PLM KILLS INNOVATION or not ?

March 3, 2012 in Innovation, PLM | Tags: , | 9 comments

KILL_INNOThis time a little provocative title, which I hope will give some feedback from those who claim PLM brings INNOVATION. In one of my earlier posts, I talked about PLM – what is the target and also acted as an advocate for innovation.

Now after hearing PLM and INNOVATION mentioned the past two weeks everywhere as a logical combination, I started to question myself is this is just marketing ?
In this post I will act as the advocate of the devil.

Two weeks ago I attended the PLM Innovation congress, where first of all these two words were accepted by the audience as obvious linked together PLM INNOVATION. I participated in three sessions where INNOVATION was the topic. Charles Gagnon from Hydro Quebec talked about open innovation, but mentioned Hydro Quebec did not use any tool to manage INNOVATION so also not PLM. Peter Fassbender talked about the innovative approach to connect to the outside world using crowd sourcing and social media, but again no mentioning about PLM. Finally Christian Verstraete held an appeal for INNOVATION, urging everyone to think outside the box (did he mean outside the PLM box? Anyway no mentioning of PLM contribution)

Autodesk´s CEO  Carl Bass talked about The New Rules of INNOVATION at TEDx  and in the first part of his speech he is making the same statement that I would make related to PLM – see video:

Innovation–the work of the individual

Some quotes from his speech:

“Innovation is fundamentally not a corporate phenomena. Innovation involves taking risks and involves breaking the rules. And companies aren’t particularly good at that. In fact let´s say that it is just the opposite: companies are good in making rules and minimizing risk”

and quoting the author of The Innovator´s Dilemma Clayton Christensen:

“The lack of innovation is not the failure of companies but rather the result of prudent and sound management”

Autodesk

A week later Autodesk PLM 360 is launched. Again a PLM system that is bringing rules and structure, but apparently so far not affecting INNOVATION as we can see in one of the videos that came with the launch.

What the experts say.

Unfortunate the above video is only a teaser to get to the Autodesk Facebook page where, if you like them, you will be rewarded with access. A modern way of marketing: Only if you like us, we will tell you what we like.

Sanjeev Pal believes PLM is a business strategy that helps companies to reach their INNOVATION goals. Tom Grant starts with: “INNOVATION is really the word to focus on. At the heart of PLM is INNOVATION”. Later he states that probably one of the problems in PLM is the M (the Management part) that misleads the mind shifting in the wrong direction (against user acceptance and involvement’) and he prefers to call it more enablement instead of management. Somehow the conclusion is that PLM supports INNOVATION by bringing products faster to market. Does this mean PLM is the vehicle of bringing new innovations to the market ? Instead of creating a platform for INNOVATION?

STATS: Autodesk PLM + Innovation: 199.000 hits on Google

Once you have struggled like me to find the roundtable discussion and its content,  let´s look at other PLM vendors in alphabetical order:

Aras

Aras INNOVATOR– the word INNOVATOR it is already in the name but when you read more clearly what is stated at the Aras website, you see the word INNOVATOR is more targeting themselves (the software / the delivery model) instead of customer oriented INNOVATION. There the message is more about streamlining and connecting people and businesses (efficiency / collaboration).  So not much INNOVATION here related to PLM is my conclusion

STATS: Aras + Innovation: 11.200.000  hits on Google

Dassault Systèmes

When looking for Dassault Systèmes and INNOVATION I found an interesting statement on their website.

Dassault Systems launched its Passion for Innovation program in 2005. The program is based on a simple guiding principle: it is often the case that outstanding ideas do not come to fruition due to lack of appropriate resources. At Dassault Systèmes, all employees are free to install CATIA on their workstation. The idea of the program is to provide this opportunity to everyone

Is INNOVATION a result of the CAD tool ? not related to PLM ? I am sure there must a better story – but where is it ? There is a lot of talk about innovation, but related to PLM ?

STATS: Dassault Systèmes+ Innovation 1.340.000 hits on Google

Oracle Agile PLM

Oracle Agile PLM has a clear statement how they support INNOVATION:

Accelerate innovation through ideation management and collaboration, product portfolio management and analytics, data consolidation and cleansing, and a rich enterprise product record

I am not sure from this statement if we know the source wrote it. Marketing or a serious attempt to describe how Agile supports INNOVATION. I would love to learn a refined statement here that I understand.

STATS: Oracle PLM  + Innovation: 150.000 hits on Google

PTC

PTC does not give a direct association with INNOVATION. When I searched for PTC and INNOVATION the first suggestion was:  Did you mean HTC INNOVATION ?

Also when searching the PTC website, INNOVATION was hard to find. Interesting I noticed that the first main tab on the left was Discover our software capabilities. I was expecting that PTC like most PLM vendors would start from the business and not from the products.

STATS: PTC + Innovation 3.450.000 hits on Google

SAP PLM

On the SAP PLM website I found a tab called Innovation Management and here SAP PLM gave a clear explanation which practices contribute to INNOVATION Management. SAP mentions here:

  • Strategy and planning
  • Managing innovative ideas
  • Program and project management
  • Portfolio management

As I expected SAP will not hint in any direction towards CAD tools and their focus is mainly on the management side. I would love to learn the part of managing innovative ideas as this is the challenging part. Ideas and management ?

STATS: SAP PLM + Innovation 131.000 hits on Google

Siemens PLM

On the Siemens PLM website you have to search for INNOVATION and when you do a search, you are mainly directed to blog articles, The word-cloud next to the blog did not show the word INNOVATION in bold, showing it is not a common used word. Digging deeper, I found a blog post related to an Innovation Leadership Summit, which suggests again there is a relation between PLM and INNOVATION. The closest match I found here was:

The HBR survey found that enterprises rely on PLM and IT to manage all this complexity, including new sustainability and regulatory requirements. PLM solutions  track the ideation process, monitor progress, identify laggard projects, and facilitate collaboration. Leading organizations leverage PLM to improve new product development processes and outcomes

That´s all. So my conclusion here is that also Siemens PLM not naturally connects PLM and Innovation.

STATS: Siemens PLM + Innovation 901.000 hits on Google

Common rumors

InnovDilemma

Without mentioning names, I hear stories from PLM implementations (or should I call it extended PDM implementations) that have created such a massive lock-in on the current state of the company, that changing the processes or innovating is almost a mission impossible. Exact what Clayton Christensen mentions in his Innovator´s Dilemma.

So having played the devil´s advocate role, I hope I made my statement that there is no real relation between PLM and INNOVATION despite it seems these two words are mentioned together as if they are linked.

Call for action

Therefore I challenge all vendors and companies that have a proven relation between PLM and INNOVATION to come to this debate and make their statement.

Where are the mythbusters that will crack the statement:

PLM has nothing to do with INNOVATION?

Looking forward to your responses.

mythbusters

Innovation @ PLM Innovation 2012 ?

February 29, 2012 in Innovation, Observations, open source, PDM, PLM | Tags: , , , | 4 comments

PLM_inno_2012

I am just back from an exciting PLM Innovation 2012 conference. With a full program and around 250 participants, it was two intensive days of PLM interaction.

What I liked the most is that the majority of the audience was focusing on PLM business related topics. The mood of PLM has changed.

In this post, I will give an impression of the event, how I experienced it without going into the details of each session.

Several interesting sessions were in parallel so I could not attend them all, but MarketKey, the organizer of the conference confirmed that all presentations are filmed and will become available on-line for participants. So more excitement to come.

First my overall impression: Compared to last year’s conference there was more a focus on the PLM business issues and less on PLM IT or architecture issues (or was it my perception ?)

DAY 1

Gerard Litjens (CIMdata Director European Operations) opened the conference as CIMdata co-hosted the conference. In his overview he started with CIMdata’s PLM definition – PLM is a strategic business approach. (Everyone has his own definition as Oleg noticed too). Next he presented what CIMdata sees as the hottest topics. No surprises here: Extension from PLM to new industries, extending PDM towards PLM, Integration of Social Media, Cloud, Open Source, Enterprise integration and compliance.

abbNext speaker was Thomas Schmidt (Vice President, Head of Operational Excellence and IS – ABB’s Power Products Division) was challenging the audience with his key note speech: PLM: Necessary but not sufficient. With this title it seemed that the force was against him (thanks Oleg for sharing).

Thomas explained that the challenge of ABB is being a global company and at the same time acting as a ‘local’ company everywhere around the world. In this perspective he placed PLM as part of a bigger framework to support operational excellence and presented some major benefits from a platform approach. I believe the Q&A session was an excellent part to connect Thomas’s initial statements to the PLM focused audience.

Marc Halpern from Gartner gave his vision on PLM. Also Marc started with the Gartner definition of PLM, where they characterized PLM as a discipline. Gartner identified the following 5 major trends: Software everywhere in products, usage of social media for product development and innovation, using analytics tools to support the whole product lifecycle – after sales, service, connecting to the customer. Opportunities for existing products to deliver them through services (media content, transportation)

PLM_profNext I attended the Autodesk session, a PLM journey using the cloud, where I was eager to learn their approach towards PLM. Autodesk (Mike Lieberman) let Linda Maepa, COO from Electron Vault in the USA explain the benefits of the Autodesk PLM 360 solution. Electron Vault, a young, high-tech company, has implemented the solution within 2 weeks. And here I got disconnected . Also when the suggestion was raised that you do not need time to specify the requirements for the system (old-fashioned stuff),

I suddenly got into a trance and saw a TV advert from a new washing power, with numerous features (program management, new product introduction, …..) that was washing whiter than all the others and a happy woman telling it to the world. I believe if Autodesk wants to be considered as serious in the PLM world it should also work with existing customers and managing the change in these organizations. Usually it takes already more than two weeks to get them aligned and agree on the requirements. Unfortunate I did not have time during the breaks to meet Autodesk at their booth as I would love to continue the discussion about reality as my experience and focus is on mid-market companies. Waiting for a next opportunity.

After Autodesk, I presented in my session what are the main drivers for making the case for PLM. I also started with my favorite PLM definition (a collection of best practices – 2PLM) and explained that PLM starts with the management vision and targets for the future. Is it about efficiency, quality, time to market, knowledge capture or a more challenging task: creating the platform for innovation?

hydroQNext I followed the Energy tracks, where I listened to Charles Gagnon from Hydro Quebec, who gave an interesting lecture called: Implementing Open Innovation and Co-Development.

At first glance this is a sensitive topic. When you innovate it is all about creating new intellectual property, and the fear that when working with partners the IP might be out of the company, Charles explained how this process of collaborative innovation was started and monitored. At the end he reported they measured a significant gain in R&D value perceived when working with external partners. And they did not use a PLM system to manage Innovation (to be investigated how they could survive)

After the lunch I continued with Jonas Hagner from WinWinD, a young manufacturer of windmills that are targeted to operate in extreme climate conditions ( a niche market). They are both implementing PLM and ERP in parallel and they did not have to suffer from years of ERP before PLM and therefore could have a more balanced discussion around part information availability / part number and more. Still I believe they have the challenge to connect in an efficient manner the services of the windmills back to their R&D organization, to do a full PLM circle.

Karer consulting together with Siemens Energy presented the case how they have designed and starting the implement the interface between their PLM system (Teamcenter) and ERP system (SAP). What was disappointing to see was that the interface between Teamcenter and SAP was relative complex (bi-directional with engineering activities in both sides) . Almost 1½ years of development of this interface and one of the main reasons, because SAP was first and they start the engineering order in SAP.

ebom_mbom_problem

Apparently 2 years later Siemens Energy could not implement a clear distinct separation between PLM and ERP anymore and will not have to live with this complex interface. In the past I have written several times about this complexity that companies seem to accept due to political or historical reasons. Sad story for PLM – Where is the MBOM ?.

ebom_mbom_plm

The day finished with a closing keynote from Peter Bilello, explaining how a successful PLM implementation could look like. Many wise statements that everyone should follow in case you want to come to a successful implementation (and define correctly what success is)

Thanks to Autodesk we had a nice evening reception, discussion and evaluating with peers the first day.

Day 2

mioDay 2 started for me with an interesting lecture from Peter Fassbender, Head Design Center Fiat Latin America, describing how in Brazil the Fiat Mio experiment used modern social media techniques, like crowdsourcing, communities and user involvement to guide the innovation and development of a potential car. A unique experiment demonstrating that this type of projects are influence the brand reputation positively (if managed correct) and for me an example of what PLM could bring if R&D is connected to the outside world.

Christian Verstraete Chief Technologist – Cloud Strategy from HP gave an inspiring session about the open frontiers of innovation. The speed of business in the past 30 years has increased dramatically (you need to be from an older generation to be aware of this – the definition of response time has changed due to new technologies) Christian pushed everyone to think Out of the Box and to be innovative, which made me wonder how long will companies in the future build standard boring products. Will keep on innovating in this amazing pace as we did in the past 30 years ?

lf1Graeme Hackland, IT/IS director from the UK based Lotus F1 team presented the challenges a F1 team has to face every year due to changing regulations. I visited Lotus F1 last year and was impressed by the fact that over 500 engineers are all working around one carper year to optimize the car mainly for aerodynamics, but next to assure it performs during the years. Thousands of short interactions, changes to be implemented a.s.a.p. challenge the organization to collaborate in an optimum manner. And of course this is where PLM contributes. All the F1 fans could continue to dream and listen to Graeme’s stories but Jeremie Labbe from Processia brought us back to earth by explaining how Processia assisted Lotus F1 in a PLM value assessment as a next step.

Meanwhile I had some side discussions on various PLM topics and went back to the sessions, seeing how David Sherburne, Director of Global R&D Effectiveness from Carestream Health presented his case (open source PLM) and his analysis why an open source PLM model (based on Aras) is very appealing in their case. Indeed the business value perceived and significant lower operational costs for the software are appealing for his organization and for sure will influence the other PLM vendors in their pricing model.

Pierfrancesco Manenti, from IDC Manufacturing Insights gave a clear presentation indicating the future directions for PLM: managing operational complexity, not product complexity. As you could expect from IDC Manufacturing Insights all was well based on surveys in the manufacturing industry and clearly indicating that there is still a lot to do for companies to efficient share and work around a common product development and operational platform. New technologies (the four IT forces: mobility, cloud, social business and big data analytics) will help them to improve.

eso

The closing keynote came from Jason Spyromilio , who was director of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (http://www.eso.org) and he gave us the insights in designing (and building) the biggest eye on the sky. Precision challenges for such a huge telescope mirror, being built in the high mountains of Chili in an earthquake sensitive area demonstrate that all participants are required to contribute their IQ in order to realize such a challenge.

Conclusion: This PLM Innovation 2012 event doubled the 2011 event from a year ago in all dimensions. Thanks to the sponsors, the organization and high quality lectures, I expect next year we could double again – in participants, in content and innovation. It shows PLM is alive. But comming back to the title of this post: I saw some interesting innovation concepts – now how to enabale them with PLM ? 

Note: looking at the pictures in this postyou will notice PLM is everywhere. I published this post on February 29th – a unique day which happens only every 4 years. In May this year my blog will be 4 years old.

PLM: What is the target?

February 11, 2012 in CAD data management, Change, Configuration Management, Customer centric, Innovation, Observations, PLM 2.0, ROI on PLM | Tags: , , , , | 4 comments

dontmissLast week I started my final preparation for the PLM Innovation Congress 2012 on February 22nd and 23rd in Munich, where I will speak about Making the Case for PLM. Looking forward for two intensive days of knowledge sharing and discussion

The question came to my mind that when you make the case for PLM, you also must be clear about what you mean by PLM. And here I started to struggle a little. I have my perception of PLM, but I am also aware everyone has a different perception about the meaning of PLM.

cmpicI wrote about it last year, triggered by a question in the CMPIC group (configuration management) on LinkedIn. The question was Aren’t CM and PLM the same thing ? There was a firm belief from some of the members that PLM was the IT-platform to implement CM.

PLM_PDM_CAD_networkA few days ago Inge Craninckx posted a question in the PDM PLM CAD network group about the definition of PLM based on a statement from the PLMIG. In short:

“PDM is the IT platform for PLM.”Or, expressed from the opposite viewpoint: “PLM is the business context in which PDM is implemented

The response from Rick Franzosa caught my attention and I extracted the following text:

The reality is that most PLM systems are doing PDM, managing product data via BOM management, vaulting and workflow. In that regard, PDM [read BOM management, vaulting and workflow], IS the IT platform for the, in some ways, unfulfilled promise of PLM.

I fully agree with Rick’s statement and coming back to my introduction about making the case for PLM, we need to differentiate how we implement PLM. Also we have to take into our minds that no vendor, so also not a PLM vendor, will undersell their product. They are all promising J

Two different types of PLM implementation

Originally PLM has started in 1999 by extending the reach of Product Data outside the engineering department. However besides just adding extra functionality to extend the coverage of the lifecycle, PLM also created the opportunity to do things different. And here I believe you can follow two different definitions and directions for PLM.

Let’s start with the non-disruptive approach, which I call the extended PDM approach

Extended PDM

expressWhen I worked 6 years ago with SmarTeam on the Express approach, the target was to provide an OOTB (Out of the Box) generic scenario for mid-market companies. Main messages were around quick implementation and extending the CAD data management with BOM and Workflow. Several vendors at that time have promoted their quick start packages for the mid-market, all avoiding one word: change.

I was a great believer of this approach, but the first benchmark project that I governed demonstrated that if you want to do it right, you need to change the way people work, and this takes time (It took 2+ years). For the details: See A PLM success story with ROI from 2009

NoChange

Cloud based solutions have become now the packaging for this OOTB approach enriched, with the ease of deployment – no IT investment needed (and everyone avoids the word change again).

If you do not want to change too much in your company, the easiest way to make PDM available for the enterprise is to extend this environment with an enterprise PLM layer for BOM management, manufacturing definition, program management, compliancy and more.

Ten years ago, big global enterprises started to implement this approach, using local PDM systems for mainly engineering data management and a PLM system for the enterprise. See picture below:

clip_image002

This approach is now adapted by the Autodesk PLM solution and also ARAS is marketing themselves in the same direction. You have a CAD data management environment and without changing much on that area, you connect the other disciplines and lifecycle stages of the product lifecycle by implementing an additional enterprise layer.

The advantage from this approach is you get a shared and connected data repository of your product data and you are able to extend this with common best practices, BOM management (all the variants EBOM/MBOM/SBOM, …) but also connect the market opportunities and the customer (Portfolio management, Systems engineering)

myplmThe big three, Dassault Systemes, Siemens PLM and PTC, provide the above functionality as a complete set of functionalities – either as a single platform or as a portfolio of products (check the difference between marketing and reality).

Oracle and SAP also fight for the enterprise layer from the ERP side, by providing their enterprise PLM functionality as an extension of their ERP functionality. Also here in two different ways: as a single platform or as a portfolio of products. As their nature is on efficient execution, I would position these vendors as the one that drive for efficiency in a company, assuming all activities somehow can be scheduled and predicted

My statement is that extended PDM leads to more efficiency, more quality (as you standardize on your processes) and for many companies this approach is a relative easy way to get into PLM (extended PDM). If your company exists because of bringing new products quickly to the market, I would start from the PDM/PLM side with my implementation.

The other PLM – innovative PLM

idea

Most PLM vendors associate the word PLM in their marketing language with Innovation. In the previous paragraph I avoided on purpose the word Innovation. How do PLM vendors believe they contribute to Innovation?

This is something you do not hear so much about. Yes, in marketing terms it works, but in reality? Only few companies have implemented PLM in a different way, most of the time because they do not carry years of history, numbering systems, standard procedures to consider or to change. They can implement PLM in a different way, as they are open to change.

If you want to be innovative, you need to implement PLM in a more disruptive manner, as you need to change the way your organization is triggered – see the diagram below:

PLM_flow

The whole organization works around the market, the customer. Understanding the customer and the market needs at every moment in the organization is key for making a change. For me, an indicator of innovative PLM is the way concept development is connected with the after sales market and the customers. Is there a structured, powerful connection in your company between these people? If not, you do the extended PLM, not the innovative PLM.

Innovative PLM requires a change in business as I described in my series around PLM 2.0. Personally I am a big believer that this type of PLM is the lifesaver for companies, but I also realize it is the hardest to implement as you need people that have the vision and power to change the company. And as I described in my PLM 2.0 series, the longer the company exist, the harder to make a fundamental change.

Conclusion

There are two main directions possible for PLM. The first and oldest approach, which is an extension of PDM and the second approach which is a new customer centric approach, driving innovation. Your choice to make the case for one or the other, based on your business strategy.

Looking forward to an interesting discussion and see you in Munich where I will make the case

PLM_inno_2012

PLM practices for the engineering construction industry?

January 24, 2012 in Asset Lifecycle Management, Innovation, Observations, PLM | Tags: , , , , , , , | 2 comments

observation

Since the past six months I am involved in several discussions related to the (building) construction industry. If you look to this industry, it seems like this is one of the few industries without innovation in its processes.

Someone in the discussion even claimed that if a worker from the middle ages would come back to this century, he would be quickly adapt and understand the way people work. OK, there are some new tools and materials, but the way the building construction industry works has not changed.

And let’s look to productivity. Where in the past 60 years in all industries productivity has increased, I have seen a survey where productivity in this industry has not increased and even decreased a little.

clip_image001

Although the survey ends in 2003, another article caught my attention. Robert Prieto, Senior Vice President from Fluor Corporation wrote end of last year in Engineering News Record his viewpoint: Engineering-Construction Needs a New Model. Reading this article and the comments demonstrates there is a need for innovation in the building construction industry.

Failure costs up to 15 % and delayed deliveries are considered normal business in this industry, where if this would be applied to mid-market companies in the manufacturing industry, they would have gone bankrupt due to claims and lost profit.

If we look at this industry, the first excuse you hear is that every project is unique and that project execution is done by a group of loose connected suppliers, not really pushed to stay within the targeted budget. But you might ask yourself: what is the correct budget?

whyworryI noticed that in this industry when a project is estimated, suppliers are asked to deliver their bid and proposed solution based on their understanding. Usually the lowest bid wins the bid.

All participants are aware that not all requirements are clear, but no one wants to ask and invest further as to invest more in accurate cost estimation. This is not anticipated. It is about winning the bid with the lowest trouble and investment.

So who is to blame? First of all, the client who has a short term vision. By selecting the lowest bids and not pushing for in-depth analysis of the project delivery and operational costs in the long term, the situation will not change.

What if the client was using the basics of PLM – Product Lifecycle Management? For me PLM means a connection and sharing of the concept phase, the delivery phase, production phase and maintenance phase.

What I consider as strange is the fact that in the engineering and construction industry these four phases are not connected and often that the maintenance phase (operations) is not taken into account during the concept phase.

plm_constrAnd then there is the data handover. After engineering and construction specific data is handed over to the maintenance organization. What is the quality of the data, how applicable is it to the maintenance organization and how does it support maintenance is not clear. There is a disconnect and loss of knowledge as the handover is just based on the minimum data required.

What if the engineering construction industry would use PLM best practices, like:

  • Requirements Management – connecting, implementing and validating all the requirements from each stakeholder. Making sure all requirements are considered and negotiated in a structured manner – no excuse for surprises.
  • Data sharing with versions and status. Instead of a handover, data becomes mature during the lifecycle of the project. It requires the maintenance organization to be involved from the start
  • Standardized validation and approval processes related to requirements and data. These processes might be considered as an overhead but they are the ones that lead to quality, risk and cost management

Conclusion: I believe connecting the engineering and maintenance phase for engineering construction companies will lead to higher productivity and quality. For sure the initial engineering cost will be higher, but during the construction and maintenance phase these costs will be recovered and probable much more – here is the ROI

As my intention was to write shorter blog posts this year, I stop at this point and look forward to your comments for a further discussion.

YOUR THOUGHTS ??

Related articles

Why PLM 2.0 – Conclusions

December 31, 2011 in PLM | 1 comment

Time is flying and since I started this sequence on PLM 2.0, four months have passed. Typical end-of-year activities took most of my time. Project deadlines are often tied to Christmas and at the bottom of this post you can see one of my favorite Dilbert cartoons related to deadlines. The advantage for me was that during these four months, I had time to think and discuss various trends with peers.

And then the news you could not miss: Autodesk acknowledged PLM exists and came with their PLM 360 Nexus announcement. Welcome Autodesk in the world called PLM. Too early to make a statement in this post, but an understandable move. The good news: PLM exists even for Autodesk customers.

Now the question is what kind of PLM are we talking about? Is it a PDM variant, PLM 1.0 or PLM 2.0? And this is what I will address in this post – the last one for 2011

A small recap on the agenda:

First post : What is PLM 2.0? – published Aug 24th
Second post : Challenges in current PLM – published Sept 4th
This post :Change in business– published Oct 3rd
Final post : Why PLM 2.0 – conclusions – this post


How good is your memory?

A small summary of the first 3 posts related to PLM 2.0. In 2006, short after the introduction of WEB 2.0, there was the PLM 2.0 announcement of Dassault Systemes and the introduction of new concepts for PLM: online data, communities, IP protection, apps and the starting discussion about cloud based solutions. Parts of these concepts are adapted by all the PLM vendors in their own terminology meanwhile.

The picture on the left (click on it to enlarge it) was a kind of summary what PLM 2.0 could bring. In addition, I referred to Steve Denning‘s post: Why Amazon can’t Make a Kindle in the USA

to illustrate that change is not only happening in the world of PLM. Change in business management is also required. This because people are changing (generation Y), but even more visible at this time: business has become global.

Next I described the classical PLM challenges and implementations, which fit to big enterprises, but are difficult to replicate for mid-market companies. And finally, I came back to the drivers for change in PLM: a new generation of workers, change in management, globalization (and Intellectual Property (IP) protection), all affected by more customer focus and social media.

So now it is time to conclude on all these topics

PLM 2.0

Is PLM 2.0 the next thing in 2012? For sure not! PLM 2.0 concepts are visionary, but far from mature. Where large companies think they have understood PLM 1.0, the mid-market is still in the process of understanding the need for PLM. In addition, the classical PLM vendors have most of their solutions based on old core technology (and new marketing). Therefore I believe it might be the mid-market companies that provide the jump start towards new PLM 2.0 concepts. Follow my thoughts full of generalizations (and comment):

Enterprises that have been investing in PLM


There is a group of enterprises that have started to invest in cPDM or PLM in the early days, ten years ago or more. The majority of these companies are in the automotive, aerospace or discrete manufacturing industries. Their implementation was focused on enabling collaboration between dispersed teams and standardization of processes, bringing efficiency. Often these big companies are a collection of smaller companies that have been going through mergers and acquisitions.

They used the PLM tools to align people and to standardize common processes through the organization. This brought big benefits at that time, but as a side-effect aligning and standardizing people and processes, this is complex change processes for an organization, therefore raising the fear to be ever successful. Although Return-On-Investment (ROI) numbers are in general positive from this implementation, nobody is looking for a new PLM.

A huge investment has been done to structure and classify data with all its complexity. And now, new trends are coming up (PLM 2.0) and the question comes how to embrace this. The management and the thought leaders on the old PLM implementation are probably still in the company and they are reluctant to a big change, based on their previous experience and investment.

So who is going to drive the innovation towards PLM 2.0 capabilities in these companies? Sadly to say, I see in Europe a trend where these companies block this type of innovation. The ERP backbone managing the manufacturing data and the PDM system mainly managing design data is something unlikely to change. Having the data buried somewhere in a system does not mean you can work with it. So the early PLM implementations might in the long term become a disadvantage compared to more modern enterprises.

So here I assume we will not see the frontrunners for PLM 2.0 concepts

Modern enterprises

If you look at enterprises that have been investing in PLM at later stage you will see a different focus. I call them modern because usually this type of industry does not exist as long as the classical industries. Here I think about the high-tech industry and new emerging industries like CPG and apparel, which do not have the classical CAD focus. Their investments in PLM technologies were in different areas. As their products and technology becomes much faster obsolete, the focus is on innovation, being first to market and being customer centric.

The New Product Introduction (NPI) process or Program and Portfolio Management (PPM) are typical PLM practices for these industries and as time-to-market and global manufacturing are key drivers for them, the focus of these implementations was different. They are less focused on capturing all data, but more on assuring efficient capturing and transferring data from work in progress environments to the enterprise environment.

In more modern enterprises you see two levels of product related processes: the work-in-progress area where global collaboration, ad-hoc activities are crucial, often managed by a PDM environment and you have the enterprise level, where the governance and publishing of the product data for production is managed. The enterprise gets their structured and validated data from the work-in-progress environments.

So it is not necessary to have one overall PLM system. This makes the implementation more flexible and it also enables modern PLM concepts to be introduced in an earlier phase, like crowd-sourcing, consumer communities and more. Here the speed of adoption is very much depending on the management of these companies and the way they feel comfortable with these new concepts. But as it is also in their veins due to their products, there is hope they will adopt (or are already using it)

Mid-market companies

The last type of company in this overview is the mid-market company. For me a mid-market company is a company that does not have a company-wide strategic department and a huge IT-environment to support company wide-systems. Mid-market companies have the same challenges as enterprise, they also operate more and more on a global base with design and manufacturing dislocated. However they solve their issues per department one by one. Prioritized where the pain is felt the most. This often leads to a seemingly fragmented approach, but it does not push for a big change in working methodology company-wide. Less change management to do for the management. Excel as a common interface, or sometimes the magic word XML and all is connected.

Still not efficient using the concept of sharing product data through the whole product lifecycle. And here I see the opportunity for PLM 2.0 concepts to be implemented much faster. Mid-market companies exist and flourish due to their flexibility. Concepts like communities, cloud based collaboration tools are much easier to implement for them, once the company endorses them. One department starts and without a big IT-investment another department can join the cloud based solution. Sharing data (a must for PLM) becomes a logical choice as it is the next tool available. And I believe Autodesk is aiming at that direction and others (existing and new comers) might come in from here – online solutions that connect the enterprise data in a clever manner (don’t forget search based applications – see for an interesting discussion: Tech-Clarity and the related LinkedIn discussion.

My conclusions:

PLM 2.0 is a vision for the upcoming 10 years or perhaps more and probably the ones that benefit the most in the first step are the ones that came last in PLM adoption: mid-market companies. The classical enterprises will have a challenge to let go their old PLM 1.0 thoughts and adapt themselves (and the management) to think 2.0. In parallel old PLM 1.0 is based on the old management principles where PLM 2.0 requires a new type of management also (more likely to appear in new companies – mid-market or modern ???)

No predictions this year for 2012, only good intentions:

Why PLM 2.0: Change in business

October 3, 2011 in Change, Green Development, Innovation, PLM, PLM 2.0, Social Media, WEB 2.0 | Tags: , , , | 3 comments

Sorry for the delay between this post and the previous post. A break with a lot of PLM work on my side and no adverts on your side: win-win. But now I have time to continue the serial around PLM 2.0. We are in the middle.

A small recap on the agenda:clip_image002

First post : What is PLM 2.0? – published Aug 24th
Second post : Challenges in current PLM – published Sept 4th
This post : Change in business – published Oct 3rd
Final post : Why PLM 2.0 – conclusions


In the first post I described the changes in PLM messaging from vendors – PLM 2.0 or similar terms. In the second post I described the current challenges of PLM, which are well known – if you have access to in LinkedIn to the PLM related groups you will find discussions around the challenges of current PLM. And they set the spirit – good or bad.

Now in this post I will bring up some trends, which to my opinion, unmistakably must lead to a new way of PLM in order to adapt to the future.

Generation Y – a new generation of workers

clip_image004Generation Y: It is interesting to learn that everywhere companies are complaining or warning that their existing workforce is going to retire with all their knowledge without decent follow-up. In parallel they state it is difficult to find new employees with similar skills that will guarantee the future of the company. The new generation of workers, often identified as Generation Y, has different skills and different motivations.

Some interesting generalizations (note I am not a social anthropologist).

clip_image006The older generations were raised with the concept: Knowledge is Power – You as an individual needed to have in-depth skills to be the right person for a job – a job is your life and for life. As a negative result of this approach, you see that exactly this older generation sometimes ‘sits’ on their knowledge as a kind of job guarantee – they do not like sharing information – “Come to me and I will help you” is their motto till they retire.

Generation Y does not have this job for life attitude – they look more for short term success and fulfillment and therefore they do not fit so well in the way traditional companies work. They are not the type of knowledge workers previous generations had, but they are, thanks to their skills with modern digital media, capable of finding information and combining information into knowledge. They work different.

The interesting observation from my side is that Generation Y is exactly the type of people PLM requires, as it is all about sharing and combining data. What is blocking their acceptance for current PLM is that the implementation is not architected to their work motivation. Look at:

  • The way information is stored (too structured),
  • The way information is presented (too structured, boring screens).
  • The way information has to be entered in the system (too unfriendly – overkill)

clip_image008For them PLM needs to move more to an intuitive way of presenting information, capturing data as-if it is something like serious gaming. And the new PLM needs to have a way to manage structured and unstructured data combined.

For companies that complain, they are losing skilled workers in the future, they should not complain but adapt. They should look forward and solve the problems for the future, which means a different way of doing business and implementing PLM. Do not choose what the dinosaurs did.

New styles of business management

clip_image010Here I want to come back to my first post – I was intrigued by reading Steve Denning’s posts and its relation to PLM. Through the post Why Amazon can’t Make a Kindle in the USA, I found the post The Death and Reinvention of Management the best fitting with my PLM drive.
Steve describes five fundamental shifts in management that make companies ready for the 21st century.

Take time to read the post (and go more in-depth if you get as enthusiastic as me) – but come back to read the rest of this post

I summarize/quote the five shifts from Steve here (as I am sure not everyone has done the reading):

1. The company’s goal has to shift to one of delighting clients i.e. a shift from inside-out (“You take what we make”) to outside-in (“We seek to understand your problems and will surprise you by solving them”)

2. The role of the manager has to shift from being a controller to an enabler, so as to liberate the energies and talents of those doing the work and remove impediments that are getting in the way of work.

3. The mode of coordination shifts from hierarchical bureaucracy to dynamic linking, i.e. to a way of dynamically linking self-driven knowledge work to the shifting requirements of delighting clients.

4. There is a shift from value to values; i.e. a shift from a single-minded focus on economic value and maximizing efficiency to instilling the values that will create innovation and growth for the organization over the long term.

5. Communications shift from command to conversation: i.e. a shift from top-down communications comprising predominantly hierarchical directives to communications made up largely of adult-to-adult conversations that solve problems and generate new insights.

Here we see the typical PLM 2.0 targets. I will translate them into our PLM terminology.

Shift # 1 – The shift to delight clients – from which PLM vendor do we hear this statement? Which PLM vendor puts the customer in focus, instead of their “superior” technology?

Shift #2, #3 and #5 are typical PLM 2.0 capabilities which I described in my first post. See below the PLM 2.0 differentiators:

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And where do we find shift #4? How do PLM vendors address this change beyond marketing?

My conclusion on this point: Both PLM and management require a change to be ready for the 21st century – It is exactly what generation Y is looking for, it is exactly what future consumers are looking for. However currently classical PLM and classical Management are dominating the thought process – and they do not like change so much as it would put past investments and achievements at risk.

The Importance of Social Media

clip_image014Already described in the two previous trends, social media concepts fit exactly in the shift that we see towards the future. It impacts the way companies change their marketing and address their customer base. In parallel it affects the ways teams collaborate in the product development space, innovation teams are global product development teams.

My thoughts: Social media might look like a hype, but the basic concepts of social media will be required for future PLM

Globalization for SMB

clip_image016The major trend from the past decade is that SMB’s (Small and Medium Businesses) do not longer serve and fight for a regional existence. Competition and customers come from everywhere and production is more and more outsourced. The traditional company that is #1 in their region does not longer exist. Even SMBs have to consider ways to collaborate globally – again another driver for PLM 2.0

My thought: Traditional SMBs are never the leading companies in new trends, they hang on their core knowledge and have probably a longer way to go to really adapt to the future. Startup SMBs with no historical hindrance are likely to outperform them.

Innovation, Intellectual Property & War on Patents

clip_image018In a global market, innovation is the key driver to be successful combined with the point above: delight the customer. In order to delight the customer you need to innovate as delightment does not come from commodities.

And with innovation I am not only addressing the consumer market, innovation is required in all areas: green products, green production as world climate and its population forces us to change.

The successful products for the future will be those that are bringing innovation and when your company owns this Intellectual Property, your near future is going to be profitable,

Therefore the “War for Patents” will be everywhere. We currently see in the news the tablet and Smartphone patents wars, but it pops up everywhere, some more visible than others.

A “War for Patents” costs a lot of money (mainly spent to lawyers). Therefore the balance should be found between protecting your IP and to innovate faster. In this way your patents become less relevant because newer exist. To my opinion the new PLM should be the engine for innovation first and secondly the system to protect your IP

Conclusion:

clip_image020Again too many words for a blog post, but the topic is huge and I hope you see the need for a different PLM (PLM 2.0): A PLM that is targeted to the change in business all around the world. The monetary crisis which is another symptom of the old business gives us a chance to change. We need to change organizations and collaboration to remain profitable in the future – don’t be an ostrich

My thoughts –looking forward to your feedback

Why PLM 2.0? – Part 2: The Challenges in current PLM

September 4, 2011 in Change, Innovation, Observations, PDM, PLM, PLM 2.0, ROI on PLM, SMB, WEB 2.0 | Tags: , , | 3 comments

Last week I started a small series of posts related to the topic PLM 2.0. I was hoping for more comments and discussion about the term PLM 2.0, although I must say I was glad Oleg picked it up in his posts: PLM 2.0 born to die? and Will JT-open enable future of PLM 2.0?

Oleg, as a full-time blogger, of course had the time to draw the conclusions, which will take me another two weeks, hoping meanwhile the discussion evolves. Where Oleg’s focus is on technology and openness (which are important points), I will also explain that PLM 2.0 is a change in doing business, but this will be in next week’s post.

This week I will focus on the current challenges and pitfalls in PLM. And we all know that when somebody talks about challenges, there might be problems.

clip_image001

Last week : What is PLM 2.0?
This week: : Challenges in current PLM
Next : Change in business
Final post : Why PLM 2.0 – conclusions

The Challenges in current PLM

First I want to state that there are several types of definition in the world for PLM, coming from different type of organizations – I listed here two vendor independent definitions:

clip_image003

The Wiki definition:

In industry, product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its conception, through design and manufacture, to service and disposal. PLM integrates people, data, processes and business systems and provides a product information backbone for companies and their extended enterprise.


clip_image005The 2PLM definition:

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the business activity of managing a company’s products all the way across the lifecycle in the most effective way. The objective of PLM is to improve company revenues and income by maximizing the value of the product portfolio

And there are more definitions. Just recently, I noticed on the PlanetPTC blog from Aibhe Coughlan a post where she promoted a definition of PLM published in the Concurrent Engineering blog. Here I got immediate a little irritated reading the first words: “PLM is software designed to enhance process efficiencies ……… and more …”

clip_image007I do not believe PLM is software. Yes there is software used to automate or implement PLM practices, but this definition starts to neglect the culture and process sides of PLM. And as Oleg was faster – read his more extended comment here

(I am not paid by Oleg to promote his blog, but we seem to have similar interests)

Back to the classical definitions

The Wiki definition gives the impression that you need to have an infrastructure to manage (store) all product data in order to serve as an information backbone for the extended enterprise. It becomes more an IT-project, often sponsored by the IT-department, with the main goal to provide information services to the company in a standardized manner.

This type of PLM implementations tends to be the same type of implementation as an ERP system or other major IT-system. In this type of top-down implementations, the classical best practices for project management should be followed. This means:

  • A clear vision
  • Management sponsorship
  • A steering committee
  • A skilled project leader and team
  • Committed resources
  • Power user involvement
  • Communication
  • …… and more …

project_structure

These PLM projects are promoted by PLM vendors and consultants as the best way to implement PLM. And there are a lot of positive things to say about this approach. For many big companies implementing cPDM or PLM was a major step forward. Most of the ROI stories are based on this type of implementations and have been the showcases on PLM events. It is true that data quality increases, therefore efficiency and product quality. Without PLM they would not reach the same competiveness as they have now.

But sometimes these projects go into extreme when satisfying users or IT-guidelines

To avoid the implementation of a ‘new IT-system’, companies often have the strategy that if we already have an ERP-system , let’s customize or extend it, so we can store the additional data and perform workflow processes based on this system.

In a recent webinar, I heard a speaker saying that in their company they had the following automation strategy defined together with IT is:

  • First they will see if the needed PLM functionality exists in their ERP system or is part of the portfolio of their ERP provider. If the functionality is there (this means the ERP vendor has the capability to store metadata and a factsheet mentioning the right name), there is no looking outside.
  • If the functionality is not there, there will be a discussion with the ERP vendor or implementer to build it on top of their ERP system.

clip_image011I have seen implementations where the company has developed complete custom user interfaces in order to get user acceptance (the users would not accept the standard graphical interface). At that time, no one raised the flag about future maintenance and evolution of these custom environments. The mood was: we kept it simple – one single system.

I believe this closes the door for real PLM, as storing data in a system does not mean you will use it in an efficient and optimized manner. How will you anticipate on changes in business if it is just doing more with the same system?

And mid-market companies ?

The top-down approach described before is the fear of many mid-market companies, as they remember how painful their first ERP implementation was. And now with PLM it is even more unclear. PLM aims to involve the engineering department, which so far has not worked in a very procedural manner. Informal and ad-hoc communication combined with personal skills within this department was often the key for success.

clip_image013And now an unfriendly system is brought in, with low or little usability, pushing these creative people to enter data without seeing any benefits. The organization downstream benefits but this will be only noticed later in time. And for the engineering department it will take more effort to change their work methodology focused on innovation. However, in general in the mid-market, the target of a PLM project is to have a Return on Investment (ROI) in a very short timeframe ( 1-2 years). Investing in usability should be even more important for this type of companies as there is less top-down pressure to accept this new PLM system.

And flexibility ?

clip_image015In the past years we have seen that business is changing – there is a shift in global collaboration and manufacturing and from the recent history we can learn that those big enterprise projects from the past became a threat. Instead of being able to implement new concepts or new technology, the implementation became more and more vendor monolithic as other capabilities and applications do not fit anymore. This is against the concept of openness and being flexible for the future. I believe if PLM becomes as rigid as ERP, it blocks companies to innovate – the challenge for big companies is to find the balance between stability and flexibility (This was the title from Sony Ericsson’s presentation at the PLM forum in Sweden this year)

And again for mid-market companies who do not have the budget or resources to invest in similar projects. They have less a drive to optimize themselves in the same manner as big companies do as flexibility is often their trade mark (and capability to innovate) . So PLM for the mid-market will not work in the classical way.

This is one of the reasons why a mid-market PLM standard has not yet been found (yet ?). From the other hand many mid-market companies are dealing with PLM practices although often it is more close to PDM and CAD data management. And mid-market companies do not change their organization easily – there is more a departmental approach avoiding therefore a change in business.

To summarize the biggest challenges in current PLM described in this post:

  • PLM is considered complex to implement
  • PLM is a huge IT-project
  • PLM requires change and structuring – but what about flexibility
  • Where is the PLM value and ROI – user acceptance
  • PLM for the mid-market – does it exist ?

Conclusion: I have been writing about the PLM challenges in the past, see the links below if you are interested in more details on a specific topic.

In 2008,I thought that Out-of-the-Box PLM systems and standard functionalities could bring a solution for the mid-market, perhaps future solutions based on the cloud. However I learned that if you want to do real PLM in a modern manner, you need to change the way you do your business – and this I will explain in my upcoming post.

Related links:

Why PLM 2.0 ? : part 1 What is PLM 2.0 ?

August 24, 2011 in Change, Customer centric, Innovation, Observations, PLM, PLM 2.0, ROI on PLM, WEB 2.0 | Tags: , , , , , | 1 comment

kindle_usa Recently I have been reading various interesting articles, it started with Why Amazon can’t Make a Kindle in the USA from Steve Denning and from here I followed several interesting links.

Most of the articles were business driven and not with a focus on technology. However what caught my attention was the similarity of issues that were raised in these articles as-if it was about PLM.

At the end it is a plea/cry for change to be more competitive in the future. With the current economical stand still, I believe there is a need and an opportunity for this change also in PLM. I am not pointing to regime changes all around the world, but somehow they are all connected to this new wave of globalization and openness to information.

And as my domain is PLM, I took PLM 2.0 as the vehicle to describe the change currently in the PLM world. Although PLM 2.0 is a term invented by Dassault Systems, I will use it as the placeholder to describe the changes in PLM.

In four posts I will guide you in the upcoming weeks through the thought process:calendar

This week : What is PLM 2.0 ?
Next : Challenges in current PLM
Next : Change in business
Final post : Why PLM 2.0 – conclusions

I hope you will stay with me when going through these four steps and look forward to your immediate feedback.

What is PLM 2.0 ?

In 2006 Dassault Systems announced PLM 2.0 as the new generation of PLM implemented on their V6 platform. If you go to the 3DS website you see the following definition of PLM 2.0
Look for the header PLM 2.0: PLM Online for All

In the DS definition you will find several keywords that will help us further to understand the PLM 2.0 capabilities:

clip_image005

a typical Dassault Systems viewpoint, as they are coming from the world or 3D CAD and virtualization and the company’s vision is around lifelike – and life is mostly in 3D.
3D as interface towards all product related information is a paradigm shift for companies that were used to display only metadata on boring tabular screens where you navigate on numbers and text. The other major CAD-related PLM vendors of course could follow this paradigm too, as 3D visualization of information is known to them. However when coming from an ERP-based PLM system you will see 3D is something far out of reach for these vendors (at this moment).

clip_image007

This is what I believe is a crucial keyword for all PLM future implementations it builds upon the Business Information concepts that became in fashion 8 years ago. Online means direct access to the actual data. No information conversion, no need for import or export, but sharing and filtering. What you are allowed to see is actual data and an actual status. Imagine what kind of impact working on-line would have on your organization. Evaluation of trends, Key Performance Indicators directly available – still of course the interpretation to be done by experts.

clip_image009

Intellectual Property – a topic that should be on every company’s agenda. The reason a company currently exists and will exist in the future is based on how they manage their unique knowledge. This knowledge can be based on how certain processes are done, which components are chosen, which quality steps are critical and more. Working in a global collaboration environment challenges the company to keep their IP hidden for others, for sure when you talk about online data. Losing your IP means for a company to be vulnerable for the future – read in the referenced blog post from Steve Jennings about DELL.

clip_image011

This is currently the platform for change as technologies are now enabling people and companies to implement applications in a different manner. Not only on premises, but it could be online, Software As A Service, Cloud based solutions and through standardized programming interfaces, companies could implement end-to-end business process without a huge, monolithic impact. Also Web 2.0 provides the platform for communities.

clip_image013

The concept of communities opens new perspectives for collaboration. In general people in a community, have a common interest or task, and they share thoughts, deliverables back to the community across all company borders. This is the power of the community and the collective intelligence built inside such a community. Without company borders it should give the people a better perspective on their market on their business due to the global participation

The vision is there – now ….

All the above keywords are capabilities for the future and in the world of PLM you see that every PLM vendor / implementer is struggling with them. How to implement them consistently across their offering is the major challenge for the upcoming years, assuming PLM 2.0 is considered as the next step.

If you look at the PLM vendors beside Dassault Systems, you see that Siemens and PTC are closest to following the PLM 2.0 approach, without mentioning the term PLM 2.0. Other vendors even refuse to talk about PLM, but they share already similar components, for example Autodesk.

Interesting to see that the ERP-based PLM vendors do not follow this trend in their communication, they are still working on consolidating and completing their ‘classical’ PLM components

But the classical PLM vendors struggle with the change in paradigm too.

  • What to do with current, huge and structured implementations ?
  • Is PLM 2.0 having the same demands or can it be different ?

Here you see opportunities for new comers in this market as you can implement online collaboration, intellectual property creation/handling and communities in different manners with different types of implementation demands.

So far my introduction in PLM 2.0. Browsing on the web, I did not find too much other viewpoints on this specific terminology, so I am curious about your thoughts or and complementary comments on this topic.

In my next post I will zoom in into the challenges of PLM and relate them to the PLM 2.0 vision

My take on PLM (classical) and PLM 2.0

clip_image015

Referenced in this context – not directly mentioned:

PLM and IT – love/hate relation ?

August 14, 2011 in Change, Observations, PLM, SMB | Tags: , , | 3 comments

observation During this summer holiday, I was looking back on recent implementations and sales efforts related to PLM. Some had particular challenges regarding the PLM implementation and the relation to the IT department. The role of the IT-department was crucial, but always in a positive manner ? Judge yourself.

First this statement:

In many mid-market companies the choice for PLM is not that clear.

Let me explain what I mean by a typical mid-market company – it is not based on size or turn-over. For me a mid-market company is a company, not allocating the resources to have an overall strategic department and in addition the IT-department is limited to a team of people with a main focus to keep the company operational – ERP first.

The impact of this situation is twofold:

  • From one way new business initiatives will mostly come from departments, either sales, marketing, engineering, production, service or IT. Companywide business initiatives are not likely to come from a separate department as each department is working on their own issues.
  • Secondly IT often has a tendency to ‘standardize’ on certain environments. Some quotes: it_approval
    “We love/hate Microsoft”
    “SharePoint is our standard”
    “If it is not Linux it is not reliable”
    “Our ERP provider has also a PLM module, so this is going to be the standard”

And this standardization is often at the end the business killer

So where does PLM come from in a mid-market company ?

blind Example 1: The IT-department in company XYZ had the opinion there was a need to provide a company infrastructure for document management – people complained about not being able to find the right information. Related to the CAD system in use, it often became a kind of PDM implementation with extended document management. The IT-department provided the infrastructure (we need Oracle / SQL /DB2 – based on their standards) and engineering was allowed on top of that infrastructure to define their PDM environment.

As most of the people involved in this project were very familiar with computers, the implemented system was highly customized, due to specific actions the engineers wanted and what IT envisioned users would require. The overall thought was that other users would automatically get enthusiastic when seeing this implementation

users In contrary: the regular users refused to work with the new PDM system – too complex, it takes too much time to fill in information and in situations of heavy customization some users became afraid of the system. Making one mistake was hard to undo and could have a chain reaction of events further down in the organization. They preferred the traditional method of sending documents or Excels to the other departments and getting face-to-face feedback. Of course in case of missing information or a mistake this could be clarified easily too.

Conclusion from all the PLM pessimists: PLM is too complex, PLM is hard to implement.

My intermediate conclusion: Good will to improve the company’s business is important, however you need business people to define and lead the implementation.

dead_end Example2: IT in a company ABC developed a custom PLM infrastructure for their users and everyone was happy, till …… business changed. Where several years ago, the users decided that the standard PLM software was not good enough as some details were not supported and the standard system PLM system was able to do too much, IT generously decided to build a complete, nice user environment for their company.

Everybody happy for three years, till recently, due to acquisitions, outsourced contracting (engineering and manufacturing), the IT-department has to hire more people to support more and more custom connections and data exchange. Now in an overheated state they are looking for ways to use PLM standard software instead, however IT does not want to write off the previous investments that easy, the users are not aware of the problems in changing business and the future PLM decision is again driven by IT and not by business,

Internal conclusion: The IT-department was very helpful for the end users, who appreciated the simple to-the-point interface – whispering:  Therefore never a change process took place anticipating strategic changes upcoming. The result a kind of dead end.

My intermediate conclusion: If you are a mid-market company and you are not in software development, stay out of it. It is always a temporary and  people dependent (who can/will leave at some time).

Just two examples out of many, typically for mid-market companies. I think also larger enterprises sometimes demonstrate the same problematic. Good IT-people and IT-department are crucial for every company. The challenge is to keep the balance between business and IT. The risk is that due to the fact that there is a lack of business strategy resources, the IT-department becomes the business standard.

standardization

Conclusion: PLM is about business change and PLM is not an IT-tool. However a PLM implementation requires good and intensive support from IT. The challenge for every company is that the IT-department often has the most skilled people for a company-wide implementation, however the business drivers and strategy should come from outside.

Your thoughts ???

PLM and CM and the definition of PLM

July 17, 2011 in CM, Configuration Management, PLM | Tags: , , | 5 comments

cmpic Recently i noticed two different discussions. One on LinkedIn in the CMPIC®  Configuration Management Trends group, where Chris Jennings started with the following statement:

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) vs CM

An interesting debate has started up here about PLM vs CM. Not surprisingly it is revealing a variety of opinions on what each mean. So I’m wondering what sort of reaction I might get from this erudite community if I made a potentially provocative statement like …
“Actually, PLM and CM are one and the same thing” ?

24 days ago

It became a very active discussion and it was interesting to see that some of the respondents saw PLM as the tool to implement CM. Later the discussion moved more towards system engineering, with a focus on requirements management. Of course requirements management is key for CM, you could say CM starts with the capturing of requirements.

myplm

There was some discussion about what is the real definition of PLM and this triggered my post. Is the definition of PLM secured in a book – and if so – in which book as historically we have learned that when the truth comes from one book there is discussion

But initially in the early days of the PLM, requirements management was not part of the focus for PLM vendors. Yes, requirements and specifications existed in their terminology but were not fully integrated. They focused more on the ‘middle part’ of the product lifecycle – digital mockup and virtual manufacturing planning. Only a few years later PLM vendors started to address requirements management (and systems engineering) as part of their portfolio – either by acquisitions of products or by adding it natively.

For me it demonstrates that PLM and CM are not the same. CM initially had a wider scope than early PLM systems supported, although in various definitions of PLM you will see that CM is a key component of the PLM practices.

plmbookStill PLM and CM have a lot in common, I wrote about is a year ago in my post: PLM, CM and ALM; not sexy ! and both fighting to get enough management support and investments.  There is in the CMIP group another discussion open with the title: What crazy CM quotes have you heard ? You can easily use these quotes also for the current PLM opinion. Read them (if you have access and have fun)

But the same week another post caught my interest. Oleg’s post about Inforbix and Product Data Management. I am aware that also other vendors are working on concepts to provide end users with data without the effort of data management required.  Alcove9 and Exalead are products with a similar scope and my excuses to all companies not mentioned here.

cm_futureWhat you see it the trend to make PLM more simple by trying to avoid the CM practices that often are considered as “non-value add”, “bureaucracy” and more negative terms. I will be curious to learn how CM practices will be adhered by these “New Generation of PDM” vendors, as I believe you need CM to manage proactively your  products.

What is your opinion about CM and PLM  – can modern PLM change the way CM is done ?

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  1. Oleg Shilovitsky's avatar

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

  2. Bart Willemsen's avatar

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

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

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