PLM in 2050 (reprise)

May 19, 2019 in PLM | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Due to some physical inconvenience the upcoming weeks, I will not be able to write a full blog post at this time. Typing with one finger is not productive.
A video post could be an alternative, however for me, the disadvantage of a video message is that it requires the audience to follow all the information in a fixed speed – no fast or selective reading possible – hard to archive and store in context of other information. Putting pieces of information in a relevant context is a PLM-mission.

So this time my post from December 2008, where I predicted the future for 2050. I think the predictions were not too bad – you will recognize some trends and challenges still ahead. Some newer comments in italic green. I am curious to learn what you think after reading this post. Enjoy, and I am looking forward to your feedback

PLM in 2050

As the year ends (December 2008), I decided to take my crystal ball to see what would happen with PLM in the future.

It felt like a virtual experience and this is what I saw:

  • Data is not replicated any more – every piece of information that exists will have a Unique Universal ID; some people might call it the UUID. In 2020 this initiative became mature, thanks to the merger of some big PLM and ERP vendors, who brought this initiative to reality. This initiative reduced the exchange costs in supply chains dramatically and lead to bankruptcy for many companies providing translators and exchange software. (still the dream of a digital enterprise)
  • Companies store their data in ‘the cloud’ based on the previous concept. Only some old-fashioned companies still have their own data storage and exchange issues, as they are afraid someone will touch their data. Analysts compare this behavior with the situation in the year 1950, when people kept their money under a mattress, not trusting banks (and they were not always wrong) (we are getting there – sill some years to go)
  • After 3D, an entire virtual world, based on holography, became the next step for product development and understanding of products. Thanks to the revolutionary quantum-3D technology, this concept could be even applied to life sciences. Before ordering a product, customers could first experience and describe their needs in a virtual environment (to be replaced by virtual twin / VR / AR)
  • Finally the cumbersome keyboard and mouse were replaced by voice and eye-recognition.
    Initially voice recognition (Siri, Alexia please come to the PLM domain)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y_Jp6PxsSQand eye tracking (some time to go still)

    were cumbersome. Information was captured by talking to the system and capturing eye-movement when analyzing holograms. This made the life of engineers so much easier, as while analyzing and talking, their knowledge was stored and tagged for reuse. No need for designers to send old-fashioned emails or type their design decisions for future reuse (now moving towards AI)

  • Due to the hologram technology, the world became greener. People did not need to travel around the world, and the standard became virtual meetings with global teams(airlines discontinued business class). Even holidays could be experienced in the virtual world thanks to a Dutch initiative based on the experience with coffee. (not sure why I selected this movie. Sorry ….)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUqWaOi8lYQThe whole IT infrastructure was powered by efficient solar energy, reducing the amount of carbon dioxide dramatically
  • Then with a shock, I noticed PLM did not longer exist. Companies were focusing on their core business processes. Systems/terms like PLM, ERP, and CRM did not longer exist. Some older people still remembered the battle between these systems to own the data and the political discomfort this gave inside companies (so true …)
  • As people were working so efficient, there was no need to work all week. There were community time slots, when everyone was active, but 50 percent of the time, people had the time to recreate (to re-create or recreate was the question). Some older French and German designers remembered the days when they had only 10 weeks holiday per year, unimaginable nowadays. (the dream remains)

As we still have more than 40  years to reach this future, I wish you all a successful and excellent 2009.

I am looking forward to be part of the green future next year.

The importance of processes – also for PLM!

May 5, 2019 in Blocking change, Change, CM, Configuration Management, Digital Enterprise | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

This time a post that has been on the table already for a long time – the importance of having established processes, in particular with implementing PLM.  By nature, most people hate processes as it might give the idea that their personal creativity is limited, where large organizations love processes as for them this is the way to guarantee a confident performance.  So let’s have a more in-depth look.

Where processes shine

In a transactional world, processes can be implemented like algorithms, assuming the data to be processed has the right quality. That is why MRP (Material Requirement Planning) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) don’t have the mindset of personal creativity. It is about optimized execution driven by financial and quality goals.

When I started my career in the early days of data management, before it was called PDM/PLM, I learned that there is a need for communication-related to product data. Terms are revisions, and versions started to pop-up combined with change processes. Some companies began to talk about configuration management.

Companies were not thinking PLM along the whole lifecycle. It was more PDM for engineering and ERP for manufacturing. Where PDM was ultimate a document-control environment, ERP was the execution engine relying on documented content, but not necessarily connected. Unfortunate this is still the case at many companies, and it has to do with the mindset. Traditionally a company’s performance has been measured based on financial reporting coming from the ERP system. Engineering was an unmanageable cost in the eyes of the manufacturing company’s management and ERP-software vendors.

In de middle of the nineties (previous century now ! ), I had a meeting with an ERP-country manager to discuss a potential partnership. The challenge was that he had no clue about the value and complementary need for PLM. Even after discussing with him the differences between iterative product development (with revisioning) and linear execution (on the released product), his statement was:

“Engineers are just resources that do not want to be managed, but we will get them”

Meanwhile, I can say this company has changed its strategy, giving PLM a space in their portfolio combined with excellent slides about what could be possible.

To conclude, for linear execution the meaning of processes is more or less close to algorithms and when there is no algorithm, the individual steps in place are predictable with their own KPIs.

Process certification

As I mentioned in the introduction, processes were established to guarantee a predictable outcome, in particular when it comes to quality. For that reason, in the previous century when globalization started companies were somehow forced to get ISO 900x certified. The idea behind these certifications was that a company had processes in place to guarantee an expected outcome and for when they failed, they would have procedures in place to fix these gaps. The reason companies were doing this because no social internet could name and shame bad companies. Having ISO 900x certification would be the guarantee to deliver quality.  In the same perspective, we could see, configuration management, a system of best practices to guarantee that product information was always correct.

Certification was and is heaven for specialized external auditors and consultants.  To get certification you needed to invest in people and time to describe your processes, and once these processes were defined, there were regular external audits to ensure the quality system has been followed.  The beauty of this system – the described procedures were more or less “best intentions” not enforced. When the auditor would come the company had to play some theater that processes were followed., the auditor would find some improvements for next year and the management was happy certification was passed.

This has changed early this century. In particular, mid-market companies were no longer motivated to keep up this charade. The quality process manual remained as a source of inspiration, but external audits were no longer needed. Companies were globally connected and reviewed, so reputation could be sourced easily.

The result: there are documented quality procedures, and there is a reality. The more disconnected employees became in a company due to mergers or growth, the more individual best-practices became the way to deliver the right product and quality, combined with accepted errors and fixes downstream or later. The hidden cost of poor quality is still a secret within many companies.  Talking with employees they all have examples where their company lost a lot of money due to quality mistakes. Yet in less regulated industries, there is no standard approach, like CAPA (Corrective And Preventive Actions), APQP or 8D to solve it.

Configuration Management and Change Management processes

When it comes to managing the exact definition of a product, either an already manufactured product or products that are currently made, there is a need for Configuration Management.  Before there were PLM systems configuration management was done through procedures defining configurations based on references to documents with revisions and versions. In the aerospace industry, separate systems for configuration management were developed, to ensure the exact configuration of an aircraft could be retrieved at any time. Less regulated industries used a more document-based procedural approach as strict as possible. You can read about the history of configuration management and PLM in an earlier blog post: PLM and Configuration Management – a happy marriage?

With the introduction of PDM and PLM-systems, more and more companies wanted to implement their configuration management and in particular their change management inside the system, as the changes are always related to product information that can reside in a PLM-system. The change of part can be proposed (ECR), analyzed and approved, leading to and implementation of the change (ECO) which is based on changed specifications, designs (3D Models / Drawings) and more. You can read the basics here: The Issue and ECR/ECO for Dummies (Reprise)

The Challenge (= Problem) of Digital Processes

More and more companies are implementing change processes fully in PLM, and this is the point that creates the most friction for a PLM implementation. The beauty of digital change processes is that they can be full-proof. No change gets unnoticed as everyone is forced to follow the predefined procedures, either a type of fast track in case of lightweight (= low risk) changes or the full change process when the product is already in a mature state.

Like the ISO-900x processes, the PLM-implementer is often playing the role of the consultancy firm that needs to recommend the company how to implement configuration management and change processes. The challenge here is that the company most of the time does not have a standard view for their change processes and for sure the standard change management inside PLM s not identical to their processes.

Here the battle starts….

Management believes that digital change processes, preferable out-of-the-box, a crucial to implement, where users feel their job becomes more an administrative job than a creative job. Users that create information don’t want to be bothered with the decisions for numbering and revisioning.

They expect the system to do that easily for them – which does not happen as old procedures, responsibilities, and methodologies do not align with the system. Users are not measured or challenged for data quality, they are measured on the work they deliver that is needed now. Let’s first get the work done before we make sure all is consisted defined in the PLM-system.

Digital Transformation allows companies to redefine the responsibilities for users related to the data they produce. It is no longer a 3D Model or a drawing, but a complete data set with properties/attributes that can be shared and used for analysis and automation.

Conclusion

Implementing digital processes for PLM is the most painful, but required step for a successful implementation. As long as data and processes are not consistent, we can keep on dreaming about automation in PLM. Therefore, digital transformation inside PLM should focus on new methods and responsibilities to create a foundation for the future. Without an agreement on the digital processes there will be a growing inefficiency for the future.

 

“Wise” Easter Words for PLM

April 22, 2019 in Change, Customer centric, Data centric, Digital Enterprise, Observations, Platform, PLM | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

I am writing this post during the Easter weekend in the Netherlands. Easter / Passover / Pascha / are religious festivities that happen around this time, depending on full moons, etc. I am not the expert here, however, what I like about Easter is that is it is an optimistic religious celebration, connecting history, the “dark days,” and the celebration of new life.

Of course, my PLM-twisted brain never stops associating and looking into an analogy, I saw last week a LinkedIn post from Mark Reisig, about Aras ACE 2019 opening with the following statement:

“Digital Transformation – it used to be called PLM,” said Aras CEO Peter Schroer, as he opened the conference with some thoughts around attaining sustainable Digital Transformation and owning the lifecycle.

Was this my Easter Egg surprise? I thought we were in the middle of the PLM Renaissance as some other vendors and consultants talk about this era. Have a look at a recent Engineering.com TV-report: Turning PLM on its head

All jokes aside, the speech from Peter Schroer contained some interesting statements and I want to elaborate on them in this post as the space to comment in LinkedIn is not designed for a long answer.

PLM is Digital Transformation?

In the past few years, there has been a discussion if the acronym PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) is perhaps outdated. PTC claimed thanks to IoT (Internet of Things) now PLM equals IoT, as you can read in  Mark Taber’s 2018 guest article in Digital Engineering: IoT Equals PLM.
Note: Mark is PTC’s vice president of marketing and go-to-market marketing according to the bio at the bottom of the article. So a lot of marketing words, which  strengthens the believers of the old world, that everything new is probably marketing.

Also during the PDT conferences, we discussed if PLM should be replaced by a new acronym and I participated in that discussion too – my Nov 2018 postWill MBSE be the new PLM instead of IoT? is a reflection of my thoughts at that time.

For me, Digital Transformation is a metamorphosis from a document-driven, sequential processes towards data-driven, iterative processes. The metamorphosis example used a lot at this moment, is the one from Caterpillar towards the Butterfly. This process is not easy when it comes to PLM-related information, as I described in my PI PLMx 2019 London Presentation and blog post: The Challenges of a Connected Ecosystem for PLM. The question is even: Will there be a full metamorphosis at the end or will we keep on working in two different modes of operations?

However, Digital Transformation does not change the PLM domain. Even after a successful digital transformation, there will be PLM. The only significant difference in the future – PLM boarders will not be so evident anymore when implementing capabilities in a system or a platform. The upcoming of digital platforms will dissolve or fade the traditional PLM-mapped capabilities.

You can see these differences already by taking an in-depth look at how Oracle, SAP or Propel address PLM. Each of them starts from a core platform with different PLM-flavored extensions, sometimes very different from the traditional PLM Vendors. So Digital transformation is not the replacement of PLM.

Back to Peter Schroer’s rebuttal of some myths. Note: DX stands for Digital Transformation

Myth #1: DX leverages disruptive tech

Peter Schroer:

 It’s easy to get excited about AI, AR, and the 3D visual experience. However, let’s be real. The first step is to get rid of your spreadsheets and paper documentation – to get an accurate product data baseline. We’re not just talking a digital CAD model, but data that includes access to performance data, as-built parts, and previous maintenance work history for everyone from technicians to product managers

Here I am fully aligned with Peter. There are a lot of fancy features discussed by marketing teams, however, when working in the field with companies, the main challenge is to get an organization digital aligned, sharing data accessible along the whole lifecycle with the right quality.

This means you need to have a management team, understanding the need for data governance, data quality and understanding the shift from data ownership to data accountability.  This will only happen with the right mix of vision, strategy and the execution of the strategy – marketing does not make it happen

 

Myth #2: DX results in increased market share, revenue, and profit

Peter Schroer:

Though there’s a lot of talk about it – there isn’t yet any compelling data which proves this to be true. Our goal at Aras is to make our products safer and faster. To support a whole suite of industrial applications to extend your DX strategy quite a bit further.

Here I agree and disagree, depending on the context of this statement. Some companies have gone through a digital transformation and therefore increased their market share, revenue, and profit. If you read books like Leading Transformation or Leading Digital, you will find examples of companies that have gone through successful digital transformations. However, you might also discover that most of these companies haven’t transformed their PLM-domain, but other parts of their businesses.

Also, it is interesting to read a 2017 McKinsey post: The case for digital reinvention, where you will get the confirmation that a lot of digital initiatives did not bring more top-line revenue and most of the times lead to extra costs. Interesting to see where companies focus their digital strategies – picture below:

Where only 2 percent of the respondents were focusing on supply chains, this is, according to the authors of the article, one of the areas with the highest potential ROI. And digital supply chains are closely related to modern PLM – so this is an area with enough work to do by all PLM practitioners– connecting ecosystems (in real-time)

Myth #3: Market leaders are the most successful at DX

Peter Schroer:

If your company is hugely profitable at the moment, it’s highly likely that your organization is NOT focused on Digital Transformation. The lifespan of S&P 500 companies continuing to shrink below 20 years.

How to Attain Sustainable Digital Transformation

– Stop buying disposable systems. It’s about an adaptable platform – it needs to change as your company changes.

– Think incremental. Do not lose momentum. Continuous change is a multi-phase journey. If you are in or completed phase I, then that means there is a phase II, a phase III, and so on.

– Align people & processes.  Mistakes will happen, “the tech side is only 50% of DX” – Aras CEO.

Here I agree with Peter on the business side, be it that some of the current market leaders are already digital. Look at Apple, Google, and Amazon. However, the majority of large enterprises have severe problems with various aspects of a digital transformation as the started in the past before digital technologies became affordable..

Digitization allows information to flow without barriers within an organization, leading to rapid insights and almost direct communication with your customers, your supply chain or other divisions within your company. This drives the need to learn and build new, lean processes and get people aligned to them. Learning to work in a different mode.

And this is extremely difficult for a market leader – as market leader fear for the outside changing world is often not felt. Between the C-level vision and people working in the company, there are several layers of middle management. These layers were created to structure and stabilize the old ways of working.

I wrote about the middle management challenge in my last blog post: The Middle Management dilemma. Almost in the same week there was an article from McKinsey: How companies can help midlevel managers navigate agile transformations.
Conclusion: It is not (only) about technology as some of the tech geeks may think.

Conclusion

Behind the myths addressed by Peter Schroer, there is a complex transformation on-going. Probably not a metamorphosis. With the Easter spirit in mind connected to PLM, I believe digital transformations are possible – Not as a miracle but driven by insights into all aspects. I hope this post gave you some more ideas and please read the connected articles – they are quite relevant if you want to discover what’s below the surface.

The Middle Management dilemma

April 8, 2019 in Blocking change, Change, Customer centric, Digital Enterprise, Digital Twin, Observations, PLM | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment 

Image:  21stcenturypublicservant.wordpress.com/

Over the past years, I have talked a lot about Digital Transformation, particularly its relation to PLM. This time, I want to focus a little more on Digital Transformation and my observations related to big and small enterprises. I will take you from the top, the C-level, to the work floor and then try to reconnect through middle management. As you can imagine from the title of this post, there is a challenge. And I am aware I am generalizing for the sake of simplicity.

Starting from the C-level of a large enterprise

Large and traditional enterprises are having the most significant challenge when aiming at a digital transformation for several reasons:

  • They have shareholders that prefer short-term benefits above long-term promising but unclear higher benefits. Shareholders most of the time have no personal interest in these companies, they just want to earn money above the average growth.
  • The CEO is the person who defines the strategy, which has to come with a compelling vision to inspire the shareholders, customers and employees of the company—most of the time in that order of priority.
  • The CEO’s role is to prioritize investments and stop or sell core components to make the transformation affordable. Every transformation is about deciding what to stop, what to start and what to maintain.
  • After four to seven years (the seven years’ itch), it is time for a new CEO to create new momentum, as you cannot keep the excitement up too long.
  • Meanwhile, the Stop-activities are creating fear within the organization – people start fearing their jobs, and the start-activities are, most of the time, on such a small scale that their successes are not yet seen. So, on the work floor, there will be reservations about what’s next.

Companies like ABB, Ericsson, GE, and Philips – in alphabetical order – are all in several stages of their digital transformation, and in particular, I have followed GE as they were evident and ambitious. Meanwhile, it is fair to say that the initial Digital Transformation plan from GE has stalled and a lot of lessons have been learned from that.

If you have time – read this article, The Only Way Manufacturers Can Survive – by Vijay Govindarajan & Jeff Immelt (you need to register). It gives valuable insights into the strategy and planning for digital transformation. And note PLM is not even mentioned there!

Starting from the C-level of a small and medium enterprise

In a small or medium enterprise, the distance between the C-level and the work floor is most of the time much shorter and chances are that the CEO is a long-term company member in case of a long-standing family-owned business.

In this type of company, a long-term vision can exist, and you could expect that digital transformation is more sustainable there.

Unfortunately, most of the time, it is not, as the C-level is often more active in current business strategies and capabilities that are close to their understanding instead of investing energy and time to digest the full impact of a digital transformation.

These companies might invest in the buzzwords you hear in the market, such as IoT, Digital Twins and Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality. These are all very visionary topics, but they are of low value when implemented in an isolated way.

In this paragraph, I also need to mention the small and medium enterprises that are in the hands of an investment company.  Here, I feel sorry as the investment company is most of the time trying to optimize the current ways of working by simplifying or rationalizing the business, not creating a transformative vision (as they do not have the insights.

In this type of company, you will see the same investments made on a lesser scale as in the other categories of small and medium enterprises.

 

Do people need to change?

Often, you hear that the problem with any change within companies is that people do not want to change. I think this is too much of a generalization. I have worked in the past five years with several companies where we explored the benefits and capabilities of PLM in a modern way, sometimes focusing on an item-centric approach and sometimes focusing on a model-based approach. In all these engagements, the users were not reluctant to change.

However, there were two types of users in these discussions. I would characterize them as evolutionary thinkers (most of the time ten years or more in the company) and love-to-change thinkers (most of them five years or less in the company). The difference between these groups was that the evolutionary thinkers were responding in the context of the existing business constraints. In contrast, the love-to-change thinkers were not yet touched by the “knowledge of how good everything was”.

For digital transformation, you need to create a love-to-change attitude while using the existing knowledge as a base to improve. This is not a people change; it is an organizational change where you need to enable people to work in their best mode. It needs to be an end-to-end internal change – not changing the people but changing the organizational parameters: KPIs, divisions, departments, and priorities. Have a look at this short movie. You can replace the word ERP with PLM, and you will understand why I like this movie (and the relaxing sound)

The Middle Management dilemma

And here comes my last observation. At the C-level, we can find inspiring visions that are often outcome-based, such as a more agile company, closer to the customer, empowered workers, etc. Then there is the ongoing business that cannot be disrupted and needs to perform—so the business units and departments all get their performance KPIs, merely keeping the status quo in place.

Also, new digital initiatives need to be introduced. They don’t fit in the existing business and are often started in separation – like the GE Digital division, and you can read Jeff Immelt’s thoughts and strategy on how this could work. (The Only Way Manufacturers Can Survive). However, as the majority of the business runs in the old mode, the Digital Business became another business silo in the organization, as the middle management could not be motivated to embed digital in their business (no KPIs or very low significance of new KPIs)

I discussed the hybrid/bimodal approach several times in my blog posts, most recently in The Challenges of a Connected Ecosystem. One point that I did not address was that probably nobody wants to work in the old mode anymore once the new approach is successful and scaled up.

When the new mode of business is still minor, people will not care so much and continue business as usual. Once the new mode becomes the most successful part of the company, people want to join this success if they can. And here, the change effort is needed. An interesting article in this context is The End of Two-Speed IT from the Boston Consultancy Group (2016). They already point to the critical role of middle management. Middle management can kill digital transformation or be part of it by getting motivated and adopting it.

Conclusion

Perhaps too much text in this post and even more content when you dive more in-depth into the provided content. Crucial if you want to understand the digital transformation process in an existing company and the critical place of middle management. They are likely the killers of digital transformation if not give the right coaching and incentives.  Just an observation – not a thought 😉

PLM and Configuration Management – a happy marriage?

March 24, 2019 in Change, CM, Configuration Management, Data centric, Digital Enterprise, PLM, Standards | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment 

Image: waitbutwhy.com

Two weeks ago I wrote about the simplification discussion around PLM – Why PLM never will be simple.  There I focused on the fact that even sharing information in a consistent, future proof way of working, is already challenging, despite easy to use communication tools like email or social communities.

I mentioned that sharing PLM data is even more challenging due to their potential revision, version, status, and context.  This brings us to the topic of configuration management, needed to manage the consistency of information, a challenge with the increasingly sophisticated products or systems. Simple tools will never fix this complexity.

To manage the consistency of a product,  configuration management (CM) is required. Two weeks ago I read the following interesting post from CMstat: A Brief History of Configuration Management Software.

An excellent introduction if you want to know more about the roots of CM, be it that the post at the end starts to flush out all the disadvantages and reasons why you should not think about CM using PLM systems.

The following part amused me:

 The Reality of Enterprise PLM

It is no secret that PLM solutions were often sold based in good part on their promise to provide full-lifecycle change control and systems-level configuration management across all functions of the enterprise for the OEM as well as their supply and service chain partners. The appeal of this sales stick was financial; the cost and liability to the corporation from product failures or disasters due to a lack of effective change control was already a chief concern of the executive suite. The sales carrot was the imaginary ROI projected once full-lifecycle, system-level configuration control was in effect for the OEM and supply chain.

Less widely known is that for many PLM deployments, millions of budget dollars and months of calendar time were exhausted before reaching the point in the deployment road map where CM could be implemented. It was not uncommon that before the CM stage gate was reached in the schedule, customer requirements, budget allocations, management priorities, or executive sponsors would change. Or if not these disruptions within the customer’s organization, then the PLM solution provider, their software products or system integrators had been changed, acquired, merged, replaced, or obsoleted. Worse yet for users who just had a job to do was when solutions were “reimagined” halfway through a deployment with the promise (or threat) of “transforming” their workflow processes.

Many project managers were silently thankful for all this as it avoided anyone being blamed for enterprise PLM deployment failures that were over budget, over schedule, overweight, and woefully underwhelming. Regrettably, users once again had to settle for basic change control instead of comprehensive configuration management.

I believe the CMstat-writer is generalizing too much and preaches for their parish. Although my focus lies on PLM, I also learned the importance of CM and for that reason I will share a view on CM from the PLM side:

Configuration Management is not a target for every company

The origins of Configuration Management come from the Aerospace and Defense (A&D) industries. These industries have high quality, reliability and traceability constraints. In simple words, you need to prove your product works correctly specified in all described circumstances and keep this consistent along the lifecycle of the product.

Moreover, imagine you delivered the perfect product, next implementing changes require a full understanding of the impact of the change. What is the impact of the change on the behavior or performance? In A&D is the question is it still safe and reliable?

Somehow PLM and CM are enemies. The main reason why PLM-systems are used is Time to Market — bringing a product as fast as possible to the market with acceptable quality. Being first is sometimes more important than high quality. CM is considered as a process that slows down Time to Market as managing consistency, and continuous validating takes time and effort.

Configuration Management in Aviation is crucial as everyone understands that you cannot afford to discover a severe problem during a flight. All the required verification and validation efforts make CM a costly process along the product lifecycle. Airplane parts are 2 – 3 times more expensive than potential the same parts used in other industries. The main reason: airplane parts are tested and validated for all expected conditions along their lifecycle.  Other industries do not spend so much time on validation. They validate only where issues can hurt the company, either for liability or for costs.

Time to Market even impacts the aviation industry  as we can see from the commercial aircraft battle(s) between Boeing and Airbus. Who delivers the best airplane (size/performance) at the right moment in the global economy? The Airbus 380 seemed to miss its targets in the future – too big – not flexible enough. The Boeing 737 MAX appears to target a market sweet spot (fuel economy) however the recent tragic accidents with this plane seemed to be caused by Time to Market pressure to certify the aircraft too early. Or is the complexity of a modern airplane unmanageable?

CM based on PLM-systems

Most companies had their configuration management practices long before they started to implement PLM. These practices were most of the time documented in procedures, leading to all kind of coding systems for these documents. Drawing numbers (the specification of a part/product), Specifications, Parts Lists, all had a meaningful identifier combined with a version/revision and status. For example, the Philips 12NC coding system is famous in the Netherlands and is still used among spin-offs of Philips and their supplier as it offers a consistent framework to manage configurations.

Storing these documents into a PDM/PLM-system to provide centralized access was not a big problem; however, companies also expected the PLM-system to support automation and functionality to support their configuration management procedures.

A challenge for many implementers for several reasons:

  • PLM-systems do not offer a standard way of working – if they would do so, they could only serve a small niche market – so it needs to be “configured/customized.”
  • Company configuration management rules sometimes cannot be mapped to the provided PLM data-model and their internal business logic. This has led to costly customizations where, in the best case, implementer and company agreed somewhere in the middle. Worst case as the writer from the CM blog is mentioning it becomes an expensive, painful project
  • Companies do not have a consistent configuration management framework as Time to Market is leading – we will fix CM later is the idea, and they let their PLM –implementer configure the PLM-system as good a possible. Still, at the management level, the value of CM is not recognized.
    (see also: PLM-CM-ALM – not sexy ?)

In companies that I worked with, those who were interested in a standardized configuration management approach were trained in CMII. CMII (or CM2) is a framework supported by most PLM-systems, sometimes even as a pre-configured template to speed-up the implementation. Still, as PLM-systems serve multiple industries, I would not expect any generic PLM-vendor to offer Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) CM-capabilities – there are too many legacy approaches. You can find a good and more in-depth article related to CMII here: Towards Integrated Configuration Change Management (CMII) from Lionel Grealou.

 

What’s next?

Current configuration management practices are very much based on the concepts of managing document. However, products are more and more described in a data-driven, model-based approach. You can find all the reasons why we are moving to a model-based approach in my last year’s blog post. Important to realize is that current CM practices in PLM were designed with mechanical products and lifecycles as a base. With the combination of hardware and software, integrated and with different lifecycles, CM has to be reconsidered with a new holistic concept. The Institute of Process Excellence provides CM2 training but is also active in developing concepts for the digital enterprise.

Martijn Dullaart, Lead Architect Configuration Management @ ASML & Chair @ IPE/CM2 Global Congress has published several posts related to CM and a Model-Based approach – you find them here related to his LinkedIn profile. As you can read from his articles organizations are trying to find a new consistent approach.

Perhaps CM as a service to a Product Innovation Platform, as the CMstat blog post suggests? (quote from the post below)

In Part 2 of this CMsights series on the future of CM software we will examine the emerging strategy of “Platform PLM” where functional services like CM are delivered via an open, federated architecture comprised of rapidly-deployable industry-configured applications.

I am looking forward to Part2 of CMsights . An approach that makes sense to me as system boundaries will disappear in a digital enterprise. It will be more critical in the future to create consistent data flows in the right context and based on data with the right quality.

Conclusion

Simple tools and complexity need to be addressed in the right order. Aligning people and processes efficiently to support a profitable enterprise remains the primary challenge for every enterprise. Complex products, more dependent on software than hardware, are requiring new ways of working to stay competitive. Digitization can help to implement these new ways of working. Experienced PLM/CM experts know the document-driven past. Now it is time for a new generation of PLM and CM experts to start from a digital concept and build consistent and workable frameworks. Then the simple tools can follow.

 

Why PLM will never be simple

March 10, 2019 in PLM | 3 comments

Every time the message pops-up that there is a problem with PLM because it is not simple. Most of these messages come from new software vendors challenging the incumbents, other from frustrated people who tried to implement PLM directly and failed. The first group of people believe that technology will kill, the second group usually blames the vendors or implementers for complexity, never themselves. Let’s zoom in on both types:

The Vendor pitch

Two weeks ago Oleg Shilovitsky published: Why complexity is killing PLM and what are future trajectories and opportunities?. His post contained some quotes from my earlier posts (thanks for that Oleg J ). Read the article, and you will understand Oleg believes in technology, ending with the following conclusion/thoughts:

What is my conclusion? It is a time for new PLM leadership that can be built of transparency, trust and new technologies helping to build new intelligent and affordable systems for future manufacturing business. The old mantra about complex PLM should go away. Otherwise, PLM will shrink, retire and die. Just my thoughts…

It is a heartbreaking statement. I would claim every business uses these words to the outside world. Transparency as far as possible, as you do not want to throw your strategy on the table unless you are a philanthropist (or too wealthy to care).

Without trust, no long-term relationship can exist, and yes new technology can make some difference, but is current technology making PLM complex?

Vendors like Aras, Arena, FusePLM, Propel PLM all claim the new PLM space with modern technology – without strong support for 3D CAD/Model-Based approaches, as this creates complications. Other companies like OpenBOM, OnShape, and more are providing a piece of the contemporary PLM-puzzle.

Companies using their capabilities have to solve their PLM strategy /architecture themselves. Having worked for SmarTeam, the market leader in easy client-server PLM, I learned that an excellent first impression helps to sell PLM, but only to departments, it does not scale to the larger enterprise. Why?

PLM is about sharing (and connecting)

Let’s start with the most simplistic view of PLM.  PLM is about sharing information along all the lifecycle phases. Current practices are based on a coordinated approach using documents/files. The future is about sharing information through connected data. My recent post: The Challenges of a connected ecosystem for PLM zooms in on these details.

Can sharing be solved by technology? Let’s look at the most common way of information sharing we currently use: email. Initially, everyone was excited, fast and easy! Long live technology!

Email and communities

Now companies start to realize that email did not solve the problems of sharing. Messages with half of the company in CC, long, unstructured stories, hidden, local archives with crucial information all have led to unproductive situations. Every person shares based on guidelines, personal (best) practices or instinct. And this is only office communication.

Product lifecycle management data and practices are xxxx times more complicated. In particular, if we talk about a modern connected product based on hardware and software, managed through the whole lifecycle – here customers expect quality.

I will change my opinion about PLM simplicity as soon as a reasonable, scalable solution for the email problem exists that solves the chaos.

Some companies thought that moving email to (social) communities would be the logical next step see Why Atos Origin Is Striving To Be A Zero-Email Company.  This was in 2011, and digital communities have reduced the number of emails.

Communities on LinkedIn flourished in the beginning, however, now they are also filled with a large amount of ambiguous content and irrelevant puzzles. Also, these platforms became polluted. The main reason: the concept of communities again is implemented as technology, easy to publish anything (read my blog 🙂 ) but not necessarily combined with an attitude change.

Learning to share – business transformation

Traditional PLM and modern data-driven PLM both have the challenge to offer an infrastructure that will be accepted by the end-users, supporting sharing and collaboration guaranteeing at the end that products have the right quality and the company remains profitable.

Versions, revisions, configuration management, and change management are a must to control cost and quality. All kinds of practices the end-user hates, who “just wants to do his/her job.”
(2010 post: PLM, CM and ALM – not sexy 😦 )

And this is precisely the challenge of PLM. The job to do is not an isolated activity. If you want your data to be reused or make your data discoverable after five or ten years from now, there is extra work to do and thinking needed. Engineers are often under pressure to deliver their designs with enough quality for the next step. Investing time in enriching the information for downstream or future use is considered a waste of time, as the engineering department is not rewarded for that. Actually, the feeling is that productivity is dropping due to “extra” work.

The critical mindset needed for PLM is to redefine the job of individuals. Instead of optimizing the work for individuals, a company needs to focus on the optimized value streams. What is the best moment to spend time on data quality and enrichment? Once the data is created or further downstream when it is required?

Changing this behavior is called business transformation, as it requires a redesign of processes and responsibilities. PLM implementations always have a transformational aspect if done right.

The tool will perform the business transformation

At the PLM Innovation Munich 2012 conference, Autodesk announced their cloud-based PLM 360 solution. One of their lead customers explained to the audience that within two weeks they were up and running. The audience as in shock – see the image to the left. You can find the full presentation here on SlideShare: The PLM Identity Crisis

Easy configuration, even sitting at the airport, is a typical PLM Vendor-marketing sentence.

Too many PLM implementations have created frustration as the management believed the PLM-tools would transform the business. However, without a proper top-down redesign of the business, this is asking for failure.

The good news is that many past PLM implementations haven’t entirely failed because they have been implemented close to the existing processes, not really creating the value PLM could offer. They maintained the silos in a coordinated way. Similar to email – the PLM-system may give a technology boost, but five to ten years later the conclusion comes that fundamentally data quality is poor for downstream usage as it was not part of the easy scope.

Who does Change Management?

It is clear PLM-vendors make a living from selling software. They will not talk about the required Change Management as it complicates the deal.  Change Management is a complex topic as it requires a combination of a vision and a restructuring (a part of) the organization. It is impossible to outsource change management –  as a company you need to own your strategy and change. You can hire strategy consultants and coaches but is a costly exercise if you do not own your transformation.

Therefore, it remains a “soft” topic depending on your company’s management and culture.  The longer your company exists, the more challenging change management will be, as we can see from big American / European enterprises, where the individual opinion is strongest, compared to upcoming Asian companies (with less legacy)

Change Management in the context of digital transformation becomes even more critical as, for sure, existing processes and ways of working no longer apply for a digital and connected enterprise.

There is so much learning and rethinking to do for businesses before we can reap all the benefits PLM Vendors are showing. Go to the upcoming Hannover Messe in Germany, you will be impressed by what is (technically) possible – Artificial Intelligence / Virtual Twins and VR/AR. Next, ask around and look for companies that have been able to implement these capabilities and have transformed their business. I will be happy to visit them all.

Conclusions

PLM will never be pure as it requires individuals to work in a sharing mode which is not natural by nature. Digital transformation, where the sharing of information becomes connecting information requires even more orchestration and less individualism. Culture and being able to create a vision and strategy related to sharing will be crucial – the technology is there.

 

“Technology for its own sake is a common trap. Don’t build your roadmap as a series of technology projects. Technology is only part of the story in digital transformation and often the least challenging one.”

(from “Leading Digital: Turning Technology into Business Transformation (English Edition)” by George Westerman, Didier Bonnet, Andrew McAfee)

 

The Challenges of a connected ecosystem for PLM

February 24, 2019 in Blocking change, Change, Customer centric, Data centric, Digital Enterprise, Innovation, model-based, Platform, PLM, Product Innovation | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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…….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weekend after PI PLMx London 2019

February 10, 2019 in Change, Data centric, Digital Enterprise, Digital Twin, Education, Observations, Platform, PLM, Product Innovation, ROI on PLM, Standards | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 comment

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:

  1. 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?
  2. 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?
  3. 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:

Day 1 closed with an inspirational keynote; Lessons-Learnt from the Mountaineering Experience 8848 Meter above sea level  – a mission to climb the highest mountain on each of the continents in 107 days – 9 hours – setting a new world record by Jonathan Gupta.

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

I was happy to present after Peter Bilello and David Sherburne (on day 1) as they both gave a perspective on digital transformation complementary to what I submitted. My presentation was focusing on the incompatibility of current coordinated business systems and the concept of a connected ecosystem.

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.

 

The importance of EBOM and MBOM in PLM (reprise)

January 20, 2019 in PLM | 4 comments

I promised to write some more down-to-earth post this year related to current PLM practices. If you are eager for my ideas for the PLM future, come to PI PLMx in London on Feb 4th and 5th. Or later when reading the upcoming summary: The Weekend after PI PLMx London 2019.

ECO/ECR for Dummies was the most active post over the past five years. BOM-related posts, mainly related to the MBOM are second: Where is the MBOM? (2007) or The Importance of a PLM data model: EBOM – MBOM (2015)  are the most popular posts.

In this post, an update related to current BOM practices. For most companies, their current focus while moving from CAD-centric to Item-centric.

Definitions

The EBOM (Engineering BOM) is a structure that reflects the engineering definition of a product, constructed using assemblies (functional groups of information) and parts (mechanical/electrical or software builds – specified by various specifications: 3D CAD, 2D CAD / Schematics or specifications). The EBOM reflects the full definition from a product how it should appear in the real-world and is used inside an organization to align information coming from different disciplines.

Note: This differs from the past, where initially the EBOM often was considered as a structure derived from the Mechanical Part definition.

The MBOM (Manufacturing BOM) is a structure that reflects the way the product is manufactured. The levels in the MBOM reflect the processing steps needed to build the product. Here based on the same EBOM different MBOMs can exist, as a company might decide that in one of their manufacturing plants they only assemble the product, wherein another plant they have tools to manufacture some of the parts themselves, therefore the MBOM will be different. See the example below:In case your company delivers products to their customers, either in a B2B or B2C model, the communication towards the customer is based on a product ID, which could be the customer part number (in case of B2B) or a catalog part number.  The EBOM/MBOM for this product might evolve over time as long as the product specifications remain the same and are met.

Does every company need an EBOM and MBOM?

Historically most companies have worked with a single BOM definition, due to the following reasons:

  • In an Engineering-To-Order process or Build-to-Print process the company the target is to manufacture a product at a single site – Most of the time one product for ETO or one definition to many products in BTP. This means the BOM definition is already done with manufacturing resources and suppliers in mind.
  • The PLM (or PDM) system only contained the engineering definition. Manufacturing engineers build the manufacturing definition manually in the local ERP-system by typing part numbers again and structuring the BOM according to the manufacturing process for that plant.

Where the first point makes sense, there might be still situations where a separate EBOM and MBOM is beneficial. Most of the time when the Build To Print activity is long-lasting and allows the company to optimize the manufacturing process without affecting the engineering definition.

The second point is describing a situation you will find at many companies as historically the ERP-system was the only enterprise IT-systems and here part numbers were registered.

Creating a PLM-ERP connection is usually the last activity a company does. First, optimize the silos and then think about how to connect them (unfortunate). The different structures on the left and right lead to a lot of complex programming by services-eager PLM implementers.Meanwhile, PLM-systems have evolved in the past 15 years, and a full BOM-centric approach from EBOM to MBOM is supported although every PLM vendor will have its own way of solving digital connectivity between BOM-items.You should consider an EBOM / MBOM approach in the following situations:

  • In case you have a modular product the definition of the EBOM and MBOM can be managed at the module As modules might be manufactured at different locations, only the MBOM of the module may vary per plant. Therefore, fewer dependencies on the EBOM or the total EBOM of a product.
  • In case a company has multiple manufacturing plants or is aiming to outsource manufacturing, the PLM-system is the only central place where all product knowledge can reside and pushed to the local ERPs when needed for potential localization. Localization means for me, using parts that are sourced in the region, still based on the part specification coming from the EBOM.

Are EBOM and MBOM parts different?

There is no real academic answer to this question. Let’s see some of the options, and you can decide yourself.

An EBOM part is specified by documents – this can be a document, a 3D model combined with 2D drawings or a 3D annotated model. In case this EBOM part is a standard part, the specification may come from a part manufacturer through their catalog.

As this part manufacturer will not be the only one manufacturing the standard part, you will see that this EBOM-part has potentially several MBOM-parts to be resolved when manufacturing is planned. The terms Approved Manufacturing List (AML) – defined by Engineering and Approved Vendor List (AVL) – based on the AML but controlled by purchasing apply here.Now the case that the EBOM-part is not a standard part. In that case, there are two options:

  • The EBOM-part holds only the specifications and the EBOM-part will be linked to one or more MBOM-parts (depending on manufacturing locations). In case the part is outsourced, your company might not even be interested in the MBOM-part as it is up to the supplier to manufacture it according to specifications
  • The EBOM-part describes a specification but does not exist as such individuals. For example, 1.2-meter hydraulic tube, or the part should be painted (not specified in the EBOM with quantity) or cut out of steel with a certain thickness. In the MBOM you would find the materials in detailed sizes and related operations.

Do we need an EBOM and MBOM structure?

In the traditional PLM implementations, we often see the evolution of BOM-like structures along the enterprise: Concept-BOM, Engineering BOM, Manufacturing BOM, Service BOM, and others. Each structure could consist of individual objects in the PLM-system. This is an easy to understand approach, where the challenge is to keep these structures up-to-date and synced with the right information.

See below an old image from Dassault Systemes ENOVIA in 2014:

Another more granular approach is to have connected data sets that all have their unique properties and by combining some of them you have the EBOM, and by combining other elements, you have the MBOM. This approach is used in data platforms where the target is to have a “single version of the truth” for each piece of information and you create through apps an EBOM or MBOM-view with related functionality. My blog-buddy Oleg Shilovitsky from OpenBOM is promoting this approach already for several years – have a look here.

So the answer do you need multiple BOM structures is:
Probably YES currently but not anymore in the future once you are data-driven.

Ultimately we want to be data-driven to allow extreme efficient data handling and speed of operations (no more conversions / no more syncing to be controlled by human resources – highly automated and intelligent is the target)

 

Conclusion

Even this post is just showing the tip of the iceberg for a full EBOM-MBOM discussion. It is clear that this discussion now is more mature and understood by most PLM-consultants as compared to 5 – 10 years ago.

It is a necessary step to understand the future, which I hope to explain during the upcoming PI PLMx event in London or whenever we meet.

 

 

 

 

 

PLM – measurable or a myth?

January 6, 2019 in PLM | Leave a comment

Happy New Year to all of you. It has been a period of reflection – first disconnected from PLM and then again slowly getting my PLM-twisted brain back to work. And although my mind is already running in a “What’s next mode,” I would like to share with you first some of the lessons learned from last year.

Model-Based confusion

Most of the topics related to model-based approaches, from systems engineering, through engineering and manufacturing, leading to digital twins, are very futuristic; an end-to-end model-driven enterprise is not in reach for most of us. There are several reasons for that:

  • Not every company has this need or discovered the need to have digital continuity and almost real-time availability of information end-to-end. As a result, there are still slow businesses.
  • Understanding the needs for a model-driven enterprise takes time and effort. There are no available solutions on the market yet, so there is no baseline available to discuss and compare. For sure, solutions will be a combination of connected capabilities based on model-driven paradigms. It will take time to develop and understand the benefits.
  • Model-Based approaches are not just a marketing invention, as some disbelievers suggest. In particular, in Asia, where people deal with less legacy (and skepticism) than our western engineering/manufacturing world, companies embrace these concepts faster. One more time, if you didn’t look at Zhang Xin Guo’s keynote speech at the Incose annual symposium last year, watch the speech below and learn to understand the needed paradigm change. Is it a coincidence that a Chinese speaker gives the best explanation so far?

Technology hype?

The (Industrial) Internet of Things, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented reality, Virtual Reality, and Digit Twin appear in the news. But, most of the time, they are associated with tremendous opportunities, changing business models and potentially high profits. For example, read this quote from Jim Heppelmann after the acquisition of Frustum:

“PTC is pushing the boundaries of innovation with this acquisition,” said Jim Heppelmann, president and CEO, PTC. “Creo is core to PTC’s overall strategy, and the embedded capabilities from ANSYS and, later, Frustum will elevate Creo to a leading position in the world of design and simulation. With breakthrough new technologies such as AR/VR, high-performance computing, IoT, AI, and additive manufacturing entering the picture, the CAD industry is going through a renaissance period, and PTC is committed to leading the way.”

Of course, vendors have to sell their capabilities; the major challenge for companies is to make a valuable business from all these capabilities (if possible). In that context, I was happy to read one of Joe Barkai’s recent posts: When the Party is Over — Industrial Internet of Things Industry Snapshot and Predictions, where he puts the IIoT hype in a business perspective.

Can technology change business?

If you look back over the past 50 years, various changes in technology have affected the world of PLM. Assuming the current definition of PLM could exist in 1970 even without a PLM system – PLM was invented in 1999. First, there was the journey from drawing boards to electronic drawings and 3D models. Next global connectivity and an affordable infrastructure boosted product development collaboration. Still, many organizations work in a silo-ed way, inside the organization and outside with their suppliers. Still, the 2D Drawing is the legal information carrier combined with additional specification documents. Changing the paradigm to a connected 3D Model is already possible, however not pushed or implemented by manufacturing companies as it requires a change in ways of working (people) and related processes.

A business change has to come from the top of an organization, which is the challenge for PLM. What is the value of collaboration? How do you measure innovation capabilities? How do you impact time to market?

Time to market might be understood at the board level. There is an existing NPI (New Product Introduction) process in place, and by analyzing the process, fixing bottlenecks, an efficiency gain can be achieved. Every innovation goes through the same process. This is where traditional PLM plays a significant role as it is partly measurable.

But how to improve collaboration or innovation speed?

At the board level, often numbers rule and based on numbers, decisions are taken. This mindset often leads to narrow thinking. Adjustments are made by prioritizing one topic above the other. Complex topics like the needed change of business and business models are not really understood and passed to the middle management (who will kill it to guarantee the status quo).

Organizations need a myth!

One of the significant challenges for PLM is that there is no end-to-end belief in its purpose. According to Yuval Noah Harari in his book Sapiens, the primary success factor why homo sapiens became the dominant species on earth is because they can collaborate in large groups driven by abstract themes. It can be religion. A lot is done on behalf of faith. It can also be a charismatic CEO who can create the myth – think about Steve Jobs, Elon Musk.

Organizations that want to go through a digital transformation need to create their myth and deliver product/business innovation through new ways of working should be part of that. I wrote about myths in the context of PLM in the past: PLM as a myth? . I believe the domain of PLM is too small for a myth still. However, it is a crucial part of digital transformation.

In the upcoming year, I will focus again on how organizations can benefit from new technologies. But, again, not focusing on WHAT is possible, but mainly on WHY and HOW – all based on the myth that we can do so much better as organizations when innovation and customer focus are part of everyone’s empowered mind.

I am looking forward to meeting in face-to-face discussions, Skype calls, or during events and conferences.
Let’s understand and create the myth together – first in London.

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  2. Unknown's avatar
  3. Håkan Kårdén's avatar

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

  4. Lewis Kennebrew's avatar

    Jos, as usual, you've provided a buffet of "food for thought". Where do you see AI being trained by a…

  5. Håkan Kårdén's avatar