they expect (increases your competitive advantage).
Having new technology in place does not help you unless you change the way you work.
David introduced a new acronym ILM (Integrated Lifecycle Management) and I am sure some people will jump on this acronym.
David’s presentation contained an interesting view from the business-architectural point of view. An excellent start for the conference where various dimensions of digital transformation and PLM were explored.
Integrated PLM in the Chemical industry
Another interesting session was from Susanna Mäentausta (Kemira oy) with the title: “Increased speed to market, decreased risk of non-compliance through integrated PLM in Chemical industry.” I selected her session as from my past involvement with the process industry, I noticed that PLM adoption is very low in the process industry. Understanding Why and How they implemented PLM was interesting for me. Her PLM vision slide says it all:
There were two points that I liked a lot from her presentation, as I can confirm they are crucial.
- Although there was a justification for the implementation of PLM, there was no ROI calculation done upfront. I think this is crucial, you know as a company you need to invest in PLM to stay competitive. Making an ROI-story is just consoling the people with artificial number – success and numbers depend on the implementation and Susanna confirmed that step 1 delivered enough value to be confident.
- There were an end-to-end governance and a communication plan in place. Compared to PLM projects I know, this was done very extensive – full engagement of key users and on-going feedback – communicate, communicate, communicate. How often do we forget this in PLM projects?
Extracting More Value of PLM in an Engineer-to-Order Business
Sami Grönstrand & Helena Gutierrez presented as an experienced duo (they were active in PI P PLMx Hamburg/Berlin before) – their current status and mission for PLM @ Outotec. As the title suggests, it was about how to extract more value from PL M, in an Engineering to Order Business.
What I liked is how they simplified their PLM targets from a complex landscape into three story-lines.
If you jump into all the details where PLM is contributing to your business, it might get too complicated for the audience involved. Therefore, they aligned their work around three value messages:
- Boosting sales, by focusing on modularization and encouraging the use of a product configurator. This instead of developing every time a customer-specific solution
- Accelerating project deliverables, again reaping the benefits of modularization, creating libraries and training the workforce in using this new environment (otherwise no use of new capabilities). The results in reducing engineering hours was quite significant.
- Creating New Business Models, by connecting all data using a joint plant structure with related equipment. By linking these data elements, an end-to-end digital continuity was established to support advanced service and support business models.
My conclusion from this session was again that if you want to motivate people on a PLM-journey it is not about the technical details, it is about the business benefits that drive these new ways of working.
Managing Product Variation in a Configure-To-Order Business
In the context of the previous session from Outotec, Björn Wilhemsson’s session was also addressing somehow the same topic of How to create as much as possible variation in your customer offering, while internally keep the number of variants and parts manageable.
Björn, Alfa Laval’s OnePLM Programme Director, explained in detail the strategy they implemented to address these challenges. His presentation was very educational and could serve as a lesson for many of us related to product portfolio management and modularization.
Björn explained in detail the six measures to control variation, starting from a model-strategy / roadmap (thinking first) followed by building a modularized product architecture, controlling and limiting the number of variants during your New Product Development process. Next as Alfa Laval is in a Configure-To-Order business, Björn the implementation of order-based and automated addition of pre-approved variants (not every variant needs to exist in detail before selling it), followed by the controlled introduction of additional variants and continuous analysis of quoted and sold variant (the power of a digital portfolio) as his summary slides shows below:
There are some analogies to discover between his mission and a PLM implementation. It is all about having the total picture in mind. Plan and plan, prepare step-by-step in detail and rely on teamwork – it is not a solo journey – and it is about reaching a top (deliverable phase) in the most efficient way.
The differences: PLM does not need world records, you need to go with the pace an organization can digest and understand. Although the initial PLM climate during implementation might be chilling too, I do not believe you have to suffer temperatures below 50 degrees Celsius.
During the morning, I was involved in several meetings, therefore unfortunate unable to see some of the interesting sessions at that time. Hopefully later available on PI.TV for review as slides-only do not tell the full story. Although there are experts that can conclude and comment after seeing a single slide. You can read it here from my blog buddy Oleg Shilovitsky’s post : PLM Buzzword Detox. I think oversimplification is exactly creating the current problem we have in this world – people without knowledge become louder and sure about their opinion compared to knowledgeable people who have spent time to understand the matter.
Have a look at the Dunning-Kruger effect here (if you take the time to understand).
PLM: Enabling the Future of a Smart and Connected Ecosystem
Peter Bilello from CIMdata shared his observations and guidance related to the current ongoing digital business revolution that is taking place thanks to internet and IoT technologies. It will fundamentally transform how people will work and interact between themselves and with machines. Survival in business will depend on how companies create Smart and Connected Ecosystems. Peter showed a slide from the 2015 World Economic Forum (below) which is still relevant:
Probably depending on your business some of these waves might have touched your organization already. What is clear that the market leaders here will benefit the most – the ones owning a smart and connected ecosystem will be the winners shortly.
Next, Peter explained why PLM, and in particular the Product Innovation Platform, is crucial for a smart and connected enterprise. Shiny capabilities like a digital twin, the link between virtual and real, or virtual & augmented reality can only be achieved affordably and competitively if you invest in making the source digital connected. The scope of a product innovation platform is much broader than traditional PLM. Also, the way information is stored differs – moving from documents (files) towards data (elements in a database). I fully agree with Peter’s opinion here that PLM is conceptually the Killer App for a Smart & Connected Ecosystem and this notion is spreading.
A recent article from Forbes in the category Leadership: Is Your Company Ready For Digital Product Life Cycle Management? shows there is awareness. Still very basic and people are still confused to understand what is the difference with an electronic file (digital too ?) and a digital definition of information.
The main point to remember here: Digital information can be accessed directly through a programming interface (API/Service) without the need to open a container (document) and search for this piece of information.
Peter then zoomed in on some topics that companies need to investigate to reach a smart & connected ecosystem. Security (still a question hardly addressed in IoT/Digital Twin demos), Standards and Interoperability ( you cannot connect in all proprietary formats economically and sustainably) A lot of points to consider and I want to close with Peter’s slide illustrating where most companies are in reality
The Challenges of a Connected Ecosystem for PLM
You can already download my slides from SlideShare here: The Challenges of a Connected Ecosystem for PLM . I will explain my presentation in an upcoming blog post as slides without a story might lead to the wrong interpretation, and we already reached 2000 words. Few words to come.
How to Run a PLM Project Using the Agile Manifesto
Andrew Lodge, head of Engineering Systems at JCB explained how applying the agile mindset towards a PLM project can lead to faster and accurate results needed by the business. I am a full supporter for this approach as having worked in long and waterfall-type of PLM implementations there was always the big crash and user dissatisfaction at the final delivery. Keeping the business involved every step seems to be the solution. The issue I discovered here is that agile implementation requires a lot of people, in particular, business, to be involved heavily. Some companies do not understand this need and dropped /reduced business contribution to the least, killing the value of an agile approach
Concluding
For me coming back to London for the PI PLMx event was very motivational. Where the past two, three conferences before in Germany might have led to little progress per year, this year, thanks to new attendees and inspiration, it became for me a vivid event, hopefully growing shortly. Networking and listening to your peers in business remains crucial to digest it all.
According to LinkedIn, there are over a 7500 PLM consultants in my network. It is quite an elite group of people as I have over 100.000 CEOs in my network according to LinkedIn. Being a CEO is a commodity.
PLM consultants share a common definition, the words Product Lifecycle Management. However, what we all mean by PLM is one of the topics that has evolved over the past 19 years in a significant way.
PLM or cPDM (collaborative PDM)?
In the early days, PLM was considered as an engineering tool for collaboration, either between global subsidiaries or suppliers. The main focus of PLM was to bring engineering information to manufacturing in a controlled way. PLM and cPDM, often seen as solving the same business needs as the implementation of a PLM system most of the time got stuck at the cPDM level.
Main players at that time were Dassault Systemes, UGS (later Siemens PLM) and PTC – their solutions were MCAD-driven with limited scope – bringing engineering information towards manufacturing in a coordinated way.
PLM was not really an approach that created visibility at the management level of a company. How do you value and measure collaboration? Because connectivity was expensive in the early days of PLM, combined with the idea that PLM systems needed to be customized, PLM was framed as costly and hard to deliver value.
Systems Engineering and New Product Introduction
Then, 2005 and beyond, thanks to better connectivity and newcomers in the PLM market, the solution landscape from PLM became broader. CAD integrations were not a necessary part of the PLM scope according to these newcomers as they focused on governance (New Product Introduction), Bill of Materials or at the front-end of the product design cycle, connecting systems engineering by adding requirements management to their PLM suite.
New players in this domain where SAP, Aras, followed by Autodesk – their focus was more metadata-driven, connection and creating an end-to-end data flow for the product. Autodesk started the PLM and cloud path.
These new capabilities brought a broader scope for PLM indeed. However, they also strengthened the idea that PLM is there for engineers. For the management too complicated, unless they understood the value of coordinated collaboration. Large enterprises saw the benefits of having common processes for PLM as an essential reason to invest in PLM. The graph below showed the potential of PLM, where the shaded area indicates the potential revenue benefits.
Still, this graph does not create “hard numbers,” and it requires visionaries to get a PLM implementation explained and justified across the board. PLM is framed as expensive even if the budgets spent on PLM are twenty percent or less compared to ERP implementations. As PLM is not about transactional data, the effects of PLM are hard to benchmark. Success has many fathers, and in case of difficulties, the newcomer is to blame.
PLM = IoT?
With the future possibilities, connectivity to the machine-level (IoT or IIoT), a new paradigm related to PLM was created by PTC. PLM equals IoT – read more here.
Through IoT, it became possible to connect to products/assets in the field, and the simplified message from PTC was that now thanks to IoT (read ThingWorx) PLM was now really possible, releasing traditional PLM out of its engineering boundaries. The connected sensors created the possibility to build and implement more advanced and flexible manufacturing processes, often called Smart Manufacturing or Industrie 4.0.
None of the traditional PLM vendors is talking about PLM solely anymore. Digital transformation is a topic discussed at the board level, where GE played a visionary role with their strong message for change, driven by their CEO Jeff Immelt at that time – have a look at one of his energizing talks here.
However is PLM part of this discussion?
Digital Transformation opened a new world for everyone. Existing product lifecycle concepts could be changed, products are becoming systems, interacting with the environment realized through software features. Systems can be updated/upgraded relatively fast, in particular when you are able to watch and analyze the performance of your assets in almost real-time.
All consultants (me included) like to talk about digital transformation as it creates a positive mood towards the future, imagining everything that is possible. And with the elite of PLM consultants we are discovering the new roles of PLM – see picture below:
Is PLM equal to IoT or Digital Transformation?
I firmly believe the whole Digital Transformation and IoT hypes are unfortunately obfuscating the maximum needs for a digital enterprise. The IoT focus only exposes the last part of the lifecycle, disconnected from the concept and engineering cycles – yes on PowerPoint slides there might be a link. Re-framing PLM as Digital Transformation makes is even vaguer as we discussed during the CIMdata / PDT Europe conference last October. My main argument: Companies fail to have a link with their digital operations and dreams because current engineering processes and data, hardware (mechanical and electronics) combined with software are still operating in an analog, document-driven mode.
PLM = MBSE?
However what we also discussed during this conference was the fact that actually there is a need for an end-to-end model-based systems engineering infrastructure to support the full product lifecycle. Don Farr’s (Boeing) new way to depict the classical systems engineering “V” also hinted into that direction. See the image below – a connected environment between the virtual modeled word and the physical world at any time of the product lifecycle
So could MBSE be the new naming for PLM?
The problem is as Peter Bilello also mentioned during the CIMdata/PDT conference is that the word “ENGINEERING” is in Model-Based Systems Engineering. Therefore keeping the work what the PLM “elite” is doing again in the engineering box.
So perhaps Model-Based Enterprise as the new name?
Unfortunate MBE has already two current definitions – look here and here. Already too much confusion, and there a lot of people who like confusion. See Model-Based – The confusion. So any abbreviation with Model-Based terminology in it will not get attention at the board level. Even if it is crucial the words, Model-Based create less excitement as compared to Digital Twin, although the Digital Twin depends on a model-based approach.
Conclusion
Creating and maintaining unique products and experiences for their customers is the primary target of almost every company. However, no easy acronym that frames these aspects to value at the board level. Perhaps PID – the Product Innovation Diamond approach will be noticed? Your say ….
At this moment there are two approaches to implement PLM. The most common practice is item-centric and model-centric will be potentially the best practice for the future. Perhaps your company still using a method from the previous century called drawing-centric. In that case, you should read this post with even more attention as there are opportunities to improve.
The characteristics of item-centric
In an item-centric approach, the leading information carrier is an item also known as a part. The term part is sometimes confusing in an organization as it is associated with a 3D CAD part. In SAP terminology the item is called Material, which is sometimes confusing for engineering as they consider Material the raw material. Item-centric is an approach where items are managed and handled through the whole lifecycle. In theory, an item can be a conceptual item (for early estimates), a design item (describing the engineering intent), a manufacturing item (defining how an item is consumed) and potentially a service item.
The picture below illustrates the various stages of an item-centric approach. Don’t focus on the structure, it’s an impression.
It is clear these three structures are different and can contain different item types. To read more about the details for an EBOM/MBOM approach read these post on my blog:
Back to item-centric. This approach means that the item is the leading authority of the product /part. The id and revision describe the unique object in the database, and the status of the item tells you in the current lifecycle stage for the item. In some cases, where your company makes configurable products also the relation between two items can define effectivity characteristics, like data effectivity, serial number effectivity and more. From an item structure, you can find its related information in context. The item points to the correct CAD model, the assembly or related manufacturing drawings, the specifications. In case of an engineering item, it might point towards approved manufacturers or approved manufacturing items.
Releasing an item or a BOM means the related information in context needs to validated and frozen too. In case your company works with drawings for manufacturing, these drawings need to be created, correct and released, which sometimes can be an issue due to some last-minute changes that can happen. The above figure just gives an impression of the potential data related to an item. It is important to mention that reports, which are also considered documents, do not need an approval as they are more a snapshot of the characteristics at that moment of generation.
The advantages of an item-centric approach are:
- End-to-end traceability of information
- Can be implemented in an evolutionary approach after PDM-ERP without organizational changes
- It enables companies to support sharing of information
- Sharing of information forces companies to think about data governance
(not sure if a company wants to invest on that topic)
The main disadvantages of an item-centric approach are:
- Related information on the item is not in context and therefore requires its own management and governance to ensure consistency
- Related information is contained in documents, where availability and access is not always guaranteed
Still, the item-centric approach brings big benefits to a company that was working in a classical drawing-driven PDM-ERP approach. An additional remark needs to be made that not every company will benefit from an item-centric approach as typically Engineering-to-Order companies might find this method creating too much overhead.
The characteristics of Model-Centric
A model-centric approach is considered the future approach for modern enterprises as it brings efficiency, speed, multidisciplinary collaboration and support for incremental innovation in an agile way. When talking about a model-centric approach, I do not mean a 3D CAD model-centric approach. Yes, in case the product is mature, there will be a 3D Model serving as a base for the physical realization of the product.
However, in the beginning, the model can be still a functional or logical model. In particular, for complex products, model-based systems engineering might be the base for defining the solution. Actually, when we talk about products that interact with the outside world through software, we tend to call them systems. This explains that model-based systems engineering is getting more and more a recommended approach to make sure the product works as expected, fulfills all the needs for the product and creates a foundation for incremental innovation without starting from scratch.
Where the model-based architecture provides a framework for all stakeholders, the 3D CAD model will be the base for a digital thread towards manufacturing. Linking parameters from the logical and functional model towards the physical model a connection is created without the need to create documents or input-files for other disciplines. Adding 3D Annotations to the 3D CAD model and manufacturing process steps related to the model provides a direct connection to the manufacturing process.
The primary challenge of this future approach is to have all these data elements (requirements, functions, components, 3D design instances, manufacturing processes & resources to be connected in a federated environment (the product innovation platform). Connecting, versioning and baselining are crucial for a model-centric approach. This is what initiatives like Industry 4.0 are now exploring through demonstrators, prototypes to get a coherent collection of managed data.
Once we are able to control this collection of managed data concepts of digital twin or even virtual twin can be exploited linking data to a single instance in the field.
Also, the model can serve as the foundation for introduction incremental innovation, bringing in new features. As the model-based architecture provides direct visibility for change impact (there are no documents to study), it will be extremely lean and cost-efficient to innovate on an existing product.
Advantages of model-centric
- End-to-end traceability of all data related to a product
- Extremely efficient in data-handling – no overhead on data-conversions
- Providing high-quality understanding of the product with reduced effort compared to drawing-centric or item-centric approaches
- It is scalable to include external stakeholders directly (suppliers/customers) leading to potential different, more beneficial business models
- Foundation for Artificial Intelligence at any lifecycle step.
Disadvantages of model-centric
- It requires a fundamentally different way of working compared to past. Legacy departments, legacy people, and legacy data do not fit directly into the model-centric approach. A business transformation is required, not evolution.
- It is all about sharing data, which requires an architecture that is built to share information across Not through a service bus but as a (federated) platform of information.
A platform requires a strong data governance, both from the dictionary as well as authorizations which discipline is leading/following. - There is no qualified industrial solution from any vendor yet at this time. There is advanced technology, there are demos, but to my knowledge, there is no 100% model-centric enterprise yet. We are all learning. Trying to distinguish reality from the hype.
Conclusions
The item-centric approach is the current best practice for most PLM implementations. However, it has the disadvantage that it is not designed for a data-driven approach, the foundation of a digital enterprise. The model-centric approach is new. Some facets already exist. However, for the total solution companies, vendors, consultants, and implementers are all learning step-by-step how it all connects. The future of model-centric is promising and crucial for survival.
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