Virtual Events

March 21, 2021 in Education, MBD, PLM, Product Innovation, Virtual | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

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

Talking about learning. This week, I finished the book The Modular Way, written by Bjorn Eriksson & Daniel Strandhammar.  During the lockdown last year, Bjorn & Daniel, founders of the Brick Strategy, decided to write down their experiences with mainly Scandinavian companies into a coherent framework to achieve modularization.

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 !!

PLM and Supply Chain Collaboration

March 14, 2021 in Asset Lifecycle Management, Cloud, Digital Enterprise, Digital Twin, Platform, PLCS, PLM, Supplier Collaboration | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

PLM and Complementary domains/practices

After “The PLM Doctor is IN #2,” now again a written post in the category of PLM and complementary practices/domains.

After PLM and Configuration Lifecycle ManagementCLM (January 2021) and PLM and Configuration Management CM (February 2021), now it is time to address the third interesting topic:
PLM and Supply Chain collaboration.

In this post, I am speaking with Magnus Färneland from Eurostep, a company well known in my PLM ecosystem, through their involvement in standards (STEP and PLCS), the PDT conferences, and their PLM collaboration hub, ShareAspace.

Supply Chain collaboration

The interaction between OEMs and their suppliers has been a topic of particular interest to me. As a warming-up, read my post after CIMdata/PDT Roadmap 2020:  PLM and the Supply Chain. In this post, I briefly touched on the Eurostep approach – having a Supply Chain Collaboration Hub. Below an image from that post – in this case, the Collaboration Hub is positioned between two OEMs.

Slide: PDT Europe 2016 RENAULT PLM Challenges

Recently Eurostep shared a blog post in the same context: 3 Steps to remove data silos from your supply chain addressing the dreams of many companies: moving from disconnected information silos towards a logical flow of data. This topic is well suited for all companies in the digital transformation process with their supply chain. So, let us hear it from Eurostep.

Eurostep – the company / the mission

First of all, can you give a short introduction to Eurostep as a company and the unique value you are offering to your clients?


Eurostep was founded in 1994 by several world-class experts on product data and information management. In the year 2000, we started developing ShareAspace. We took all the experience we had from working with collaboration in the extended enterprise, mixed it with our standards knowledge, and selected Microsoft as the technology for our software platform.

We now offer ShareAspace as a solution for product information collaboration in all three industry verticals where we are active: Manufacturing, Defense and AEC & Plant.

In the Manufacturing offering – the Supply Chain Collaboration Hub

ShareAspace is based on an information standard called PLCS (ISO 10300-239). This means we have a data model covering the complete life cycle of a product from requirements and conceptual design to an existing installed base. We have added things needed, such as consolidation and security. Our partnership with Microsoft has also resulted in ShareAspace being available in Azure as a service (our Design to Manufacturing software).

 

Why a supply chain collaboration hub?

Currently, most suppliers work in a disconnected manner with their clients – sending files up and down or the need to work inside the OEM environment. What are the reasons to consider a supply chain collaboration hub or, as you call it, a product information collaboration solution?

The hub concept is not new per se. There are plenty of examples of file sharing hubs. Once you realize that sending files back and forth by email is a disaster for keeping control of your information being shared with suppliers, you would probably try out one of the available file-sharing alternatives.

However, after a while, you begin to realize that a file share can be quite time consuming to keep up to date. Files are being changed. Files are being removed! Some files are enormous, and you realize that you only need a fraction of what is in the file. References within one file to another file becomes corrupt because the other file is of a new version. Etc. Etc.

This is about the time when you realize that you need similar control of the data you share with suppliers as you have in your internal systems. If not better.

A hub allows all partners to continue to use their internal tools and processes. It is also a more secure way of collaboration as the suppliers and partners are not let into the internal systems of the OEM.

Another significant side effect of this is that you only expose the data in the hub intended for external sharing and avoid sharing too much or exposing internal sensitive data.

A hub is also suitable for business flexibility as partners are not hardwired with the OEM. Partners can change, and IT systems in the value chain can change without impacting more than the single system’s connecting to the hub.

Should every company implement a supply chain collaboration hub?

Based on your experience, what types of companies should implement a supply chain collaboration hub and what are the expected benefits?

 

The large OEMs and 1st tier suppliers certainly benefit from this since they can incorporate hundreds, if not thousands, of suppliers. Sharing technical data across the supply chain from a dedicated hub will remove confusions, improve control of the shared data, and build trust with their partners.

With our cloud-based offering, we now also make it possible for at least mid-sized companies (like 200+ employees) to use ShareAspace. They may not have a well-adopted PLM system or the issues of communicating complex specifications originating from several internal sources. However still, they need to be professional in dealing with suppliers.

The smallest client we have is a manufacturer of pool cleaners, a complex product with many suppliers. The company Weda [www.weda.se] has less than 10 employees, and they use ShareAspace as SaaS. With ShareAspace, they have improved their collaboration process with suppliers and cut costs and lowered inventory levels.

ShareAspace can really scale big. It serves as a collaboration solution for the two new Aircraft carriers in the UK, the QUEEN ELIZABETH class. The aircraft carriers were built by a consortium that was closed in early 2020.

ShareAspace is being used to hold the design data and other documentation from the consortium to be available to the multiple organizations (both inside and outside of the Ministry of Defence) that need controlled access.

 

What is the dependency on standards?

I always associate Eurostep with the PLCS (ISO 10303-239) standard, providing an information model for “hardware” products along the lifecycle. How important is this standard for you in the context of your ShareAspace offering?
Should everyone adapt to this standard?

We have used PLCS to define the internal data schema in ShareAspace. This is an excellent starting point for capturing information from different systems and domains and still getting it to fit together. Why invent something new?

However, we can import data in most formats, and it does not have to be according to a standard. When connecting to Teamcenter, Windchill, Enovia, SAP, Oracle, Maximo etc., it is more often in a proprietary format than according to any standards.

Capital Facilities Information HandOver Specification (CFHOS) exchange

On the other hand, in some industries like Defense, standards-based data exchange is required and put into contracts. Sometimes it prescribes PLCS.  For the plant industry, it could be CFIHOS or ISO15926.

Supply Chain Collaboration and digital transformation

As stated at the beginning of this post, digital transformation is about connecting the information siloes through a digital thread. How important is this related to the supply chain?

Many companies have come a long way in improving their internal management of product data. But still, the exchange and sharing of data with the external world has considerable potential for improvement. Just look at the chaos everyone has experienced with emails, still used a lot, in finding the latest Word document or PowerPoint file. Imagine if you collaborate on a ship, a truck, a power plant, or a piece of complex infrastructure. FTP is not the answer, and for product data, Dropbox is not doing the trick.

A Digital Thread must support versions and changes in all directions, as changes are natural with reasonably advanced products. Much of the information created about or around a product is generated within the supply chain, like production parameters, test and inspection protocols, certifications, and more. Without an intelligent way of capturing this data, companies will continue to spend a fortune on administration trying to manage this manually.

As the Digital Thread extends across the value chain, a useful sharing tool is needed to allow for configuration management across the complete chain – ShareAspace is designed for this. The great thing with PLCS is that it gives a standard model for the Digital Thread covering several Digital Twins. PLCS adds the life cycle component, which is essential, and there is no alternative. Therefore, we are welcome with ShareAspace and PLCS to add capabilities to snapshot standards like IFC etc., that are outside the STEP series of standards.

Learning more

We discussed that a supply chain collaboration hub can have specific value to a company. Where can readers learn more?

There is a lot of information available. Of course, on our Eurostep website, you will find information under the tab Resources or on the ShareAspace website under the tab News.
Other sources are:

CIMdata A Controlled and Protected Partner and Supplier Collaboration Environment
Boston Consulting Group Share to Gain: Unlocking Data Value in Manufacturing
Eurostep Data sharing and collaboration across global value chains worth 100 Billion USD is waiting for you!
McKinsey Digital supply chains: Do you have the skills to run them?

 

What I have learned

  • I am surprised to see that the type of Supplier Collaboration Platform delivered by Eurostep is not a booming market. Where Time to Market is significantly impacted by how companies work with their suppliers, most companies still rely on the exchange of data packages.
  • The most advanced exchanges are using a model-based definition if relevant. Traditional PLM Vendors will not develop such platforms as the platform needs to be agnostic in both directions.
  • Having a recommended data model based on PLCS or a custom-data model in case of a large OEM can provide such a collaboration hub. Relative easy to implement (as you do not change your own PLM) and relatively easy to scale (adding a new supplier is easy).  For me, the supplier collaboration platform is a must in a modern, digital connected enterprise.

Conclusion

A lot of marketing money is spent on “Digital Thread” or “Digital Continuity”.  If you are looking at the full value chain of product development and operational support, there are still many manual hand-over processes with suppliers. A supplier collaboration hub might be the missing piece of the puzzle to realize a real digital thread or continuity.

The PLM Doctor is IN: Episode#2 – PLM and Startups

March 7, 2021 in Digital Enterprise, MBD, MBE, MBSE, model-based, Multidisciplinary, Observations, PLM | Tags: , , , , , | 1 comment

After the first episode of “The PLM Doctor is IN“, this time a question from Helena Gutierrez. Helena is one of the founders of SharePLM, a young and dynamic company focusing on providing education services based on your company’s needs, instead of leaving it to function-feature training.

I might come back on this topic later this year in the context of PLM and complementary domains/services.

Now sit back and enjoy.

Note: Due to a technical mistake Helena’s mimic might give you a “CNN-like” impression as the recording of her doctor visit was too short to cover the full response.

PLM and Startups – is this a good match?

 

Relevant links discussed in this video

Marc Halpern (Gartner): The PLM maturity table

VirtualDutchman: Digital PLM requires a Model-Based Enterprise

 

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed the answer and look forward to your questions and comments. Let me know if you want to be an actor in one of the episodes.
The main rule: A single open question that is puzzling you related to PLM.

The PLM Green Global Alliance is transforming

February 28, 2021 in Circulair Economy, Climate Change, Green Development, Green Energy, Industry 4.0, PLM, Sustainability | Tags: , , , , , | 1 comment

This Friday, February 26th, we had a PLM Green Global Alliance (PGGA) core team meeting to discuss our current status and next steps for 2021. If you are a PGGA member, you joined us because of the PLM Green Global Alliance LinkedIn group. The LinkedIn group is currently our primary channel for social interaction with the outside world.

Meanwhile, in the background, Rich McFall has been working on structuring the PLM Green Alliance website, which you can find here.

The PLM Green Alliance website is the place where we consolidate information and will experiment with forum discussions. LinkedIn is not the place to serve as an archive for information. Neither is LinkedIn a place for discussion on sensitive topics. Viewpoints on LinkedIn might even damage your current or future career if you have a controversial opinion. More about the forum discussions soon.

The PLM Green Alliance website

Therefore, the PLM Green Alliance website will be the place where interested parties can obtain information and active members can participate in forum discussions.
As a reminder, all our actions are related to PLM and PLM-related technologies – a niche environment bringing PLM-related skills and a Green and Sustainable society together.

Our actions are driven by a personal interest to contribute. With the limited time and means, we are aware of the differences with more prominent and professional organizations addressing a much broader scope and audience.

What makes us unique is the focus on PLM and PLM-related practices/technologies.

The PLM Green Themes

Although the website is still under development, our intentions become visible through the home page header.  I want to zoom in on the area where we are currently focusing, the PLM Green Themes.

We decided on five PLM Green Themes, with each of them having their dedicated moderation and focus. Although the themes can overlap, they will help us to specialize and dive deeper into specific topics.

PLM and Climate Change

You might argue PLM and its related technologies do not directly impact activities related to climate change. However, as the moderators of this theme group, Klaus Brettschneider, and Richard McFall state:

The goal of this PLM Green discussion forum and working group on Climate Change is to promote activities to understand, analyze and reduce human-generated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through PLM-enabling technologies. We hope to help to answer the question of what the role and value of PLM technologies is in addressing the most critical challenge facing humankind this century, climate change.

And although there are still individuals with other opinions, the group will focus on the targeted outcome: reducing greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. What are the types of innovations that make this possible? Find interesting posts here and start contributing.

PLM and Sustainability

This theme will be moderated by me, Jos Voskuil. We are still looking for one or more volunteers to extend our capabilities here.

The topic of sustainability is again broad, as you can read on the Sustainability theme page.
To be more precise, the page states:

Specific topics we wish to discuss further in this forum include how PLM can be used to:

  • Make products and processes more efficient and greener.
  • Understand and measure the impact on the carbon footprint of design decisions and production processes, along with changes to them.
  • Develop, distribute, and use new sources of renewable green energy.
  • Design products and their lifecycles to be sustainable.
  • Recycle, reuse, or repurpose assets, materials, and natural resources.
  • Enhance the resiliency and Sustainability of infrastructures, communities, and economies.

In my early 2021 survey asked participants their viewpoint on PLM and Sustainability. As you can see from the scores, the majority of us are currently observing what is happening.

One of the interesting “other” responses I highlighted here: “I am not sure if you mean real sustainability or just greenwashing.”

Good point. Greenwashing is needed when you know you have something to fix/hide. We are not fixing or hiding; we will discuss and share information and probably dismantle greenwashing attempts.

PLM and Green Energy

Green energy is an important topic on its own as many of the issues related to a green and sustainable society are dealing with the transition from limited fossil energy sources to a sustainable energy model. The moderator of this theme group, Bjorn Fidjeland, is well known for his skills and coaching on PLM in the context of Plant Lifecycle Management through his PLMpartner website.

Of course, we are looking for an additional moderator to support Bjorn, so feel free to contact Bjorn through the website if you can and want to contribute. The theme group objectives are:

…. to share experiences, examples, and best practices in a collaborative mode to promote discussion, learning, and understanding with respect to the mentioned focus areas. We also plan to publish our own “industry heads up” news, articles and case studies illustrating all that is happening in the global race towards “going green” and a low-carbon economy.

PLM and a Circular Economy

As the Circular Economy is itself an innovation, it provides an opportunity to innovate business models and reimagine how we consider something to be a product, a service, or a product as a service. Similarly, a more circular way of thinking requires different expectations when it comes to Information Technology systems, including PLM, that support the enablement of these new business models and the execution of their commercial strategies.

This theme group is currently moderated by a real passionate follower of the Circular Economy, Hannes Lindfred, and also here we are looking to another volunteer.

A year ago, I saw Hannes Lindfred presentation at the TECHNIA PLM Innovation Forum and wrote about his lecture as one of the highlights from the first day.

See my blog post: The Weekend after the PLM Innovation Forum, where I mention his session in the Business drivers for Sustainable Manufacturing paragraph.

The circular economy framework nicely aligns with concepts like “Product as a Service” or Outcome-based services. The original manufacturer becomes responsible for the full lifecycle of their products. A theme group, I expect we can make a lot of progress through sharing.

Accordingly, the main objective within our theme discussion group is to provide a support network for PLM professionals who seek to overcome the legacy linear economy mindset that may be systemic in their jobs, products, employers, or industries. We hope to incite the development and use of road maps for employing both existing and new PLM technologies to implement Circular Economy principles and best practices.

 

PLM and Industry 4.0

A topic that is closely related to PLM is Industry 4.0. At first glance, Industry 4.0 is an initiative to manufacture products smarter, more flexible, more automated, more modular by using new technologies and practices, all with the goal for (initially German) companies to become more competitive.

We are pleased that the PLM and Industry 4.0 theme group’s moderator is Lionel Grealou, quite active in the area of knowledge sharing related to PLM. A second moderator would be more than welcome too for this theme.

Recently Lionel published this interesting article on engineering.com: Exploring the Intersection of PLM and Industry 4.0. In this article, Lionel touches briefly on the potential contribution of Industry 4.0 towards a circular economy, new business models, and waste reduction, thanks to the interaction of PLM and Industry 4.0.  There is a lot to explore, as Lionel states on the theme group introduction page:

This PLM Green theme group’s plan will explore the “intersection” of how PLM strategies and technologies enable the vision of Industry 4.0 for a more sustainable circular economy. In doing so, we plan to investigate the following questions concerning their green value:

  • How do data and product connectivity contribute to feeding smart factories and enhancing the product lifecycle practice?
  • How to improve feedback loops and data integration upstream-downstream of new product development to contribute positively to the circular economy?
  • How to drive downstream waste reduction by improving data traceability and accessibility with better product analytics throughout its lifecycle?
  • How to link more tightly manufacturing planning and execution?
  • How to more robustly connect and integrate engineering, manufacturing, and service/maintenance process operations?
  • How to reduce time to market, with both product development and production cost optimization, integrating co-creation from the design office to the shop floor?
  • How to align the digital and the physical worlds, delivering more customer-centric products enabled by fully horizontally-integrated PLM strategies, taking an ecosystem approach to collaboration, leveraging more agile and continual release processes?
  • How to reduce pre-launch costs and generate downstream manufacturing improvements?

Much more to do.

As you can see, the PLM Green Global Alliance is transforming slowly, as we are not marketing people, web designers, or a sponsored organization. We rely on our networks and your inputs to reach the next level of interaction. The majority of the PLM Themes need a second moderator to keep the workload balanced.

Do you want to contribute?

In the core team meeting, we also discussed improving ways to make the PLM Green Alliance more interactive, shifting and balancing the LinkedIn group’s activities and the persistent PLM Green Alliance website.

Conclusion

As a person, I cannot do big things for our future society; however, I can do small things. And if we all make sure our “small things” are directed to the same outcome, we achieve big things without a revolution. Be part of the active PLM Global Green Alliance with your small things.

PLM and Configuration Management (CM)

February 14, 2021 in Configuration Lifecycle Management, Configuration Management, Education, PLM | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

After “The Doctor is IN,” I have another written post in the category of PLM and complementary practices/domains. In January, I discussed the complementary value of PLM and CLM (Configuration Lifecycle Management) with Henrik Hulgaard from Configit. For me, CLM is a synonym for Product Configuration Management.

PLM and Complementary Practices (feedback)

As expected, readers were asking the question:

“What is the difference between CLM (Configuration Lifecycle Management) and CM(Configuration Management)?”

Good question.

As the complementary role of CM is also a part of the topics to discuss, I am happy to share this blog today with Martijn Dullaart. You probably know Martijn if you are actively following topics on PLM and CM.

Martijn has his own blog mdux.net, and you might have seen him recently in Jenifer Moore’s PLM TV episode: Why CM2 for Faster Change and Better Documentation. Martijn is the Lead Architect for Enterprise Configuration Management at ASML (Our Dutch national pride) and chairperson of the Industry 4.0 committee of the Integrated Process Excellence (IPX) Congress. Let us start.

Configuration Management and CM2

Martijn, first of all, can you bring some clarity in terminology. When discussing Configuration Management, what is the pure definition, what is CM2 as a practice, and what is IpX‘s role and please explain where you fit in this picture?

Classical CM focuses mainly on the product, the product definition, and actual configurations like as-built and as-maintained of the product. CM2 extends the focus to the entire enterprise, e.g., the processes and procedures (ways of working) of a company, including the IT and facilities, to support the company’s value stream.

CM2 expands the scope to all information that could impact safety, security, quality, schedule, cost, profit, the environment, corporate reputation, or brand recognition.

Basically, CM2 shifts the focus to Integrated Process Excellence and promotes continual improvement.

Additionally, CM2 provides the WHAT and the HOW, which is something most standards lack. My main focus remains on the product and promoting the use of CM beyond its domain.

For all CM-related documentation, we are already doing this.

Configuration Management and PLM

People claim that if you implement PLM as an enterprise backbone, not as an engineering tool, you can do Configuration Management with your PLM environment.

What is your opinion?

Yes, I think that this is possible, provided that the PLM tool has the right capabilities. Though the question should be: Is this the best way to go about it. For instance, some parts of Configuration Management are more transactional-oriented, e.g., registering the parts you build in or out of a product.

Other parts of CM are more iterative in nature, e.g., doing impact analysis and making an implementation plan. I am not saying this cannot be done in a PLM tool as an enterprise backbone. Still, the nature of most PLM tools is to support iterative types of work rather than transactional types of work.

I think you need some kind of enterprise backbone that manages the configuration as an As-Planned/As-Released baseline. A baseline that shows not only the released information but also all planned changes to the configuration.

Because the source of information in such a baseline comes from different tools, you need an overarching tool to connect all of them. For most companies, this means that they require an overarching system to support their current state of enterprise applications.

Preferably, I would like to use the data directly from the sources. Still, connectivity and performance are not yet to a level that we can do this. Cloud and modern application and database architectures are highly promising in this regard.

 

Configuration Management for Everybody?

I can imagine companies in the Aerospace industry need to have proper configuration management for safety reasons. Also, I can imagine that proper configuration management can be relevant for other industries. Do they need to be regulated, or are there other reasons for a company to start implementing CM processes?

I will focus the first part of my answer within the context of CM for products only.

Essentially, all products are subject to some degree of regulation. Aerospace & Defense, as well as Medical Device and Pharma, are highly regulated for obvious reasons. Other industries are also regulated, for example, through environmental regulations like REACH, RoHS, WEEE or safety-related regulations like the CE marking or FCC marking.

Customers can also be an essential driver for the need for CM. If, as a customer, you purchase expensive equipment, you expect the supplier of that equipment to deliver on its commitment. The supplier can also maintain and upgrade the equipment efficiently with as few disruptions to your operations as possible.

Not just customers but also consumers are critical towards the traceability of the product and all its components.

Even if you are sitting on a rollercoaster, you presume the product is well-designed and maintained. In other words, there is often a case to be made to apply proper configuration management in any company. Still, the extent to which you need to implement it may vary based on your needs.

 

The need for Enterprise Configuration Management is even more significant because one of the most challenging aspects is changing the way an organization works and operates.

Often, there are multiple ways to accomplish the same task. There is a lot of tribal knowledge, and ways of working are not documented in a way that allows people to easily find them, let alone in a structured and linked format that facilitates impact analysis when introducing changes to your organization.

 

CM and Digital Transformation

One of the topics that we both try to understand better is how CM will evolve in the future when moving to a more model-based approach. In the CM-terminology, we still talk about documents as information objects to be managed. What is your idea of CM and a model-based future?

It is indeed a topic where probably new or changed methodology is required, and I started already describing CM topics in several posts on my enterprise MDUX blog. Some of the relevant posts in this context are:

First, let me say that model-based has the future, although, at the same time, the CM aspects are often overlooked.

When managing changes, excessive detail makes estimating cost and effort for a business case more challenging, and planning information that is too granular is undesirable. Therefore, CM2 looks at datasets. Datasets should be as small as possible, but not too small. Datasets are sets of information that need to be released as a whole. Still, they can be released independently from other datasets. For example, a bill of materials, a BOM line item is not a dataset, but the complete set of BOM line items that make up the BoM of an assembly is considered a dataset. I can release a BoM independent from a test plan.

Data models need to facilitate this. However, in many PLM systems today, a BOM and the metadata of a part often use the same revision. This means that to change the metadata, I need a revision of the BoM, while the BoM might not change. Some changes to metadata might not be relevant for a supplier. Communicating the changes to your supplier could create confusion.

I know some people think this is about document vs. model-centric, but it is not. A part is identified in the ‘physical world’ by its part ID. Even if you allow revisions in the supply chain, including part IDs, you create a new identifier. Now every new revision will end up in a different stock location. Is that what we want?

In any case, we are still in the early days, and the thinking about this topic has just begun and needs to take shape in the coming year(s).

 

CM and/or CLM?

As in my shared blog post with Henrik Hulgaard related to CLM, can you clearly differentiate between the two domains for the readers?

 

Configuration Lifecycle Management (CLM)  is mainly positioned towards Configurable Products and the configurable level of the product.

 

Why I think this, even though Configit’s  CLM declaration states that “Configuration Lifecycle Management (CLM) is the management of all product configuration definitions and configurations across all involved business processes applied throughout the lifecycle of a product.”,
it also states:

  • “CLM differs from other Enterprise Business Disciplines because it focuses on cross-functional use of configurable products.”
  • “Provides a Single Source of Truth for Configurable Data“
  • “handles the ever-increasing complexity of Configurable Products“.

I find Configuration Lifecycle Management is a core Configuration Management practice you need to have in place for configurable products. The dependencies you need to manage are enormously complex. Software parameters that depend on specific hardware, hardware-to-hardware dependencies, commercial variants, and options.

Want to learn more?

In this post, we have only scratched the surface of PLM and Configuration Management. Where can an interested reader find more information related to CM for their company?

 

To become trained in CM2, people can reach out to the Institute for Process Excellence, a company that focuses on consultancy and methodology for many aspects of a modern, digital enterprise, including Configuration Management.

And there is more out there, e.g.:

Conclusion

Thanks, Martijn, for your clear explanations. People working seriously in the PLM domain, managing the full product lifecycle, should also learn and consider best practices in Configuration Management. I look forward to a future discussion on how to perform Configuration Management in a model-based environment.

PLM, CLM, and CM – mind the overlap

 

 

 

 

The PLM Doctor is IN: Episode #1 – PLM and ROI

February 7, 2021 in PLM, ROI on PLM | Tags: , , , , | 1 comment

As promised in my blog post:  PLM 2021 – My plans – your goals? I was planning to experiment with a format, which I labeled as: The PLM Doctor is IN.

The idea behind this format that anyone interested could ask a question – anonymous or through a video recording – and I would answer this single question.

As you can see from the survey result, many of the respondents (approx. 30 % that did not skip the question) had a question. Enough for the upcoming year to experiment – if the experiment works for you. As it is an experiment, I am also looking forward to your feedback to optimize this format.

Today the first episode: PLM and ROI

 

Relevant links discussed in this video

CIMdata webinar: PLM Benefits, Metrics & ROI with John MacKrell

VirtualDutchman: The PLM ROI Myth

 

Conclusion

What do you think? Does this format help you to understand and ask PLM related questions? Or should I not waste my time as there is already so much content out there. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Added February 10th

 

As the PLM Doctor sometimes talks like an oracle, it was great to see the summary written by SharePLM Learning Expert Helena Guitierrez.

Click on the image to see the full post.

 

 

PLM and Product Configuration Management (CLM)

January 24, 2021 in Configuration Lifecycle Management, Digital Enterprise, Education, PLM | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

First of all, thank you for the overwhelming response to the survey that I promoted last week: PLM 2021– your goals? It gave me enough inspiration and content to fill the upcoming months.

The first question of the survey was dealing with complementary practices or systems related to a traditional PLM-infrastructure.

As you can see, most of you are curious about Digital Twin management 68 % (it is hype). Second best are Configuration Management, Product Configuration Management and Supplier Collaboration Management, all with 58% of the votes. Click on the image to see the details. Note: you could vote for more than one topic.

Product Configuration Management

Therefore, I am happy to share this blog space with Configit’s CTO, Henrik Hulgaard. Configit is a company specialized in Product Configuration Management, or as they call it, Configuration Lifecycle Management (CLM).

Recently Henrik wrote an interesting article on LinkedIn: How to achieve End-To-End Configuration.  A question that I heard several times from my clients. How to align the selling and delivery of configurable products, including sales, engineering and manufacturing?

Configit – the company / the mission

Henrik, thanks for helping me explaining the complementary value of end-to-end Product Configuration Management to traditional PLM systems. First of all, can you give a short introduction to Configit as a company and the unique value you are offering to your clients?

Hi Jos, thank you for having me. Configit has worked with configuration challenges for the last 20 years. We are approximately 200 people and have offices in Denmark, Germany, India, and in the US (Atlanta and Detroit) and work with some of the world’s largest manufacturing companies.

We are founded on patented technology, called Virtual Tabulation. The YouTube movie below explains the term Virtual Tabulation.

Virtual Tabulation compiles EVERY possible configuration scenario and then compresses that data into a very small file so that it can be used by everyone in your team.

Virtual Tabulations enables important capabilities such as:

  • Consolidation of all configuration data, both Engineering and Sales related, into single-source-of-truth.
  • Effortless maintenance of complicated rule data.
  • Fast and error-free configuration engine that provides perfect guidance to the customer across multiple platforms and channels..

As the only vendor, Configit provides a configuration platform that fully supports end-to-end configuration processes, from early design and engineering, over sales and manufacturing to support and service configurable products.

This is what we understand by Configuration Lifecycle Management (CLM).

Why Configuration Lifecycle Management?

You have introduced the term Configuration Lifecycle Management – another TLA (Three Letter Acronym) and easy pronounce. However, why would a company being interested to implement Configuration Lifecycle Management (CLM)?

CLM is a way to break down the siloed systems traditionally found in manufacturing companies where products are defined in a PLM system, sold using a CRM/CPQ system, manufactured using an ERP system and serviced by typically ad-hoc and home-grown systems.  A CLM system feeds these existing systems with an aligned and consistent view of what variants of a configurable product is available.

Organizations obtain several benefits when aligning across functions on what product variants it offers:

  • Engineering: faster time-to-market, optimized variability, and the assurance to only engineer products that are sold
  • Sales: reducing errors, making sure that what gets quoted is accurate, and reducing the time to close the deal. The configurator provides current, up-to-date, and accurate information.
  • Manufacturing: reducing errors and production stoppages due to miss-builds
  • Service: accurate information about the product’s configuration. The service technician knows precisely what capabilities to expect on the particular product to be serviced.

For example, one of our customers experienced a 95% reduction in the time – from a year to two weeks – it took them to create the configuration models needed to build and sell their products. This reduction meant a significant reduction in time to market and allowed additional product lines to be introduced.

CLM for everybody?

I can imagine that companies with products that are organized for mass-production still wanting to have the mindset of being as flexible as possible on the sales side. What type of companies would benefit the most from a CLM approach?

Any company that offers customized or configurable products or services will need to ensure that what is engineered is aligned with what is sold and serviced. Our customers typically have relatively high complexity with hundreds to thousands of configuration parameters.

CLM is not just for automotive companies that have high volume and high complexity. Many of our customers are in industrial components and machinery, offering complex systems and services. A couple of examples:

Philips Healthcare sells advanced scanners to hospitals and uses CLM to ensure that what is sold is aligned with what can be offered. They also would like to move to sell scanners as a service where the hospital may pay per MR scan.

Thyssenkrupp Elevators sell elevators that are highly customizable based on the needs and environment. The engineering rules start in the CAD environment. They are combined with commercial rules to provide guidance to the customer about valid options.

CLM and Digital Transformation

For me, CLM is an excellent example of what modern, digital enterprises need to do. Having product data available along the whole lifecycle to make real-time decisions. CLM is a connecting layer that allows companies to break the siloes between marketing, sales, engineering and operations. At C-level get excited by that idea as I can see the business value.

Now, what would you recommend realizing this idea?

  • The first step is to move away from talking about parts and instead talk about features when communicating about product capabilities.

This requires that an organization establishes a common feature “language” (sometimes this is called a master feature dictionary) that is shared across the different functions.

As the feature codes are essential in the communication between the functions, the creation and updating of the feature language must be carefully managed by putting people and processes in place to manage them.

  • The next step is typically to make information about valid configurations available in a central place, sometimes referred to as the single source of truth for configuration.

We offer services to expose this information and integrate it into existing enterprise systems such as PLM, ERP and CRM/CPQ.  The configuration models may still be maintained in legacy systems. Still, they are imported and brought together in the CLM system.

Once consuming systems all share a single configuration engine, the organization may move on to improve on the rule authoring and replace the existing legacy rule authoring applications found in PLM and ERP systems with more modern applications such as Configit Ace.

Customer Example: Connecting Sales, R&D and ERP

As can be seen from above, these steps all go across the functional silos. Thus, it is essential that the CLM journey has top-level management support, typically from the CIO.

COVID-19?

Related to COVID-19, I believe companies realized that they had to reconsider their supply chains due to limiting dependencies on critical suppliers. Is this an area where Configit would contribute too?

The digital transformation that many manufacturing companies have worked on for years clearly has been accelerated by the COVID-19 situation, and indeed they might now start to encode information about the critical suppliers in the rules.

We have seen this happening in 2011 with the tsunami in Japan when suddenly supplier could not provide certain parts anymore.  The organization then has to quickly adapt the rules so that the options requiring those parts are no longer available to order.

Therefore, the CLM vision also includes suppliers as configuration knowledge has to be shared across organizations to ensure that what is ordered also can be delivered.

Learning more?

It is clear that CLM is a complementary layer to standard PLM-infrastructures and complementary to CRM and ERP.  A great example of what is possible in a modern, digital enterprise. Where can readers find more information?

Configit offers several resources on Configuration Lifecycle Management on our website, including our blog,  webinars and YouTube videos, e.g., Tech Chat on Manufacturing and Configuration Lifecycle Management (CLM)

Besides these continuous growing resources, there is the whitepaper “Accelerating Digital Transformation in Manufacturing with Configuration Lifecycle Management (CLM)” available here among other whitepapers.

What I have learned

  • Configuration Lifecycle Management is relevant for companies that want to streamline their business functions, i.e., sales, engineering, manufacturing, and service. CLM will reduce the number of iterations in the process, reduce costly fixing when trying to align to customer demands, and ultimately create more service offerings by knowing customer existing configurations.
  • The technology to implement CLM is there. Configit has shown in various industries, it is possible. It is an example of adding value on top of a digital information infrastructure (CRM, PLM, and ERP)
  • The challenge will be on aligning the different functions to agree and align on one standard configuration authority. Therefore, responsibility should lie at the top-level of an organization, likely the modern CIO or CDO.
  • I was glad to learn that Henrik stated:

    “The first step is to move away from talking about parts and instead talk about features when communicating about product capabilities”.

    A topic I will discuss soon when talking about Product & Portfolio Management with PLM.

Conclusion

It was a pleasure to work with Configit, in particular, Henrik Hulgaard, learning more about Configuration Lifecycle Management or whatever you may name it. More important, I hope you find this post insightful for your understanding if and where it applies to your business.

Always feel free to ask more questions related to the complimentary value of PLM and Product Configuration Management(CLM)

PLM 2021– your goals?

January 10, 2021 in Digital Enterprise, MBD, MBSE, model-based, PLM | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Last week I shared my plans for 2021 related to my blog, virtualdutchman.com. Those of you who follow my blog might have noticed my posts are never short as I try to discuss or explain a topic from various aspects. This sometimes requires additional research from my side. The findings will provide benefits for all of us. We keep on learning.

At the end of the post, I asked you to participate in a survey to provide feedback on the proposed topics. So far, only one percent of my readers have responded to this short survey. The last time I shared a short survey in 2018, the response was much more significant.

Perhaps you are tired of the many surveys; perhaps you did not make it to the end. Please make an effort this time. Here is on more time the survey

The results so far

To understand the topics below, please make sure you have read the previous blog post to understand each paragraph’s context.

PLM understanding

For PLM-related topics that I proposed, Product Configuration Management, Supplier Collaboration Management, and  Digital Twin Management got the most traction. I started preparing for them, combined with a few new suggested topics that I will further explore. You can click on the images below to read the details.

PLM Deep dive

From the suggested topics for a PLM deep-dive, it is interesting to see most respondents want to learn more about Product Portfolio Management and Systems Engineering within PLM. Traditional topics like Enterprise/Engineering Change Management, BOM Management, or PLM implementation methodologies have been considered less relevant.

The PLM Doctor is in

Several questions were coming in for the “PLM Doctor,” and I started planning the first episodes. The formula: A single question and an answer through a video recording – max. 2 – 3 minutes. Suitable for fast consumers of information.

PLM and Sustainability

Here we can see the majority is observing what is happening. Only a few persons reported interest in sustainability and probably not disconnected; they work for a company that takes sustainability seriously.

 

 

PLM and digitization

When discussing PLM’s digitization, I believe one of the fundamental changes that we need to implement (and learn to master) is a more Model-Based approach for each phase of the product life cycle. Also, most respondents have a notion of what model-based means and want to apply these practices to engineering and manufacturing.

 

Your feedback

I think you all have heard this statement before about Lies and Statistics. Especially with social media, there are billions of people digging for statistics to support their theories. Don’t worry about my situation; I would like to make my statement based on some larger numbers, so please take the survey here if you haven’t done so.

 

Conclusion

I am curious about your detailed inputs, and the next blog post will be the first of the 2021 series.

 

 

 

 

 

PLM 2021 – My plans – your goals?

January 3, 2021 in Configuration Management, Digital Enterprise, Digital Twin, Education, Green Development, MBSE, model-based, PLM | Tags: , , , | 1 comment

It Is 2021, and after two weeks’ time-out and reflection, it is time to look forward. Many people have said that 2020 was a “lost year,” and they are looking forward to a fresh restart, back to the new normal. For me, 2020 was the contrary of a lost year. It was a year where I had to change my ways of working. Communication has changed, digitization has progressed, and new trends have become apparent.

If you are interested in some of the details, watch the conversation I had with Rob Ferrone from QuickRelease, just before Christmas: Two Santas looking back to 2020.

It was an experiment with video, and you can see there is a lot to learn for me. I agree with Ilan Madjar’s comment that it is hard to watch two people talking for 20 minutes. I prefer written text that I can read at my own pace, short videos (max 5 min), or long podcasts that I can listen to, when cycling or walking around.

So let me share with you some of the plans I have for 2021, and I am eager to learn from you where we can align.

PLM understanding

I plan a series of blog posts where I want to share PLM-related topics that are not necessarily directly implemented in a PLM-system or considered in PLM-implementations as they require inputs from multiple sources.  Topics in this context are: Configuration Management, Product Configuration Management, Product Information Management, Supplier Collaboration Management, Digital Twin Management, and probably more.

For these posts, I will discuss the topic with a subject matter expert, potentially a vendor or a consultant in that specific domain, and discuss the complementary role to traditional PLM. Besides a blog post, this topic might also be more explained in-depth in a podcast.

The PLM Doctor is in

Most of you might have seen Lucy from the Charley Brown cartoon as the doctor giving advice for 5¢. As an experiment, I want to set up a similar approach, however, for free.

These are my conditions:

  • Only one question at a time.
  • The question and answer will be published in a 2- 3 minute video.
  • The question is about solving a pain.

If you have such a question related to PLM, please contact me through a personal message on LinkedIn, and I will follow-up.

PLM and Sustainability

A year ago, I started with Rich McFall, the PLM Green Global Alliance.  Our purpose to bring people together, who want to learn and share PLM-related practices, solutions,  ideas contributing to a greener and more sustainable planet.

We do not want to compete or overlap with more significant global or local organizations, like the Ellen McArthur Foundation or the European Green Deal.

We want to bring people together to dive into the niche of PLM and its related practices.  We announced the group on LinkedIn; however, to ensure a persistent referential for all information and interactions, we have launched the website plmgreenaliance.com.

Here I will moderate and focus on PLM and Sustainability topics. I am looking forward to interacting with many of you.

PLM and digitization

For the last two years, I have been speaking and writing about the gap between current PLM-practices, based on shareable documents and files and the potential future based on shareable data, the Model-Based Enterprise.

Last year I wrote a series of posts giving insights on how we reached the current PLM-practices. Discovering sometimes inconsistencies and issues due to old habits or technology changes. I grouped these posts on a single blog page with the title:  Learning from the past.

This year I will create a collection of posts focusing on the transition towards a Model-Based Enterprise. Probably the summary page will be called: Working towards the future currently in private mode.

Your feedback

I am always curious about your feedback – to understand in which kind of environment your PLM activities take place. Which topics are unclear? What am I missing in my experience?

Therefore, I created a small anonymous survey for those who want to be interacting with me. On purpose, the link is at the bottom of the post, so when you answer the survey, you get my double appreciation, first for reaching the end of this post and second for answering the survey.

Take the survey here.

Conclusion

Most of us will have a challenging year ahead of us. Sharing and discussing challenges and experiences will help us all to be better in what we are doing. I look forward to our 2021 journey.

Two Santas looking back

December 23, 2020 in Change, common sense, Customer centric, Digital Enterprise, Education, Green Development, Knowledge Management, Observations, PLM | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

For those living in the Northern Hemisphere: This week, we had the shortest day, or if you like the dark, the longest night. This period has always been a moment of reflection. What have we done this year?

Rob Ferrone (Quick Release), the Santa on the left (the leftist), and Jos Voskuil (TacIT), the Santa on the right (the rightist), share in a dialogue their highlights from 2020

Wishing you all a great moment of reflection and a smooth path into a Corona-proof future.

It will be different; let’s make it better.

 

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  1. Oleg Shilovitsky's avatar

    Hi Jos, Knowing your background in methodology and education, I wanted to share a longer article with you: “What is…

  2. Bart Willemsen's avatar

    Interesting reflection, Jos. In my experience, the situation you describe is very recognizable. At the company where I work, sustainability…

  4. Unknown's avatar
  5. Håkan Kårdén's avatar

    Jos, all interesting and relevant. There are additional elements to be mentioned and Ontologies seem to be one of the…