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Last week, I shared my first impressions from my favorite conference, in the post: The weekend after PLM Roadmap/PDT Europe 2023, where most impressions could be classified as traditional PLM and model-based.
There is nothing wrong with conventional PLM, as there is still much to do within this scope. A model-based approach for MBSE (Model-Based Systems Engineering) and MBD (Model-Based Definition) and efficient supplier collaboration are not topics you solve by implementing a new system.
Ultimately, to have a business-sustainable PLM infrastructure, you need to structure your company internally and connect to the outside world with a focus on standards to avoid a vendor lock-in or a dead end.
In short, this is what I described so far in The weekend after ….part 1.
Now, let’s look at the relatively new topics for this audience.
Enabling the Marketing, Engineering & Manufacturing Digital Thread
Cyril Bouillard, the PLM & CAD Tools Referent at the Mersen Electrical Protection (EP) business unit, shared his experience implementing an end-to-end digital backbone from marketing through engineering and manufacturing.
Cyril showed the benefits of a modern PLM infrastructure that is not CAD-centric and focused on engineering only. The advantages of this approach are a seamless integrated flow of PLM and PIM (Product Information Management).
I wrote about this topic in 2019: PLM and PIM – the complementary value in a digital enterprise. Combining the concepts of PLM and PIM in an integrated, connected environment could also provide a serious benefit when collaborating with external parties.
Another benefit Cyril demonstrated was the integration of RoHS compliance to the BOM as an integrated environment. In my session, I also addressed integrated RoHS compliance as a stepping stone to efficiency in future compliance needs.
Read more later or in this post: Material Compliance – as a stepping-stone towards Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
Cyril concluded with some lessons learned.
Data quality is essential in such an environment, and there are significant time savings implementing the connected Digital Thread.
Meeting the Challenges of Sustainability in Critical Transport Infrastructures
Etienne Pansart, head of digital engineering for construction at SYSTRA, explained how they address digital continuity with PLM throughout the built assets’ lifecycle.
Etienne’s story was related to the complexity of managing a railway infrastructure, which is a linear and vertical distribution at multiple scales; it needs to be predictable and under constant monitoring; it is a typical system of systems network, and on top of that, maintenance and operational conditions need to be continued up to date.
Regarding railway assets – a railway needs renewal every two years, bridges are designed to last a hundred years, and train stations should support everyday use.
When complaining about disturbances, you might have a little more respect now (depending on your country). However, on top of these challenges, Etienne also talked about the additional difficulties expected due to climate change: floods, fire, earth movements, and droughts, all of which will influence the availability of the rail infrastructure.
In that context, Etienne talked about the MINERVE project – see image below:
As you can see from the main challenges, there is an effort of digitalization for both the assets and a need to provide digital continuity over the entire asset lifecycle. This is not typically done in an environment with many different partners and suppliers delivering a part of the information.
Etienne explained in more detail how they aim to establish digital twins and MBSE practices to build and maintain a data-driven, model-based environment.
Having digital twins allows much more granular monitoring and making accurate design decisions, mainly related to sustainability, without the need to study the physical world.
His presentation was again a proof point that through digitalization and digital twins, the traditional worlds of Product Lifecycle Management and Asset Information Management become part of the same infrastructure.
And it may be clear that in such a collaboration environment, standards are crucial to connect the various stakeholder’s data sources – Etienne mentioned ISO 16739 (IFC), IFC Rail, and ISO 19650 (BIM) as obvious standards but also ISO 10303 (PLCS) to support the digital thread leveraged by OSLC.
I am curious to learn more about the progress of such a challenging project – having worked with the high-speed railway project in the Netherlands in 1995 – no standards at that time (BIM did not exist) – mainly a location reference structure with documents. Nothing digital.
The connected Digital Thread
The theme of the conference was The Digital Thread in a Heterogeneous, Extended Enterprise Reality, and in the next section, I will zoom in on some of the inspiring sessions for the future, where collaboration or information sharing is all based on a connected Digital Thread – a term I will explain in more depth in my next blog post.
Transforming the PLM Landscape:
The Gateway to Business Transformation
Yousef Hooshmand‘s presentation was the highlight of this conference for me.
Yousef is the PLM Architect and Lead for the Modernization of the PLM Landscape at NIO, and he has been active before in the IT-landscape transformation at Daimler, on which he published the paper: From a monolithic PLM landscape to a federated domain and data mesh.
If you read my blog or follow Share PLM, you might seen the reference to Yousef’s work before, or recently, you can hear the full story at the Share PLM Podcast: Episode 6: Revolutionizing PLM: Insights.
It was the first time I met Yousef in 3D after several virtual meetings, and his passion for the topic made it hard to fit in the assigned 30 minutes.
There is so much to share on this topic, and part of it we already did before the conference in a half-day workshop related to Federated PLM (more on this in the following review).
First, Yousef started with the five steps of the business transformation at NIO, where long-term executive commitment is a must.
His statement: “If you don’t report directly to the board, your project is not important”, caused some discomfort in the audience.
As the image shows, a business transformation should start with a systematic description and analysis of which business values and objectives should be targeted, where they fit in the business and IT landscape, what are the measures and how they can be tracked or assessed and ultimately, what we need as tools and technology.
In his paper From a Monolithic PLM Landscape to a Federated Domain and Data Mesh, Yousef described the targeted federated landscape in the image below.
And now some vendors might say, we have all these domains in our product portfolio (or we have slides for that) – so buy our software, and you are good.
And here Yousef added his essential message, illustrated by the image below.
Start by delivering the best user-centric solutions (in an MVP manner – days/weeks – not months/years). Next, be data-centric in all your choices and ultimately build an environment ready for change. As Yousef mentioned: “Make sure you own the data – people and tools can leave!”
And to conclude reporting about his passionate plea for Federated PLM:
“Stop talking about the Single Source of Truth, start Thinking of the Nearest Source of Truth based on the Single Source of Change”.
Heliple-2 PLM Federation:
A Call for Action & Contributions
A great follow-up on Yousef’s session was Erik Herzog‘s presentation about the final findings of the Heliple 2 project, where SAAB Aeronautics, together with Volvo, Eurostep, KTH, IBM and Lynxwork, are investigating a new way of federated PLM, by using an OSLC-based, heterogeneous linked product lifecycle environment.
Heliple stands for HEterogeneous LInked Product Lifecycle Environment
The image below, which I shared several times before, illustrates the mindset of the project.
Last year, during the previous conference in Gothenburg, Erik introduced the concept of federated PLM – read more in my post: The week after PLM Roadmap / PDT Europe 2022, mentioning two open issues to be investigated: Operational feasibility (is it maintainable over time) and Realisation effectivity (is it affordable and maintainable at a reasonable cost)
As you can see from the slide below, the results were positive and encouraged SAAB to continue on this path.
One of the points to mention was that during this project, Lynxwork was used to speed up the development of the OSLC adapter, reducing costs, time and needed skills.
After this successful effort, Erik and several others who joined us at the pre-conference workshop agreed that this initiative is valid to be tested, discussed and exposed outside Sweden.
Therefore, the Federated PLM Interest Group was launched to join people worldwide who want to contribute to this concept with their experiences and tools.
A first webinar from the group is already scheduled for December 12th at 4 PM CET – you can join and register here.
More to come
Given the length of this blog post, I want to stop here.
Topics to share in the next post are related to my contribution at the conference The Need for a Governance Digital Thread, where I addressed the need for federated PLM capabilities with the upcoming regulations and practices related to sustainability, which require a connected Digital.
I want to combine this post with the findings that Mattias Johansson, CEO of Eurostep, shared in his session: Why a Digital Thread makes a lot of sense, goes beyond manufacturing, and should be standards-based.
There are some interesting findings in these two presentations.
And there was the introduction of AI at the conference, with some experts’ talks and thoughts. Perhaps at this stage, it is too high on Gartner’s hype cycle to go into details. It will surely be THE topic of discussion or interest you must have noticed.
The recent turmoil at OpenAI is an example of that. More to come for sure in the future.
Conclusion
The PLM Roadmap/PDT Europe conference was significant for me because I discovered that companies are working on concepts for a data-driven infrastructure for PLM and are (working on) implementing them. The end of monolithic PLM is visible, and companies need to learn to master data using ontologies, standards and connected digital threads.
In the last weeks, I had several discussions related to sustainability. What can companies do to become sustainable and prove it? But, unfortunately, there is so much greenwashing at this moment.
Look at this post: 10 Companies and Corporations Called Out For Greenwashing.
Therefore I thought about which practical steps a company should take to prepare for a sustainable future, as the change will not happen overnight. It reminds me of the path towards a digital, model-based enterprise (my other passion). In my post Why Model-Based definition is important for all, I mentioned that MBD (Model-Based Definition) could be considered the first stepping-stone toward a Model-Based enterprise.
The analogy for Material Compliance came after an Aras seminar I watched a month ago. The webinar How PLM Paves the Way for Sustainability with Insensia (an Aras implementer) demonstrates how material compliance is the first step toward sustainable product development.
Let’s understand why
The first steps
Companies that currently deliver solutions mostly only focus on economic gains. The projects or products they sell need to be profitable and competitive, which makes sense if you want a future.
And this would not have changed if the awareness of climate impact has not become apparent.
First, CFKs and hazardous materials lead to new regulations. Next global agreements to fight climate change – the Paris agreement and more to come – have led and will lead to regulations that will change how products will be developed. All companies will have to change their product development and delivery models when it becomes a global mandate.
A required change is likely going to happen. In Europe, the Green Deal is making stable progress. However, what will happen in the US will be a mystery as even their supreme court becomes a political entity against sustainability (money first).
Still, compliance with regulations will be required if a company wants to operate in a global market.
What is Material Compliance?
In 2002, the European Union published a directive to restrict hazardous substances in materials. The directive, known as RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances), was mainly related to electronic components. In the first directive, six hazardous materials were restricted.
The most infamous are Cadmium(Cd), Lead(Pb), and Mercury (Hg). In 2006 all products on the EU market must pass RoHS compliance, and in 2011 was now connected the CE marking of products sold in the European market was.
In 2015 four additional chemical substances were added, most softening PVC but also affecting the immune system. Meanwhile, other countries have introduced similar RoHS regulations; therefore, we can see it as a global restricting. Read more here: The RoHS guide.
Consumers buying RoHS-compliant products now can be assured that none of the threshold values of the substances is reached in the product. The challenge for the manufacturer is to go through each of the components of the MBOM. To understand if it contains one of the ten restricted substances and, if yes, in which quantity.
Therefore, they need to get that information from each relevant supplier a RoHS declaration.
Besides RoHS, additional regulations protect the environment and the consumer. For example, REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals) compliance deals with the regulations created to improve the environment and protect human health. In addition, REACH addresses the risks associated with chemicals and promotes alternative methods for the hazard assessment of substances.
The compliance process in four steps
Material compliance is most of all the job of engineers. Therefore around 2005, some of my customers started to add RoHS support to their PLM environment.
Step 1
The image below shows the simple implementation – the PDF-from from the supplier was linked to the (M)BOM part.
An employee had to manually add the substances into a table and ensure the threshold values were not reached. But, of course, there was already a selection of preferred manufacturer parts during the engineering phase. Therefore RoHS compliance was almost guaranteed when releasing the EBOM.
But this process could be done more cleverly.
Step 2
So the next step was that manufacturers started to extend their PLM data model with the additional attributes for RoHS compliance. Again, this could be done cleverly or extremely generic, adding the attributes to all parts.
So now, when receiving the material declaration, a person just has to add the substance values to the part attributes. Then, through either standard functionality or customization, a compliance report could be generated for the (M)BOM. So this already saves some work.
Step 3
The next step was to provide direct access to these attributes to the supplier and push the supplier to do the work.
Now the overhead for the manufacturer has been reduced again. This is because only the supplier needs to do the job for his customer.
Step 4
In step 4, we see a real connected environment, where information is stored only once, referenced by manufacturers, and kept actual by the part suppliers.
Who will host the RoHS databank? From some of my customer projects, I recall IHS as a data provider – it seems they are into this business when you look at their website HERE.
Where is your company at this moment?
Having seen the four stepping-stones leading towards efficient RoHS compliance, you see the challenge of moving from a document-driven approach to a data-driven approach.
Now let’s look into the future. Concepts like Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) or a Digital Product Passport (DPP) will require a fully connected approach.
Where is your company at this moment – have you reached RoHS compliance step 3 or 4? A first step to learn and work connected and data-driven.
Life Cycle Assessment – the ultimate target
A lifecycle assessment, or lifecycle analysis (two times LCA again), is a methodology to assess the environmental impact of a product (or solution) through its whole lifecycle. From materials sourcing, manufacturing, transportation, usage, service, and decommissioning. And by assessing, we mean a clear, verifiable, and shareable manner, not just guessing.
Traditional engineering education is not bringing these skills, although LCA is not new, as this 10-years old YouTube movie from Autodesk illustrates:
What is new is that due to global understanding, we are reaching the limits of what our planet can endure; we must act now. Upcoming international regulations will enforce life cycle analysis reporting for manufacturers or service providers. This will happen gradually.
Meanwhile, we all should work on a circular economy, the major framework for a sustainable planet- click on the image on the left.
In my post, I wrote about these combined topics: SYSTEMS THINKING – a must-have skill in the 21st century.
Life Cycle Analysis – Digital Twin – Digitization
The big elephant in the room is that when we talk about introducing LCA in your company, it has a lot to do with the digitization of your company. Assessment data in a document can require too much human effort to maintain the data at the right quality. The costs are not affordable if your competitor is more efficient.
When coming to the Analysis part, here, a model-based, data-driven infrastructure is the most efficient way to run virtual analysis, using digital twin concepts at each stage of the product lifecycle.
Virtual models for design, manufacturing and operations allow your company to make trade-off studies with low cost before committing to the physical world. 80 % of the environmental impact of a product comes from decisions in the virtual world.
Once you have your digital twins for each phase of the product lifecycle, you can benchmark your models with data reported from the physical world. All these interactions can be found in the beautiful Boeing diamond below, which I discussed before – Read A digital twin for everybody.
Conclusion
Efficient and sustainable life cycle assessment and analysis will come from connected information sources. The old document-driven paradigm is too costly and too slow to maintain. In particular, when the scope is not only a subset of your product, it is your full product and its full lifecycle with LCA. Another stepping stone towards the near future. Where are you?
Stepping-stone 1: From Model-Based Definition to an efficient Model-Based, Data-driven Enterprise
Stepping-stone 2: For RoHS compliance to an efficient and sustainable Model-Based, data-driven enterprise.
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