The 5 Must See PLM Movies

December 21, 2018 in Blocking change, Brain, Change, Digital Twin, Education, Innovation, intelligence, IoT, model-based, Observations, PLM | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 comment

This is the moment of the year to switch-off from the details. No more talking and writing about digital transformation or model-based approaches. It is time to sit back and relax. Two years ago I shared the PLM Songbook, now it is time to see one or more movies. Here are my favorite top five PLM movies:

Bruce Almighty

Bruce Nolan, an engineer in Buffalo, N.Y., is discontented with almost everything in the company despite his popularity and the love of his draftswoman Grace. At the end of the worst day of his life, Bruce angrily ridicules and rages against PLM and PLM responds. PLM appears in human form and, endowing Bruce with divine powers op collaboration, challenges Bruce to take on the big job to see if he can do it any better.

A movie that makes you modest and you realize there is more than your small ecosystem.

 

The good, the bad and the ugly

Blondie (The Good PLM consultant) is a professional who is out trying to earn a few dollars. Angel Eyes (The Bad PLM Vendor) is a PLM salesman who always commits to a task and sees it through, as long as he is paid to do so. And Tuco (The Ugly PLM Implementer) is a wanted outlaw trying to take care of his own hide. Tuco and Blondie share a partnership together making money off Tuco’s bounty, but when Blondie unties the partnership, Tuco tries to hunt down Blondie. When Blondie and Tuco come across a PLM implementation loaded with dead bodies, they soon learn from the only survivor (Bill Carson – the PLM admin) that he and a few other men have buried a stash of value on a file server. Unfortunately, Carson dies, and Tuco only finds out the name of the file server, while Blondie finds out the name on the hard disk. Now the two must keep each other alive in order to find the value. Angel Eyes (who had been looking for Bill Carson) discovers that Tuco and Blondie met with Carson and knows they know the location of the value. All he needs is for the two to ..

A movie that makes you realize that it is a challenging journey to find the value out of PLM. It is not only about execution – but it is also about all the politics of people involved – and there are good, bad and ugly people on a PLM journey.

The Grump

The Grump is a draftsman in Finland from the past. A man who knows that everything used to be so much better in the old days. Pretty much everything that’s been done after 1953 has always managed to ruin The Grump’s day. Our story unfolds The Grump opens a 3D Model on his computer, hurting his brain. He has to spend a weekend in Helsinki to attend a model-based therapy. Then the drama unfolds …….

A movie that makes you realize that progress and innovation do not come from grumps. In every environment when you want to do a change of the status quo, grumps will appear. With the exciting Finish atmosphere, a perfect film for Christmas.

Deliverance

The Cahulawassee River Valley company in Northern Georgia is one of the last analog companies in the state, which will soon change with the imminent implementation of a PLM system in the company, breaking down silos everywhere. As such, four Atlanta city slickers, alpha male Lewis Medlock, generally even-keeled Ed Gentry, slightly condescending Bobby Trippe, and wide-eyed Drew Ballinger decide to implement PLM in one trip, with only Lewis and Ed having experience in CAD. They know going in that the area is ethnoculturally homogeneous and isolated, but don’t understand the full extent of such until they arrive and see what they believe is the result of generations of inbreeding. Their relatively peaceful trip takes a turn for the worse when half way through they encounter a couple of hillbilly moonshiners. That encounter not only makes the four battle their way out of the PLM project intact and alive but threatens the relationships of the four as they do.

This movie, from 1972, makes you realize that in the early days of PLM starting a big-bang implementation journey into an area that is not ready for it, can be deadly, for your career and friendship. Not suitable for small children!

Diamonds Are Forever or Tron (legacy)

James Bond’s mission is to find out who has been drawing diamonds, which are appearing on blogs. He adopts another identity in the form of Don Farr. He joins up with CIMdata and acts as if he is developing diamonds, but everyone is hungry for these diamonds. He also has to avoid Mr. Brouwer and Mr. Kidd, the dangerous couple who do not leave anyone in their way when it comes to model-based. And Ernst Stavro Blofeld isn’t out of the question. He may have changed his looks, but is he linked with the V-shape? And if he is, can Bond finally defeat his ultimate enemy?

Sam Flynn, the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn, looks into his father’s disappearance and finds himself pulled into the same world of virtual twins and augmented reality where his father has been living for 20 years. Along with Kevin’s loyal confidant Quorra, father and son embark on a life-and-death journey across a visually-stunning cyber universe that has become far more advanced and exceedingly dangerous. Meanwhile, the malevolent program IoT, who dominates the digital world, plans to invade the real world and will stop at nothing to prevent their escape

I could not decide about number five. The future is bright with Boeing’s new representation of Systems Engineering, see my post on CIMdata’s PLM Europe roadmap event where Don Farr presented his diamond(s). However, the future is also becoming a mix of real with virtual and here Tron (legacy) will help my readers to understand the beauty of a mixed virtual and real world. You can decide – or send me your favorite PLM movies.

Note: All movie reviews are based on IMBd.com story lines, and I thank the authors of these story lines for their contribution and hope they agree with the PLM-related twist. Click on the image to find the full details and original review.

Conclusion

2018 has been an exciting year with a lot of buzzwords combined with the reality that the current PLM approach is incompatible with the future. How we can address this issue more in 2019 – first at PI PLMx 2019 in London (be there – last chance to meet people in the UK when they are still Europeans and share/discuss plans for the upcoming year)

Wishing you all the best during the break and a happy and prosperous 2019

 

The Issue and ECR/ECO for Dummies (Reprise)

December 9, 2018 in ECO, ECR, Education, Knowledge Management, PLM | Tags: , , , , | 1 comment

Some of you following my blog this year might not feel so connected with the content I have written many posts related to digitization and the future needs for model-driven approaches, not so much about topics that might keep you awake at this time.

When I look in my blog statistics, the most popular post is ECO/ECR for Dummies, leading with more than 30.000 views since I wrote this post in 2010. You can read the original post here: ECR/ECO for Dummies (2010)

Meanwhile, in most companies, the scope of PLM has broadened, and instead of a change process within the engineering department, it will be part of enterprise change management, connecting all options for change. Therefore, in this post, I will explain the basics of a modern enterprise change process.

It can start with an Issue

Already 10 years ago I was promoting the Issue-object in a PLM data model as this could be the starting point for many activities in the enterprise, product-related, technology-related, customer-related and more.

My definition of an Issue is that it is something happening that was not expected and requires follow-up. In our day-to-day life, we solve many issues by sending an e-mail or picking up the phone, and someone down the chain will resolve the issue (or make it disappear).

The disadvantage of this approach is that there is no collective learning for the organization. Imagine that you could see in your PLM-system how many issues there were with a project, can you learn from that and improve it for the future. Or when you notice you have had several costly issues during manufacturing, but you were never aware of them, because it happened in another country and it was solved there.

By creating issues in the PLM-system related to the object(s), it concerns (a product, a part, a customer, a manufacturing process, an installation, …..) you will create traceability and visibility based on global facts. By classifying the issues, you can run real-time reports on what is happening and what has happened unforeseen in your enterprise.

The challenge is to find a user-interface that can compete with e-mail as an entry point. So far PLM-system providers haven’t invested in highly user-friendly Issue management, leaving the email path possible. PLM Vendors – there is work to do!

Next, depending on the Issue various follow-up processes can start en some of them will be connected. See the diagram below and forgive me my graphical talent.

In this post we will focus only on the ECR and ECO path, leaving the other processes above open for next time.

The Engineering Change Request-process

The term ECR, meaning Engineering Change Request, might not be correct anymore for requested changes in an enterprise. Therefore, sometimes, you might also see the term CR only, without the reference to Engineering. For example, in the software world, you will not follow the same process as used for the hardware world, due to the different lifecycle, speed, and cost involved with software changes.  I will focus only on the ECR here.

As the picture above shows, there are two entry points for an engineering change request. Either someone in the enterprise has an issue that leads to an ECR, or someone in the enterprise has an idea to improve the products and sends it in as a request.

The next steps are quite standard for a typical ECR-process:

Analysis

In the Analysis step assigned individuals will evaluate the request. If it is well understood. Potential solution paths will be evaluated and rated. In case it is a change on a running product, what is the impact of performing this change on current products, current, and future manufacturing, finance, etc. In the analysis-phase there will be no detail design, it is more a feasibility study. In companies already having a well-structured PLM and ERP infrastructure, many of the impact analysis can be done rather fast, as for example the “Where Used” capability is a standard in every PLM-system.

CCB

The abbreviation stands for Change Control Board, a term also used in the software industry. In the case of hardware products, the CCB usually consists of engineering, manufacturing, purchasing, finance and potentially sales, based on the context of the ECR. This group of people decides what will be the next step of the ECR. They have four options:

  1. Ask for further analysis – a decision is not possible.
  2. Mandate the proposed change to be planned immediately by promoting it to an Engineering Change Order, which means the change is going to be executed as needed (Immediate for example in case of a product stop/customer issue – Longer Term when old stock needs to be consumed first)
  3. The proposed change can become a Candidate for the next product release/upgrade and put on hold to be implemented together with other candidates for a release.
  4. The ECR can also be Cancelled meaning the proposed change will potential not create business benefits for the company. Implementing the change might create more complexity as desired.

Engineering Change Order

The image above is an illustration of a possible flow for an ECO. When an ECO is launched a first analysis and planning is required. The ECO can be based on multiple ECRs, or the ECO can be depending on other ECO’s that need to be coordinated.

The ECO process is quite similar to a release process. There will be multidisciplinary collaboration (mechanical/electrical/ …) leading to a complete engineering definition (based on the EBOM). Next Manufacturing Preparation and Planning can be done, where the implementation at the manufacturing plant(s) will be depending on the ECO context.

Note: When only a change in manufacturing will be implemented, for example when certain parts/materials are not available or affordable, we do not name it an ECO but an MCO instead. MCO stands for Manufacturing Change Order and assumes the engineering specification will remain the same.

Conclusion

The ECR/ECO-process is slowly changing due to digitization and a broader implementation scope for PLM – it is no longer a mechanical engineering change process. The availability of digital connected information will offer a base for algorithms in the future, speeding up the process and reducing the effort for a CCB during the ECR-process.

Will these processes still be there in 2025?

 

 

 

Will MBSE be the new PLM instead of IoT?

November 18, 2018 in Digital Enterprise, Digital Twin, IoT, MBE, MBSE, Product Innovation, ROI on PLM | Tags: , , , , , | 2 comments

According to LinkedIn, there are over a 7500 PLM consultants in my network.  It is quite an elite group of people as I have over 100.000 CEOs in my network according to LinkedIn. Being a CEO is a commodity.

PLM consultants share a common definition, the words Product Lifecycle Management. However, what we all mean by PLM is one of the topics that has evolved over the past 19 years in a significant way.

PLM or cPDM (collaborative PDM)?

In the early days, PLM was considered as an engineering tool for collaboration, either between global subsidiaries or suppliers. The main focus of PLM was to bring engineering information to manufacturing in a controlled way. PLM and cPDM, often seen as solving the same business needs as the implementation of a PLM system most of the time got stuck at the cPDM level.

Main players at that time were Dassault Systemes, UGS (later Siemens PLM) and PTC – their solutions were MCAD-driven with limited scope – bringing engineering information towards manufacturing in a coordinated way.

PLM was not really an approach that created visibility at the management level of a company. How do you value and measure collaboration? Because connectivity was expensive in the early days of PLM, combined with the idea that PLM systems needed to be customized, PLM was framed as costly and hard to deliver value.

Systems Engineering and New Product Introduction

Then, 2005 and beyond, thanks to better connectivity and newcomers in the PLM market, the solution landscape from PLM became broader.  CAD integrations were not a necessary part of the PLM scope according to these newcomers as they focused on governance (New Product Introduction), Bill of Materials or at the front-end of the product design cycle, connecting systems engineering by adding requirements management to their PLM suite.

New players in this domain where SAP, Aras, followed by Autodesk – their focus was more metadata-driven, connection and creating an end-to-end data flow for the product. Autodesk started the PLM and cloud path.

These new capabilities brought a broader scope for PLM indeed. However, they also strengthened the idea that PLM is there for engineers. For the management too complicated, unless they understood the value of coordinated collaboration. Large enterprises saw the benefits of having common processes for PLM as an essential reason to invest in PLM. The graph below showed the potential of PLM, where the shaded area indicates the potential revenue benefits.

Still, this graph does not create “hard numbers,” and it requires visionaries to get a PLM implementation explained and justified across the board.  PLM is framed as expensive even if the budgets spent on PLM are twenty percent or less compared to ERP implementations. As PLM is not about transactional data, the effects of PLM are hard to benchmark. Success has many fathers, and in case of difficulties, the newcomer is to blame.

PLM = IoT?

With the future possibilities, connectivity to the machine-level (IoT or IIoT), a new paradigm related to PLM was created by PTC.  PLM equals IoT – read more here.

Through IoT, it became possible to connect to products/assets in the field, and the simplified message from PTC was that now thanks to IoT (read ThingWorx) PLM was now really possible, releasing traditional PLM out of its engineering boundaries. The connected sensors created the possibility to build and implement more advanced and flexible manufacturing processes, often called Smart Manufacturing or Industrie 4.0.

None of the traditional PLM vendors is talking about PLM solely anymore. Digital transformation is a topic discussed at the board level, where GE played a visionary role with their strong message for change, driven by their CEO Jeff Immelt at that time – have a look at one of his energizing talks here.

However is PLM part of this discussion?

Digital Transformation opened a new world for everyone. Existing product lifecycle concepts could be changed, products are becoming systems, interacting with the environment realized through software features. Systems can be updated/upgraded relatively fast, in particular when you are able to watch and analyze the performance of your assets in almost real-time.

All consultants (me included) like to talk about digital transformation as it creates a positive mood towards the future, imagining everything that is possible. And with the elite of PLM consultants we are discovering the new roles of PLM – see picture below:

Is PLM equal to IoT or Digital Transformation?

I firmly believe the whole Digital Transformation and IoT hypes are unfortunately obfuscating the maximum needs for a digital enterprise. The IoT focus only exposes the last part of the lifecycle, disconnected from the concept and engineering cycles – yes on PowerPoint slides there might be a link. Re-framing PLM as Digital Transformation makes is even vaguer as we discussed during the CIMdata / PDT Europe conference last October. My main argument: Companies fail to have a link with their digital operations and dreams because current engineering processes and data, hardware (mechanical and electronics) combined with software are still operating in an analog, document-driven mode.

PLM = MBSE?

However what we also discussed during this conference was the fact that actually there is a need for an end-to-end model-based systems engineering infrastructure to support the full product lifecycle. Don Farr’s (Boeing) new way to depict the classical systems engineering “V” also hinted into that direction. See the image below – a connected environment between the virtual modeled word and the physical world at any time of the product lifecycle

So could MBSE be the new naming for PLM?

The problem is as Peter Bilello also mentioned during the CIMdata/PDT conference is that the word “ENGINEERING” is in Model-Based Systems Engineering. Therefore keeping the work what the PLM “elite” is doing again in the engineering box.

So perhaps Model-Based Enterprise as the new name?

Unfortunate MBE has already two current definitions – look here and here. Already too much confusion, and there a lot of people who like confusion. See Model-Based – The confusion. So any abbreviation with Model-Based terminology in it will not get attention at the board level. Even if it is crucial the words, Model-Based create less excitement as compared to Digital Twin, although the Digital Twin depends on a model-based approach.

Conclusion

Creating and maintaining unique products and experiences for their customers is the primary target of almost every company. However, no easy acronym that frames these aspects to value at the board level. Perhaps PID – the Product Innovation Diamond approach will be noticed? Your say ….

 

The week after CIMdata Roadmap / PDT Europe 2018 (DAY 2)

November 4, 2018 in Data centric, Digital Enterprise, Digital Twin, Education, model-based, PLCS, PLM | Tags: , , , , | 2 comments

A week ago I attended the joined CIMdata Roadmap and PDT Europe conference in Stuttgart as you can recall from last week’s post: The weekend after CIMdata Roadmap / PDT Europe 2018. As there was so much information to share, I had to split the report into two posts. This time the focus on the PDT Europe. In general, the PDT conferences have always been focusing on sharing experiences and developments related to standards. A topic you will not see at PLM Vendor conferences. Therefore, your chance to learn and take part if you believe in standards.

This year’s theme: Collaboration in the Engineering and Manufacturing Supply Chain – the Extended Digital Thread and Smart Manufacturing. Industry 4.0 plays a significant role here.

 

Model-based X: What is it and what is the status?

I have seen Peter Bilello presenting this topic now several times, and every time there is a little more progress. The fact that there is still an acronym war illustrated that the various aspects of a model-based approach are not yet defined. Some critics will be stating that’s because we do not need model-based and it is only a vendor marketing trick again.  Two comments here:

  • If you want to implement an end-to-end model-based approach including your customers and supply chain, you cannot avoid standard. More will become clear when you read the rest of this post. Vendors will not promote standards as it reduces their capabilities to deliver unique So standards must come from the market, not from the marketing.
  • In 2007 Carl Bass, at that time CEO at Autodesk made his statement: “There are only three customers in the world that have a PLM problem; Dassault, PTC, and There are no other companies that say I have a PLM problem”. Have a look here. PLM is understood by now and even by Autodesk. The statement illustrates that in the beginning the PLM target was not clear and people thought PLM was a system instead of a strategic approach. Model-based ways of working have to go through the same learning path, hopefully, faster.

Peter’s presentation was a good walk-through pointing out what exists, where we focus and that there is still working to be done. Not by vendors but by companies. Therefore I wholeheartedly agree with Peter’s closing remarks – no time to sit back and watch if you want to benefit from model-based approaches.

Smart Manufacturing

Kenny Swope, known from his presentations related to Boeing, now spoke to us as the Chair of the ISO/TC 184/SC 4 workgroup related to Industrial Data. To say it in decoded mode: Kenny is heading Sub-committee 4 with a focus on Industrial Data. SC4 is part of a more prominent theme: Automation Systems and integration identified by TC 184 all as part of the ISO framework. The scope:

Standardization of the content, meaning, structure, representation and quality management of the information required to define an engineered product and its characteristics at any required level of detail at any part of its lifecycle from conception through disposal, together with the interfaces required to deliver and collect the information necessary to support any business or technical process or service related to that engineered product during its lifecycle.

Perhaps boring to read if you think about all the demos you have seen at trade shows related to Smart Manufacturing. If you want these demos to become true in a vendor-independent environment, you will need to agree on a common framework of definitions to ensure future continuity beyond the demo. And here lies the business excitement, the real competitive advantages companies can have implementing Smart Manufacturing in a Scaleable, future-oriented way.

One of the often heard statements is that standards are too slow or incomplete. Incomplete is not a problem when there is a need, the standard will follow. Compare it with language, we will always invent new words for new concepts.

Being slow might be the case in the past. Kenny showed the relative fast convergence from country-specific Smart Manufacturing standards into a joined ISO/IEC framework – all within three years. ISO and IEC have been teaming-up already to build Smart Manufacturing Reference models.

This is already a considerable effort,  as the local reference models need to be studied and mapped to a common architecture. The target is to have a first Technical Specification for a joint standard final 2020 – quite fast!

Meinolf Gröpper from the German VDMA  presented what they are doing to support Smart Manufacturing / Industrie 4.0. The VDMA is a well-known engineering federation with 3200 member companies, 85 % of them are Small and Medium Enterprises – the power of the German economy.

The VDMA provides networking capabilities, readiness assessments for members to be the enabler for companies to transform. As Meinolf stated Industrie 4.0 is not about technology, it is about cross-border services and international cooperation. A strategy that every company has to develop and if possible implement at its own pace. Standards will accelerate the implementation of Industrie 4.0

The Smart Manufacturing session was concluded by Gunilla Sivard, Professor at KTH in Stockholm and Hampus Wranér, Consultant at Eurostep. They presented the work done on the DIgln project, targeting an infrastructure for Smart Manufacturing.

The presentation showed the implementation of the testbed using twittering bus communication and the ISO 10303-239 PLCS information standard as the persistent layer. The results were promising to further build capabilities on top of the infrastructure below:

The conclusion from the Smart Manufacturing session was that emerging and available standards can accelerate the deployment.

 

Enabling digital continuity in the Factory of the Future

Alcibiades Gonzalez-Noval from Airbus shared challenges and the strategy for Airbus’s factory of the future based on digital continuity from the virtual world towards the physical world, connecting with PLM, ERP, and MOM. Concepts many companies are currently working on with various maturity stages.

I agree with his lessons learned. We cannot think in silos anymore in a digital future – everything is connected. And please forget the PoC, to gain time start piloting and fail or succeed fast. Companies have lost years because of just doing PoCs and not going into action. The last point, networks segregation for sure is an issue, relevant for plant operations. I experienced this also in the past when promoting PLM concepts for (nuclear) owners/operators of plants. Network security is for sure an issue to resolve.

 

Cross-Discipline Lifecycle Collaboration Forum
Setting up the digital thread across engineering and the value chain.

Peter Gerber, Chairman of CDLC Forum and Data Exchange & Integration Leader at Schaefller and Pierre Bodin at Senior Manager Mews Partners, presented their findings related to the challenge of managing complex products (mechanical, electrical, software using system engineering methodology)  to work properly at affordable cost in a real-time mode, multidisciplinary and coordination across the whole value chain. Something you might expect could be done when reviewing all PLM Vendor’s marketing materials, something you might expect hard to do when remembering Martin Eigner’s statement that 95 % of the companies have not solved mechatronics collaboration yet. (See: The weekend after CIMdata PLM Roadmap and PDT Europe)

A demonstrator was defined, and various vendors participated in building a demonstrator based on their Out-Of-The-Box capabilities. The result showed that for all participants there were still gaps to resolve for full collaboration. A new version of the demonstrator is now planned for the middle of next year – curious to learn the results at that time. Multi-disciplinary collaboration is a (conceptual) pillar for future digital business – it needs to be possible.

 

A Digital Thread based on the PLCS standard.

Nigel Shaw, Eurostep’s managing director in the UK, took us through his evolution of PLCS (Product Life Cycle Support) and extension of the ISO 10303 STEP standard. (STEP Standard for Exchange of Product data). Nigel mentioned how over all these years, millions (and a lot of brain power) have been invested in PLCS to where it is now.

PLCS has been extremely useful as an interface standard for contracting, provide product data in a neutral way. As an example, last year the Swedish Defense organization (FMV) and France’s DGA made PLCS DEXs as part of the contractual conditions. It would be too costly to have all product data for all defense systems in proprietary vendor formats and this over the product lifecycle.

Those following the standards in the process industry will rely on ISO 15926 / CFIHOS as this standard’s dictionary, and data model is more geared to process data- and in particular the exchange of data from the various contractors with the owner/operator.

Coming back to PLCS and the Digital Twin – it is all about digital continuity of information. Otherwise, if we have to recreate information in every lifecycle stage of a product (design/manufacturing / operations), it will be too costly and not digital connected. This illustrates the growing needs for standards. I had nothing to add to Nigel’s conclusions:

It is interesting to note that product management has moved a long way over the last 10-20 years however as we include more and more into PLM, there are all the time new concepts to be solved. The cases we discuss today in our PLM communities were most of the time visions 10 years ago. Nowadays we want to include Model-Based Systems Engineering, 3D Modeling and simulation, electronics and software and even aftermarket, product support in true PLM. This was not the case 20 years ago. The people involved in the development of PLCS were for sure visionaries as product data connectivity along the whole lifecycle is needed and enabled by the standard.

 

Investing in Industry 4.0?
Hard Realities of the Grand Vision.

Marc Halpern from Gartner is one of the regular speakers at the PDT conference. Unfortunate he could not be with us that day, however, through a labor-intensive connection (mobile phone close to the speaker and Nigel Shaw trying to stay in sync with the presented slides) we could hear Marc speak about what we wanted to achieve too – a digital continuity.

Marc restated the massive potential of Industrie 4.0 when it comes to scalability, agility, flexibility, and efficiency.

Although technologies are evolving rapidly, it is the existing legacy that inhibits fast adoption. A topic that was also central in my presentation. It is not just a change in technology, there is much more connected.

Marc recommends a changing role for IT, where they should focus more on business priorities and business leadership strategies. This as opposed to the classical role of the IT organization where IT needed to support the business, now they will be part of leading the business too.

To orchestrate such an IT evolution, Marc recommends a “systems of systems” planning and execution across IT and Business. One of my recent blog posts: Moving to a model-based enterprise:  The business (information) model can be seen in that context.

How to deal with the incompatible future?

I was happy to conclude the sessions with the topic that concerns me the most at this time. Companies in their current business are already struggling to get aligned and coordinated between disciplines and external stakeholders, the gap to be connected is vast as it requires a master data management approach, an enterprise data model and model-based ways of working. Read my posts from the past ½ year starting here, and you get the picture.

Note: This image is based on Marc Halpern’s (Gartner) Technology/Maturity diagram from PDT 2015

I concluded with explaining companies need to learn to work in two modes. One mode will be the traditional way of working which I call the coordinated approach and a growing focus on operating in a connected mode.  You can see my full presentation here on SlideShare: How to deal with the incompatible future.

Conclusion

The conference was closed with a panel discussion where we shared our concerns related to the challenges companies face to change their traditional ways of working meanwhile entering a digital era. The positive points are there – baby steps – PLM is becoming understood, the significance of standards is becoming more clear. The need: a long-term vision.

 This concludes my review of an excellent conference – I learned again a lot and I hope to see you next year too. Thanks again to CIMdata and Eurostep for organizing this event

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weekend after CIMdata Roadmap / PDT Europe 2018

October 28, 2018 in Change, Data centric, Digital Enterprise, Digital Twin, Education, MBSE, model-based, Observations, PLM | Tags: , , , , , , , | 2 comments

Last week I attended the long-awaited joined conference from CIMdata and Eurostep in Stuttgart. As I mentioned in earlier blog posts. I like this conference because it is a relatively small conference with a focused audience related to a chosen theme.

Instead of parallel sessions, all attendees follow the same tracks and after two days there is a common understanding for all. This time there were about 70 people discussing the themes:  Digitalizing Reality—PLM’s role in enabling the digital revolution (CIMdata) and Collaboration in the Engineering and Manufacturing Supply Chain –the Extended Digital Thread and Smart Manufacturing (EuroStep)

As you can see all about Digital. Here are my comments:

The State of the PLM Industry:
The Digital Revolution

Peter Bilello kicked off with providing an overview of the PLM industry. The PLM market showed an overall growth of 7.3 % toward 43.6 Billion dollars. Zooming in into the details cPDM grew with 2.9 %. The significant growth came from the PLM tools (7.7 %). The Digital Manufacturing sector grew at 6.2 %. These numbers show to my opinion that in particular, managing collaborating remains the challenging part for PLM. It is easier to buy tools than invest in cPDM.

Peter mentioned that at the board level you cannot sell PLM as this acronym is too much framed as an engineering tool. Also, people at the board have been trained to interpret transactional data and build strategies on that. They might embrace Digital Transformation. However, the Product innovation related domain is hard to define in numbers. What is the value of collaboration? How do you measure and value innovation coming from R&D? Recently we have seen more simplified approaches how to get more value from PLM. I agree with Peter, we need to avoid the PLM-framing and find better consumable value statements.

Nothing to add to Peter’s closing remarks:

 

An Alternative View of the Systems Engineering “V”

For me, the most interesting presentation of Day 1 was Don Farr’s presentation. Don and his Boeing team worked on depicting the Systems Engineering process for a Model-Based environment. The original “V” looks like a linear process and does not reflect the multi-dimensional iterations at various stages, the concept of a virtual twin and the various business domains that need to be supported.

The result was the diamond symbol above. Don and his team have created a consistent story related to the depicted diamond which goes too far for this blog post. Current the diamond concept is copyrighted by Boeing, but I expect we will see more of this in the future as the classical systems engineering “V” was not design for our model-based view of the virtual and physical products to design AND maintain.

 

Sponsor vignette sessions

The vignette sponsors of the conference, Aras, ESI,-group, Granta Design, HCL, Oracle and TCS all got a ten minutes’ slot to introduce themselves, and the topics they believed were relevant for the audience. These slots served as a teaser to come to their booth during a break. Interesting for me was Granta Design who are bringing a complementary data service related to materials along the product lifecycle, providing a digital continuity for material information. See below.

 

The PLM – CLM Axis vital for Digitalization of Product Process

Mikko Jokela, Head of Engineering Applications CoE, from ABB, completed the morning sessions and left me with a lot of questions. Mikko’s mission is to provide the ABB companies with an information infrastructure that is providing end-to-end digital services for the future, based on apps and platform thinking.

Apparently, the digital continuity will be provided by all kind of BOM-structures as you can see below.In my post, Coordinated or Connected, related to a model-based enterprise I call this approach a coordinated approach, which is a current best practice, not an approach for the future. There we want a model-based enterprise instead of a BOM-centric approach to ensure a digital thread. See also Don Farr’s diamond. When I asked Mikko which data standard(s) ABB will use to implement their enterprise data model it became clear there was no concept yet in place. Perhaps an excellent opportunity to look at PLCS for the product related schema.

A general comment: Many companies are thinking about building their own platform. Not all will build their platform from scratch. For those starting from scratch have a look at existing standards for your industry. And to manage the quality of data, you will need to implement Master Data Management, where for the product part the PLM system can play a significant role. See Master Data Management and PLM.

 

Systems of Systems Approach to Product Design

Professor Martin Eigner keynote presentation was about the concepts how new products and markets need a Systems of Systems approach combined with Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and Product Line Engineering (PLE) where the PLM system can be the backbone to support the MBSE artifacts in context. All these concepts require new ways of working as stated below:

And this is a challenge. A quick survey in the room (and coherent with my observations from the field) is the fact that most companies (95 %) haven’t even achieved to work integrated for mechatronics products. You can imagine the challenge to incorporate also Software, Simulation, and other business disciplines. Martin’s presentations are always an excellent conceptual framework for those who want to dive deeper a start point for discussion and learning.

Additive Manufacturing (Enabled Supply) at Moog

Moog Inc, a manufacturer of precision motion controls for various industries have made a strategic move towards Additive Manufacturing. Peter Kerl, Moog’s Engineering Systems Manager, gave a good introduction what is meant by Additive Manufacturing and how Moog is introducing Additive Manufacturing in their organization to create more value for their customer base and attract new customers in a less commodity domain. As you can image delivering products through Additive Manufacturing requires new skills (Design / Materials), new processes and a new organizational structure. And of course a new PLM infrastructure.

Jim van Oss, Moog’s PLM Architect and Strategist, explained how they have been involved in a technology solution for digital-enabled parts leveraging blockchain technology.  Have a look at their VeriPart trademark. It was interesting to learn from Peter and Jim that they are actively working in a space that according to the Gartner’s hype curve is in the early transform phase.  Peter and Jim’s presentation were very educational for the audience.

For me, it was also interesting to learn from Jim that at Moog they were really practicing the modes for PLM in their company. Two PLM implementations, one with the legacy data and the wrong data for the future and one with the new data model for the future. Both implementations build on the same PLM vendor’s release. A great illustration showing the past and the future data for PLM are not compatible

Value Creation through Synergies between PLM & Digital Transformation

Daniel Dubreuil, Safran’s CDO for Products and Services gave an entertaining lecture related to Safran’s PLM journey and the introduction of new digital capabilities, moving from an inward PLM system towards a digital infrastructure supporting internal (model-based systems engineering / multiple BOMs) and external collaboration with their customers and suppliers introducing new business capabilities. Daniel gave a very precise walk-through with examples from the real world. The concluding slide: KEY SUCCESS FACTORS was a slide that we have seen so many times at PLM events.

Apparently, the key success factors are known. However, most of the time one or more of these points are not possible to address due to various reasons. Then the question is: How to mitigate this risk as there will be issues ahead?

 

Bringing all the digital trends together. What’s next?

The day ended with a virtual Fire Place session between Peter Bilello and Martin Eigner, the audience did not see a fireplace however my augmented twitter feed did it for me:

Some interesting observations from this dialogue:

Peter: “Having studied physics is a good base for understanding PLM as you have to model things you cannot see” – As I studied physics I can agree.

Martin: “Germany is the center of knowledge for Mechanical, the US for Electronics and now China becoming the center for Electronics and Software” Interesting observation illustrating where the innovation will come from.

Both Peter and Martin spent serious time on the importance of multidisciplinary education. We are teaching people in silos, faculties work in silos. We all believe these silos must be broken down. It is hard to learn and experiment skills for the future. Where to start and lead?

Conclusion:

The PLM roadmap had some exciting presentations combined with CIMdata’s PLM update an excellent opportunity to learn and discuss reality. In particular for new methodologies and technologies beyond the hype. I want to thank CIMdata for the superb organization and allowing me to take part. Next week I will follow-up with a review of the PDT Europe conference part (Day 2)

 

 

Moving to a model-based enterprise: the business (information) model

October 14, 2018 in Change, Data centric, Digital Enterprise, Digital Twin, intelligence, model-based | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Ontology example: description of the business entities and their relationships

In my recent posts, I have talked a lot about the model-based enterprise and already after my first post: Model-Based – an introduction I got a lot of feedback where most of the audience was automatically associating the words Model-Based to a 3D CAD Model.
Trying to clarify this through my post: Why Model-Based – the 3D CAD Model stirred up the discussion even more leading into: Model- Based: The confusion.

A Digital Twin of the Organization

At that time, I briefly touched on business models and business processes that also need to be reshaped and build for a digital enterprise. Business modeling is necessary if you want to understand and streamline large enterprises, where nobody can overview the overall company. This approach is like systems engineering where we try to understand and simulate complex systems.

With this post, I want to close on the Model-Based series and focus on the aspects of the business model. I was caught by this catchy article: How would you like a digital twin of your organization? which provides a nice introduction to this theme.  Also, I met with Steve Dunnico, Creator and co-founder of Clearvision, a Swedish startup company focusing on modern ways of business modeling.

 

Introduction

 Jos (VirtualDutchman):  Steve can you give us an introduction to your company and the which parts of the model-based enterprise you are addressing with Clearvision?

Steve (Clearvision):  Clearvision started as a concept over two decades ago – modeling complex situations across multiple domains needed a simplistic approach to create a copy of the complete ecosystem. Along the way, technology advancements have opened up big-data to everyone, and now we have Clearvision as a modeling tool/SaaS that creates a digital business ecosystem that enables better visibility to deliver transformation.

As we all know, change is constant, so we must transition from the old silo projects and programs to a business world of continuous monitoring and transformation.
Clearvision enables this by connecting the disparate parts of an organization into a model linking people, competence, technology services, data flow, organization, and processes.
Complex inter-dependencies can be visualized, showing impact and opportunity to deliver corporate transformation goals in measured minimum viable transformation – many small changes, with measurable benefit, delivered frequently.  This is what Clearvision enables!

Jos: What is your definition of business modeling?

Steve: Business modeling historically, has long been the domain of financial experts – taking the “business model” of the company (such as production, sales, support) and looking at cost, profit, margins for opportunity and remodeling to suit. Now, with the availability of increased digital data about many dimensions of a business, it is possible to model more than the financials.

This is the business modeling that we (Clearvision) work with – connecting all the entities that define a business so that a change is connected to process, people, data, technology and other dimensions such as cost, time, quality.  So if we change a part, all of the connected parts are checked for impact and benefit.

Jos: What are the benefits of business modeling?

Steve: Connecting the disparate entities of a business opens up limitless opportunities to analyze “what is affected if I change this?”.  This can be applied to simple static “as-is” gap analyses, to the more advanced studies needed to future forecast and move into predictive planning rather than reactive.

 The benefits of using a digital model of the business ecosystem are applicable to the whole organization.  The “C-suite” team get to see heat-maps for not only technology-project deliveries but can use workforce-culture maps to assess the company’s understanding and adoption of new ways of working and achievement of strategic goals.  While at an operational level, teams can collaborate more effectively knowing which parts of the ecosystem help or hinder their deliveries and vice-versa.

Jos: Is business modeling applicable for any type or size of the company?

The complexity of business has driven us to silo our way of working, to simplify tasks to achieve our own goals, and it is larger organizations which can benefit from modeling their business ecosystems.  On that basis, it is unlikely that a standalone small business would engage in its own digital ecosystem model.  However, as a supplier to a larger organization, it can be beneficial for the larger organizations to model their smaller suppliers to ensure a holistic view of their ecosystem.

The core digital business ecosystem model delivers integrated views of dependencies, clashes, hot-spots to support transformation

Jos: How is business modeling related to digital transformation?

Digital transformation is an often heard topic in large corporations, by implication we should take advantage of the digital data we generate and collect in our businesses and connect it, so we benefit from the whole not work in silos.  Therefore, using a digital model of a business ecosystem will help identify areas of connectivity and collaboration that can deliver best benefit but through Minimum Viable Transformation, not a multi-year program with a big-bang output (which sometimes misses its goals…).

Today’s digital technology brings new capabilities to businesses and is driving competence changes in organizations and their partner companies.  So another use of business modeling is to map competence of internal/external resources to the needed capabilities of digital transformation.  Mapping competence rather than roles brings a better fit for resources to support transformation.  Understanding which competencies we have and what the gaps are pr-requisite to plan and deliver transformation.

Jos: Then perhaps close with your Clearvision mission where you fit (uniquely)?

Having worked on early digital business ecosystem models in the late 90’s, we’ve cut our teeth on slow processing time, difficult to change data relationships and poor access to data, combined with a very silo’d work mentality.  Clearvision is now positioned to help organizations realize that the value of the whole of their business is greater than the sum of their parts (silos) by enabling a holistic view of their business ecosystem that can be used to deliver measured transformation on a continual basis.

 Jos: Thanks Steve for your contribution and with this completing the series of post related to a model-based enterprise with its various facets. I am aware this post the opinion from one company describing the importance of a model-based business in general. There are no commercial relations between the two of us and I recommend you to explore this topic further in case relevant for your situation.

Conclusion

Companies and their products are becoming more and more complex, most if it happening now, a lot more happening in the near future. In order to understand and manage this complexity models are needed to virtually define and analyze the real world without the high costs of making prototypes or changes in the real world. This applies for organizations, for systems, engineering and manufacturing coordination and finally in-field operating systems.  They all can be described by – connected – models. This is the future of a model-based enterprise

Coming up next time: CIMdata PDM Roadmap Europe and PDT Europe. You can still register and meet a large group of people who care about the details of aspects of a digital enterprise

 

Document Management or Digital Thread

September 23, 2018 in Change, Configuration Management, Data centric, Digital Enterprise, EBOM, MBOM, Observations, PLM | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

In my earlier posts, I explored the incompatibility between current PLM practices and future needs for digital PLM.  Digital PLM is one of the terms I am using for future concepts. Actually, in a digital enterprise, system borders become vague, it is more about connected platforms and digital services. Current PLM practices can be considered as Coordinated where the future for PLM is aimed at Connected information. See also Coordinated or Connected.

Moving from current PLM practices toward modern ways of working is a transformation for several reasons.

  • First, the scope of current PLM implementation is most of the time focusing on engineering. Digital PLM aims to offer product information services along the product lifecycle.
  • Second, because the information in current PLM implementations is mainly stored in documents – drawings still being the leading In advanced PLM implementations BOM-structures, the EBOM and MBOM are information structures, again relying on related specification documents, either CAD- or Office files.

So let’s review the transformation challenges related to moving from current PLM to Digital PLM

Current PLM – document management

The first PLM implementations were most of the time advanced cPDM implementations, targeting sharing CAD models and drawings. Deployments started with the engineering department with the aim to centralize product design information. Integrations with mechanical CAD systems had the major priority including engineering change processes. The multidisciplinary collaboration was enabled by introducing the concept of the Engineering Bill of Materials (EBOM).  Every discipline, mechanical, electrical and sometimes (embedded) software teams, linked their information to the EBOM. The product release process was driven by the EBOM. If the EBOM is released, the product is fully specified and can be manufactured.

Although people complain implementing PLM is complex, this type of implementation is relatively simple. The only added mental effort you are demanding from the PLM user is to work in a structured way and have a more controlled (rigid) way of working compared to a directory structure approach. For many people, this controlled way of working is already considered a limitation of their freedom. However, companies are not profitable because their employees are all artists working in full freedom. They become successful if they can deliver in some efficient way products with consistent quality. In a competitive, global market there is no room anymore for inefficient ways of working as labor costs are adding to the price.

The way people work in this cPDM environment is coordinated, meaning based on business processes the various stakeholders agree to offer complete sets of information (read: documents) to contribute to the full product definition. If all contributions are consistent depends on the time and effort people spent to verify and validate their consistency. Often this is not done thoroughly and errors are only discovered during manufacturing or later in the field. Costly but accepted as it has always been the case.

Next Step PLM – coordinated document management / item-centric

When the awareness exists that data needs to flow through an organization in a consistent manner, the next step of PLM implementations comes into the picture. Here I would state we are really talking about PLM as the target is to share product data outside the engineering department.

The first logical extension for PLM is moving information from an EBOM view (engineering) toward a Manufacturing Bill of Materials (MBOM) view. The MBOM is aiming to represent the manufacturing definition of the product and becomes a placeholder to link with the ERP system and suppliers directly. Having an integrated EBOM / MBOM process with your ERP system is already a big step forward as it creates an efficient way of working to connect engineering and manufacturing.

As all the information is now related to the EBOM and MBOM, this approach is often called the item-centric approach. The Item (or Part) is the information carrier linked to its specification documents.

Managing the right version of the information in relation to a specific version of the product is called configuration management. And the better you have your configuration management processes in place, the more efficient and with high confidence you can deliver and support your products.  Configuration Management is again a typical example where we are talking about a coordinated approach to managing products and documents.

Implementing this type of PLM requires already more complex as it needs different disciplines to agree on a collective process across various (enterprise) systems. ERP integrations are technically not complicated, it is the agreement on a leading process that makes it difficult as the holistic view is often failing.

Next, next step PLM – the Digital Thread

Continuing reading might give you the impression that the next step in PLM evolution is the digital thread. And this can be the case depending on your definition of the digital thread. Oleg Shilovitsky recently published an article: Digital Thread – A new catchy phrase to replace PLM? related to his observations from  ConX18 illustrate that there are many viewpoints to this concept. And of course, some vendors promote their perfect fit based on their unique definition. In general, I would classify the idea of Digital Thread in two approaches:

The Digital Thread – coordinated

In the Digital Thread – coordinated approach we are not revolutionizing the way of working in an enterprise. In the coordinated approach, the PLM environment is connected with another overlay, combining data from various disciplines into an environment where the dependencies are traceable. This can be the Aras overlay approach (here explained by Oleg Shilovitsky), the PTC Navigate approach or others, using a new extra layer to connect the various discipline data and create traceability in a more or less non-intrusive way. Similar concepts, but less intrusive can be done through Business Intelligence applications, although they are more read-only than a system approach.

The Digital Thread – connected

In the Digital Thread – connected approach the idea is that information is stored in an extremely granular way and shared among disciplines. Instead of the coordinated way, where every discipline can have its own data sources, here the target is to be data-driven (neutral/standard formats). I described this approach in the various aspects of the model-based enterprise. The challenge of a connected enterprise is the standardized data definition to make it available for all stakeholders.

Working in a connected enterprise is extremely difficult, in particular for people educated in the old-fashioned ways of working. If you have learned to work with shared documents, like Google Docs or Office documents in sharing mode, you will understand the mental change you have to go through. Continuous sharing of the information instead of waiting until you feel your part is complete.

In the software domain, companies are used to working this way and integrating data in a continuous stream. We have to learn to apply these practices also to a complete product lifecycle, where the product consists of hardware and software.

Still, the connect way of working is the vision that digital enterprises should aim for as it dramatically reduces the overhead of information conversion, overhead, and ambiguity. How we will implement in the context of PLM / Product Innovation is a learning process, where we should not be blocked by our echo chamber as Jan Bosch states in his latest post: Don’t Get Stuck In Your Company’s Echo Chamber

Jan Bosch is coming from the software world, promoting the Software-Centric Systems conference SC2 as a conference to open up your mind. I recommend you to take part in upcoming PLM-related events: CIMdata’s PLM roadmap Europe combined with PDT Europe on 24/25th October in Stuttgart, or if you are living in the US there is the upcoming PI PLMx CHICAGO 2018 on Nov 5/6th.

Conclusion

Learning and understanding are crucial and take time. A digital transformation has many aspects to learn – keep in mind the difference between coordinated (relatively easy) and connected (extraordinarily challenging but promising). Unfortunately there is no populist way to become digital.

Note:
If you want to continue learning, please read this post – The True Impact of Industry 4.0 Revealed  -and its internal links to reference information from Martijn Dullaart – so relevant.

Coordinated or Connected ?

September 9, 2018 in Data centric, Digital Enterprise, Education, intelligence, PLM, Virtual | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

What I want to discuss this time is the challenging transformation related to product data that needs to take place.

The top image of this post illustrates the current PLM world on the left, and on the right, the potential future positioning of PLM in a digital enterprise.  How the right side will behave is still vague – it can be a collection of platforms or a vast collection of small services, all contributing to the performance of the company.  Some vendors might dream all these capabilities are defined in one system of systems, like the human body; all functions are available and connected.

Coordinated or connected?

This is THE big question for a future digital enterprise. In the current PLM approach, there are governance structures that allow people to share data along the product lifecycle in a structured way.

These governance structures can be project breakdown structures, where with a phase-gate approach, the full delivery is guided. Deliverables related to tasks and gates will make sure information is stored and available for every stakeholder. For example, a well-known process in the automotive industry, the Advanced Product Quality Process ( APQP process) is a standardized approach to make sure parts or products are introduced with the right quality for the customer.

Deliverables at any stage in the process can be reviewed or consumed by another stakeholder. The result is most of the time a collection of approved documents (Office-type, Design & Test files) stored centrally. This is what I would call a coordinated data approach.

In complex environments, besides the project governance, there will be product structures and Bill of Materials, where each object in such a structure will be the placeholder for related information. In case of a product structure it can be its specifications per component, in case of a Bill of Materials, it can be its design specification (usually in CAD models) and its manufacturing specifications, in case of an MBOM.

An example of structures used in Enovia

Although these structures contain information about the product composition themselves, the related information makes the content understandable/realizable.

Again it is a coordinated approach, and most PLM systems and implementations are focused on providing these structures.

Sometimes with their own system only – you need to follow the vendor portfolio to get the full benefit or sometimes, the system is positioned as an overlay to existing systems in the company, therefore less invasive.

Presentation from Martin Eigner – explaining the overlay concept based on Aras

Providing a single version of the truth is often associated with this approach. The question is: Is the green bin on the left the single version of the truth?

The Coordinated – Single Version of the Truth – problem

The challenge of a coordinated approach is that there is no thorough consistency in checking if the data delivered is representing the real truth. Through serious review procedures, we do our best to make sure every deliverable has the required content and quality. As information inside these deliverables is not connected to the outside world, there will be discrepancies between reality and what has been stored. Still, we feel comfortable enough as an organization to pretend we know where the risks are. Until the costly impossible happens!

The connected enterprise

The ultimate dream of a digital enterprise is that everything relevant is connected in context. This means no more documents or files but a very granular information model for linking data and keeping it in context. We can apply algorithms and automation to connected data and use Artificial Intelligence to make sense of massive amounts of data.

Connected data allows us to share combined sets of information that are relevant to a particular role. Real-time dashboarding is one of the benefits of such an infrastructure. There are still a lot of challenges with this approach. How do we know which information is valid in the context of other information? What are the rules that describe a valid product or project baseline at a particular time?

Although all data is stored as unique information objects in a network of information, we cannot apply the old mechanisms for a coordinated approach all the time. Generated reports from a connected environment can still serve as baselines or records related to a specific state, such as when the design was approved for manufacturing, we can generate approved Product Baselines structures or Bill of Materials structures.

However, this linearity in the lifecycle for passing information through an enterprise will not exist anymore. It might be there are various design alternatives, and the delivery process is already part of the design phase. Through integrated virtual simulation and testing, we reach a state where the product satisfies the market for that moment, and the delivery process is known at the same time

Almost immediately and based on first experiences in the field, new features can be added virtually, tested and validated for the next stage. We need to design new PLM infrastructures that can support this granularity and, therefore, complexity.

The connected – Single Version of the Truth – problem

The concepts I described related to the connected enterprise made me realize that this is analog to how the brain works. Our brain is a giant network of connected information, dynamically maintaining associations, having different abstraction levels and always pretending there is one truth.

If you want to understand a potential model of the brain, please read On Intelligence from Jeff Hawkins. With the possible upcoming of the Quantum Computer, we might be able to create performing brain models.

In my earlier post: Are we blocking our future,  I referred to the book; The Idiot Brain: What Your Head is Really Up To from Dean Burnett, where Dean is stating that due to the complexity of stored information, our brain continuously adapts “non-compliant” information to make sure the owner of the brain feels comfortable.

What we think that is the truth might be just the creation from the brain, combining the positive parts into a compelling story and suppressing or deleting information that does not fit.  Although it sounds absurd, I believe if we are able to create a connected digital enterprise, we will face the same symptoms.  Due to the complexity of connected information, we are looking for the best suitable version, and as all became so complex, ordinary human beings will no longer be able to distinguish this.

 

Conclusion:

As part of the preparation for the upcoming PDT Europe 2018, I was investigating the topics coordinated and connected enterprises to discover potential transformation steps. We all need to explore the future with an open mind, and the challenge is: WHERE and HOW FAST can we transform from coordinated to connected? I am curious if you have experiences or thoughts on this topic.

 

 

Are we blocking our future?

August 26, 2018 in Blocking change, Brain, Change, Digital Enterprise, Education, Innovation, intelligence, Knowledge Management, MBD, MBE, MBM, MBSE, model-based, Observations, PLM, Social Media | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

During my holiday I have read some interesting books. Some for the beauty of imagination and some to enrich my understanding of the human brain.

Why the human brain? It is the foundation and motto of my company: The Know-How to Know Now.
In 2012 I wrote a post: Our brain blocks PLM acceptance followed by a post in 2014  PLM is doomed, unless …… both based on observations and inspired by the following books (must read if you are interested in more than just PLM practices and technology):

In 2014, Digital Transformation was not so clear. We talked about disruptors, but disruption happened outside our PLM comfort zone.

Now six years later disruption or significant change in the way we develop and deliver solutions to the market has become visible in the majority of companies. To stay competitive or meaningful in a global market with changing customer demands, old ways of working no longer bring enough revenue to sustain.  The impact of software as part of the solution has significantly changed the complexity and lifecycle(s) of solutions on the market.

Most of my earlier posts in the past two years are related to these challenges.

What is blocking Model-Based Definition?

This week I had a meeting in the Netherlands with three Dutch peers all interested and involved in Model-Based Definition – either from the coaching point of view or the “victim” point of view.  We compared MBD-challenges with Joe Brouwer’s AID (Associated Information Documents) approach and found a lot of commonalities.

No matter which method you use it is about specifying unambiguously how a product should be manufactured – this is a skill and craftsmanship and not a technology. We agreed that a model-based approach where information (PMI) is stored as intelligent data elements in a Technical Data Package (TPD) will be crucial for multidisciplinary usage of a 3D Model and its associated information.

If we would store the information again as dumb text in a view, it will need human rework leading to potential parallel information out of sync, therefore creating communication and quality issues. Unfortunate as it was a short meeting, the intention is to follow-up this discussion in the Netherlands to a broader audience. I believe this is what everyone interested in learning and understanding the needs and benefits of a model-based approach (unavoidable) should do. Get connected around the table and share/discuss.

We realized that human beings indeed are often the blocking reason why new ways of working cannot be introduced. Twenty-five years ago we had the discussion moving from 2D to 3D for design. Now due to the maturity of the solutions and the education of new engineers this is no longer an issue. Now we are in the next wave using the 3D Model as the base for manufacturing definition, and again a new mindset is needed.

There are a few challenges here:

  • MBD is still in progress – standards like AP242 still needs enhancements
  • There is a lack of visibility on real reference stories to motivate others.
    (Vendor-driven stories often are too good to be true or too narrow in scope)
  • There is no education for (modern) business processes related to product development and manufacturing. Engineers with new skills are dropped in organizations with traditional processes and silo thinking.

Educate, or our brain will block the future!

The above points need to be addressed, and here the human brain comes again into the picture.  Our unconscious, reptile brain is continuously busy to spend a least amount of energy as described in Thinking, Fast and Slow. Currently, I am reading the Idiot Brain: What Your Head Is Really Up To by Dean Burnett, another book confirming that our brain is not a logical engine making wise decisions

And then there is the Dunning-Kruger effect, explaining that the people with the lowest skills often have the most outspoken opinion and not even aware of this flaw. We see this phenomenon in particular now in social media where people push their opinion as if they are facts.

So how can we learn new model-based approaches and here I mean all the model-based aspects I have discussed recently, i.e., Model-Based Systems Engineering, Model-Based Definition/ Model-Based Enterprise and the Digital Twin? We cannot learn it from a book, as we are entering a new era.

First, you might want to understand there is a need for new ways of working related to complex products. If you have time, listen to Xin Guo Zhang’s opening keynote with the title: Co-Evolution of Complex Aeronautical Systems & Complex SE. It takes 30 minutes so force yourself to think slow and comprehend the message related to the needed paradigm shift for systems engineering towards model-based systems engineering

Also, we have to believe that model-based is the future. If not, we will find for every issue on our path a reason not to work toward the ultimate goal.

You can see this in the comments of my earlier post on LinkedIn, where Sami Grönstrand writes:

I warmly welcome the initiative to “clean up” these concepts  (It is time to clean up our model-based problem and above all, await to see live examples of transformations — even partial — coupled with reasonable business value identification. 

There are two kinds of amazing places: those you have first to see before you can believe they exist.
And then those kinds that you have to believe in first before you can see them…

And here I think we need to simplify en enhance the Model-Based myth as according to Yuval Harari in his book Sapiens, the power of the human race came from creating myths to align people to have long-term, forward-looking changes accepted by our reptile brain. We are designed to believe in myths. Therefore, the need for a Model-based myth.In my post PLM as a myth? from 2017, I discussed this topic in more detail.

Conclusion

There are so many proof points that our human brain is not as reliable as we think it is.  Knowing less about these effects makes it even harder to make progress towards a digital future. This post with all its embedded links can keep your brain active for a few hours. Try it, avoid to think fast and avoid assuming you know it all. Your thoughts?

 

Learning & Discussing more?
Still time to register for CIMdata PLM Roadmap and PDT Europe

 

 

PLM Mid-terms and the flat earth

August 12, 2018 in Blocking change, Change, Data centric, Digital Twin, Education, MBD, MBE, MBM, MDM, model-based, PLM | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

 

http://gph.is/2bSeEYU

At this moment we are in the middle of the year. Usually for me a quiet time and a good time to reflect on what has happened so far and to look forward.

Three themes triggered me to write this half-year:

  • The changing roles of (PLM) consultancy
  • The disruptive effect of digital transformation on legacy PLM
  • The Model-driven approaches

A short summary per theme here with links to the original posts for those who haven’t followed the sequence.

The changing roles of (PLM) consultancy

Triggered by Oleg Shilovitsky’s post Why traditional PLM ranking is dead. PLM ranking 2.0 a discussion started related to the changing roles of PLM choice and the roles of a consultant.  Oleg and I agreed that using the word dead in a post title is a way to catch extra attention. And as many people do not read more than the introduction, this is a way to frame ideas (not invented by us, look at your newspaper and social media posts).  Please take your time and read this post till the end.

Oleg and I concluded that the traditional PLM status reports provided by consultancy firms are no longer is relevant. They focus on the big vendors, in a status-quo and most of them are 80 % the same on their core PLM capabilities. The challenge comes in how to select a PLM approach for your company.

Here Oleg and I differ in opinion. I am more looking at PLM from a business transformation point of view, how to improve your business with new ways of working. The role of a consultant is crucial here as the consultant can help to formalize the company’s vision and areas to focus on for PLM. The value of the PLM consultant is to bring experience from other companies instead of inventing new strategies per company. And yes, a consultant should get paid for this added value.

Oleg believes more in the bottom-up approach where new technology will enable users to work differently and empower themselves to improve their business (without calling it PLM). More or less concluding there is no need for a PLM consultant as the users will decide themselves about the value of the selected technology. In the context of Oleg’s position as CEO/Co-founder of OpenBOM, it is a logical statement, fighting for the same budget.

The discussion ended during the PLMx conference in Hamburg, where Oleg and I met with an audience recorded by MarketKey. You can find the recording Panel Discussion: Digital Transformation and the Future of PLM Consulting here.
Unfortunate, like many discussions, no conclusion. My conclusion remains the same – companies need PLM coaching !

The related post to this topic are:

 

The disruptive effect of digital transformation on legacy PLM

A topic that I have discussed the past two years is that current PLM is not compatible with a modern data-driven PLM. Note: data-driven PLM is still “under-development”. Where in most companies the definition of the products is stored in documents / files, I believe that in order to manage the complexity of products, hardware and software in the future, there is a need to organize data related to models not to files. See also: From Item-centric to model-centric ?

For a company it is extremely difficult to have two approaches in parallel as the first reaction is: “let’s convert the old data to the new environment”.

This statement has been proven impossible in most of the engagements I am involved in and here I introduced the bimodal approach as a way to keep the legacy going (mode 1) and scale-up for the new environment (mode 2).

A bimodal approach is sometimes acceptable when the PLM software comes from two different vendors. Sometimes this is also called the overlay approach – the old system remains in place and a new overlay is created to connect the legacy PLM system and potentially other systems like ALM or MBSE environments. For example some of the success stories for Aras complementing Siemens PLM.

Like the bimodal approach the overlay approach creates the illusion that in the near future the old legacy PLM will disappear. I partly share that illusion when you consider the near future a period of 5 – 10+ years depending on the company’s active products. Faster is not realistic.

And related to bimodal, I now prefer to use the terminology used by McKinsey: our insights/toward an integrated technology operating model in the context of PLM.

The challenge is that PLM vendors are reluctant to support a bimodal approach for their own legacy PLM as then suddenly this vendor becomes responsible for all connectivity between mode 1 and mode 2 data – every vendors wants to sell only the latest.

I will elaborate on this topic during the PDT Europe conference in Stuttgart – Oct 25th . No posts on this topic this year (yet) as I am discussing, learning and collecting examples from the field. What kept me relative busy was the next topic:

The Model-driven approaches

Most of my blogging time I spent on explaining the meaning behind a modern model-driven approach and its three main aspects: Model-Based Systems Engineering, Model-Based Definition and Digital Twins. As some of these aspects are still in the hype phase, it was interesting to see the two different opinions are popping up. On one side people claiming the world is still flat (2D), considering model-based approaches just another hype, caused by the vendors. There is apparently no need for digital continuity. If you look into the reactions from certain people, you might come to the conclusion it is impossible to have a dialogue, throwing opinions is not a discussion..

One of the reasons might be that people reacting strongly have never experienced model-based efforts in their life and just chime in or they might have a business reason not to agree to model-based approached as it does not align with their business? It is like the people benefiting from the climate change theory – will the vote against it when facts are known ? Just my thoughts.

There is also another group, to which I am connected, that is quite active in learning and formalizing model-based approaches. This in order to move forward towards a digital enterprise where information is connected and flowing related to various models (behavior models, simulation models, software models, 3D Models, operational models, etc., etc.) . This group of people is discussing standards and how to use and enhance them. They discuss and analyze with arguments and share lessons learned. One of the best upcoming events in that context is the joined CIMdata PLM Road Map EMEA and the PDT Europe 2018 – look at the agenda following the image link and you should get involved too – if you really care.

 

And if you are looking into your agenda for a wider, less geeky type of conference, consider the PI PLMx CHICAGO 2018 conference on Nov 5 and 6. The agenda provides a wider range of sessions, however I am sure you can find the people interested in discussing model-based learnings there too, in particular in this context Stream 2: Supporting the Digital Value Chain

My related posts to model-based this year were:

Conclusion

I spent a lot of time demystifying some of PLM-related themes. The challenge remains, like in the non-PLM world, that it is hard to get educated by blog posts as you might get over-informed by (vendor-related) posts all surfing somewhere on the hype curve. Do not look at the catchy title – investigate and take time to understand HOW things will this work for you or your company. There are enough people explaining WHAT they do, but HOW it fit in a current organization needs to be solved first. Therefore the above three themes.

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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