How PLM is NOKIA (epilogue)

December 6, 2009 in Customer centric, NOKIA N97, PLM | Tags: , | 2 comments

status A short intermediate post to conclude this topic. In August 2009, I wrote a post, How PLM is NOKIA, where I expressed my astonishment that a company as big and as professional as NOKIA did not react on launching problems of the new NOKIA N97. As I knew NOKIA as a company, which has implemented the basics of PLM, I would anticipate more customer centric activities.

Apparently, and now we are four months later, it is clear that NOKIA brought a product on the market too early with several design errors. Probably to be competitive with the iPhone, it was launched too early to maintain market share.

All early purchasers of the N97 were promised that in October 2009, the major software fix would come and then the N97 would be working as promised. As an early adopter, you feel swindled as the statement is more or less telling you: “We released a beta product – you paid the premium price –  and in October the official release will be available”

So in November 2009, the software fix came (V 2.0) and after installing this new version, minor problems were solved, still the GPS was malfunctioning and also the camera lens could be scratched by the cover. Instead of making a firm and honest statement to its customers, NOKIA decided to keep things silent. On their support forum there was a discussion around the malfunctioning GPS. At the end, before it was removed by NOKIA,  it was almost 30 pages long full of posts.

It started with loyal users, who thought that they had done something wrong, guessing and helping others trying to optimize the GPS reception. No contribution from NOKIA people in that forum. Later (page 25 and later), the posts became more and more angry, as these people, who were trying to make it work, were sent from repair centre to repair centre without getting a fix. Many were trying to get a statement from NOKIA support people.  

At the end, NOKIA removed the forum to hide all these issues to new potential customers. Now, if you search again for NOKIA N97 and GPS issue, you find a few pages of new people trying to make it work.

Anyway, two weeks ago I received my ‘repaired’ N97 and still the GPS failed despite the NOKIA claimed to have replaced some components. My telephone network provider, who sold the N97 together in a bundle, now proposed to replace the NOKIA N97 with a similar phone from another brand, which I will do.

Back to PLM, what is the relation with this post ?

cust_centric PLM allows you to become more customer focused, using field experience as feedback and input for your new models. Also virtual testing – not sure if GPS reception can be virtually tested – can save huge costs due to product recalls and repairs. This is the situation NOKIA is suffering now around the N97. And as they do not publicly communicate that there are errors, it might reduce the amount of claims they get from all N97 buyers as not everyone uses all features. Soon a new model will come up and everyone forgot the stinker with the N97. People inexperienced with GPS might think the behavior they experience with the N97 is normal finding only a few pages of other people with problems instead of 30+ pages.

The back side of this approach for NOKIA is that modern, loyal customers are expecting a customer centric company and they will move to another brand, only to come back when this competitor fails. It is worth to lose loyal customers to avoid claims ?

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For me the NOKIA book is closed, now I will move to Sony Ericsson , thanks to my mobile phone provider. And as I learned on the recent ECF (European Customer Forum) last month in Paris, Sony Ericsson is using PLM for their global design and production process, striving to a single version of the truth. So also Sony Ericsson is connecting people and I hope they have a better connection with their customers as people are allowed to make mistakes but hiding them is the biggest mistake.

Just closing with a funny movie. This NOKIA marketing movie shows a guy with a N97 easily finds his friend through GPS. For sure it works in the dessert where you can see each other for miles – but in a dense city, you have to realize your friend can be 200 meters on either side from you, although you think you are in the same location.

Some users do not like the single version of the truth

December 2, 2009 in Change, Observations, On Demand, open source, PLM, ROI on PLM | Tags: , , , , , , | 5 comments

observation The title of this post came in my mind when looking back on some of the activities I was involved in, in the past two weeks. I was discussing with several customers their progress or status of the current PLM integration. One of the trends was, that despite the IT department did their best to provide a good infrastructure for project or product related information, the users always found a problem ,why they could not use the system.

alm_1 I believe the biggest challenge for every organization implementing PDM and later PLM is, to get all users aligned to store their information in a central location and to share it with others. Only in this manner a company can achieve the goal of having a single version of the truth.

With single version of the truth I mean – if I look in the PLM system I find there all the needed data to explain me the exact status of a product or a project.
If it is not in the PLM system, it does not exist !

How many companies can make that statement ?

If your company does not have the single version of the truth implemented yet , you might be throwing away money and even bring your company at risk in the long term. Why ? Let’s look at some undisclosed examples I learned in the past few weeks:No_roi

  • A company ordering 16 pumps which on arrival where not the correct ones –
    1 M Euro lost
  • During installation at a drilling site the equipment did not fit and had many clashes – 20 M Dollar lost, due to rework and penalties
  • 7000 K Euro lost due to a wrong calculation based on the wrong information
  • A major bid lost due to high price estimation due to lack of communication between the estimator and the engineering department
  • 500 K Euro penalty for delivering the wrong information (and too late)

All the above examples – and I am sure it is just a tip of what is happening around the world – were related to the power & process industry, where of course high-capital projects run and the losses might look small related to the size of the projects.

But what was the source of all this: Users

locked Although the companies were using a PLM system, in one company a user decided that some of the data should not be in the system, but should be in his drawer, to assure proper usage (according to his statement, as otherwise when the data is public available, people might misuse the data) – or was it false job security as at the end you loose your job by this behavior.
People should bring value in collaboration not in sitting on the knowledge.

save Another frequently heard complaint is that users decide the PLM system is too complex for them and it takes too much time for them to enter data. And as engineers have not been bothered by any kind of strict data management, as ERP users are used to work with, their complaints are echoed to the PLM implementer. The PLM implementer can spend a lot of time to customize or adapt the system to the user’s needs.
But will it be enough ? It is always subjective and from my experience, the more you customize the higher the future risks. What about upgrades or changes in the process ?
And can we say NO to the next wish of this almighty user ?

Is the PLM system to blame ?

PxMThe PLM system is often seen as the enemy of the data creator, as it forces a user in a certain pattern.  Excel is much easier to use, some home-made macros and the user feels everything is under control (as long as he is around).

Open Source PLM somehow seems to address this challenge, as it does not create the feeling, that PLM Vendors only make their money from complex, unneeded functionality. Everything is under own control for the customer, they decide if the system is good enough.

PLM On Demand has even a harder job to convince the unwilling user, therefore they also position themselves as easy to use, friend of the user and enemy of the software developer. But at the end it is all about users committing to share and therefore adapt themselves to changes.

So without making a qualification of the different types of PLM systems, for me it is clear that:

point The first step all users in a company should realize is that, by working together towards a single version of the truth for all product or project related data, it brings huge benefits.  Remember the money lost due to errors because another version of data existed somewhere. This is where the most ROI for PLM is reported

pointNext step is to realize, it is a change process and by being open minded towards change, either motivated or pushed by the management, the change will make everyone’s work more balanced – not in the first three months but in the longer term.

Conclusion: Creating the single version of the truth for project or product data is required in any modern organization, to remain competitive and profitable. Reaching this goal might not be as easy for every person or company but the awards are high when reaching this very basic goal.

At the end it is about human contribution – not what the computer says:

PLMplus – a new PLM On Demand ?

November 14, 2009 in Observations, On Demand, open source, PLM | Tags: , | 5 comments

As a consultant working with mid-market companies,  I enjoyed reading this post from Al Dean and its related comments and posts. Although I must say Al’s statement:

observationPLM+ are looking to solve this by creating a rich application that engages the user, provides ease of implementation and ongoing maintenance (by allowing the user/admin, rather than costly consultant) and can be delivered over the web, in an on-demand manner (which saves hardware and infrastructure cost)

was a trigger to react, as I am a consultant.

The base of every PDM/PLM

First I believe the base of PLM and PDM is to agree inside your company that you share and centralize product data. This means not only files, but also Bill of Materials, Issues, etc, etc, ..

To share and centralize product data seems like an easy mission and this is what all PLM software as a base provides, and I assume PLM+ does the same, only they store the data in the cloud, like Arena.

coop Sharing data is not a natural process in all companies as there is always the culture to share the minimum and to keep the rest to prove your own value – the bigger the company the more this will happen. This is human nature and this differs case by case. To make people share data  is an area where either the management has to push, or in very small companies,  a power user. In larger companies, often an external consultant is doing this job, in the role of an ‘outsider’ who can moderate and explain the benefits for all, instead of the threats.

This is what consultants really do;  they do not install or administer systems.

PLM solutions can vary in the way they make  sharing of data available. Some solutions are very rigid in what they offer as data model, but most of the necessary entities and attributes are there. They are based on best practices and target the 80 %. Often this is good enough, if the customer has no alternative and has the power by themselves to enforce the system as their platform for sharing data.

80-20 More flexible PLM solutions have an advantage and in the same time this is their disadvantage. They can be extended beyond the 80 % scenario and both the implementer and the customer will be challenged to reach the 100 % satisfaction. However we all know from the 80-20 rule, this is where it gets complicated.

80 % of the project is done in 20 % of the time, or in other words: you spent 80 % of your time (and budget) on reaching the last 20 %

Once having reached a common platform for sharing all product related information, for me the real PLM is starting. This is where a company would implement processes, that streamline the product development or delivery process – it requires a cross departmental change.

And at this stage, it is often where  a consultant comes in. It is very rare, that in mid-market companies, management reserves time and resources to come with a strategic plan to implement PLM – I wrote about this in an older post. PLM requires a change in the way the company currently works.

So I am curious to learn how PLM+ and other On-Demand PLM software companies will try to address this step, as change is needed and someone has to push for it.

In my last three consecutive posts, I wrote about who decides on PLM in mid-market companies (a generalization from 15 years experience). There I claim that the selection for a PLM system is subjective, very much based on personal relations with the mid-market company. Again how PLM+ will address this in their business model, as there is a need for someone to push.

Open Source PLM software has somehow similar challenges. You need the drive from inside the customer to agree on sharing product data and next to extend. This is where the traditional PDM and PLM vendors  push their business in direct contacts. Of course Open Source PLM providers have their focus on after the initial installation of the platform to extend it with a consultative and service model.

 

Conclusion: As every PLM provider at the end needs revenue for  a living,  I am looking forward to see where On-Demand PLM will go and finds it place. What will be business model that makes people buy and create the change

The academic conclusion on ‘Who decides for PLM in a mid-market company’

November 10, 2009 in Change, Observations, open source, PDM, PLM, SMB | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

observation I realized that time is flying when you are busy, and I promised to publish the conclusion from my previous post: More on who decides for plm in a mid market company. In my two previous posts, I described the difficulties companies have to select the right PLM system. So far I discussed the two extremes, the silent approach where a possible bottom up approach was discussed and as the opposite where an ‘academical’ approach was followed.

Now it is time to get the answers on the academical approach.

These were the questions to be answered in the previous post:

  • How much time has passed since the management decided PLM was good for their organization?
  • How independent is the consultancy firm?
  • Did they consider open source PLM as a solution?
  • What was the ranking of the PLM vendors?

How much time has passed since the management decided PLM was good for their organization?

planning The whole process of selecting a PLM system often takes more than one or two years, starting from the first activities till the final conclusion to start. I believe this is unavoidable, as especially in mid-market companies the business values that PLM can bring are not always discussed and realized on the strategic level.

However, I believe the recent years PLM has been recognized by analysts, by software vendors and many young companies as a necessity for innovation and in the long term remaining competitive.  And this is not only in the classical domains where PLM started – automotive / aero / industrial equipment.  PLM value is everywhere in different industries, even apparel for example.

For companies that are now in the decision process, I believe 2009 and early 2010 are the years to decide, because a recovery of the economy might put back the focus on execution and not on strategy and they might miss the management focus for PLM. And as I wrote in a previous post, companies who made the best pit stop will benefit upmost.

For companies still in doubt:  It is now or never

How independent is the consultancy firm?

It is clear that real independent consultancy firms do not exist – even if a consultant wants to be independent, there are three challenges to meet:

  • How can a consultant evaluate or judge PLM systems they have not seen?
  • How much experience does the consultant have in your business?
  • How much work is there required in the project for the consultant?

sel_a As you can imagine, reviewing the above challenges, you will realize that consultants usually specialize in systems, where their expertise it required – as they also want to make a living.  Consultants cannot afford to be an academic institute, as coming back to the previous point, all consultancy work at the end will be paid by the customer.

So to conclude on this point, if you want to be cost-effective, a company should do already a pre-selection based on systems and possible implementation partners, that fit naturally to their type of business and then evaluate how consultancy can be achieved.

What you will find out is that the major ‘expensive’ packages have loads of consultants to offer en the more and more you go into a mid-market environment, consultants become rare. For software from PLM vendors you will usually find a reseller network with people close to your offices that can support you. For Open Source software you will need to find the consultancy services through their software delivery program.

Anyway remember: 50 % of the success of a PLM implementation is based on the right implementation approach and partner not on the PLM functions and features.

Did they consider open source PLM as a solution?

search No, because the consultant was not familiar with it, and discouraged the company to look at it. In general Open Source PLM, like PLM On-Demand are interesting trends to follow and should not be neglected.  However the focus and approach for this type of solutions is different. I will not generalize at this moment as also I have no clear picture where Open Source PLM or PLM on Demand would be a big differentiator. I will try to evaluate and report it in future posts.

Comments from Open Source PLM Vendors or On Demand PLM Vendors are welcome to complete the PLM selection approach.

What was the ranking of the PLM vendors?

Ranking was done by the management, the selection team and the design department. These were the results plus their major comment:

Management

1. The slide show PLM provider – they liked the business pitch

2. The CAD supplier with PLM features and gadgets – good guys – we know them

3. The PLM provider who showed everything – too much handling of data – too complex

Selection Team

1. The PLM Provider who showed everything – they really did it

2. The CAD supplier with PLM features and gadgets– we understand where they are going

3. The slide show PLM provider – do they really have a solution?

The Designers

1. The CAD supplier with PLM features and gadgets– he knows what we want

2. The slide show PLM provider– could be a good solution too

3. The PLM Provider who showed everything – too complex, it will limit our productivity

slideplmAs the management had the final vote, they decided for the slide show PLM Provider, as they felt most comfortable with them.

The reason to drop the CAD supplier was that they were too afraid this provider does not know all about PLM. Both management and users felt the PLM provider that showed everything was too complex, this opposite to the project team where the members were very familiar with PLM capabilities after two years investigation and many demos and trade shows.

Conclusion: Selecting PLM, even in an academical manner is a subjective process. As in general the customer does not exactly knows what he needs and often the PLM provider shows too much in detail, the real journey starts at implementation time. And in this stage you need an experienced implementation partner who can match and communicate the expectations

More on: Who decides for PLM in a mid-market company ?

October 5, 2009 in Change, ERP, Observations, PDM, PLM | Tags: , , , | 1 comment

observation Two weeks ago I was writing about the Silent PLM approach. What I showed in that post that often the PLM vision as a complete vision does not exist in all layers of the organization.
Often the management in is not aware of where and how PLM can have an impact. In the Silent Management approach, one or more visionary people believe they can introduce PLM by starting it in their department, and from there grow and extend the impact of PLM. As I concluded,  this approach usually fails in most of the cases as when the decisive step comes to extend PLM to other departments and to change current processes, this is the point where is mostly gets stuck.

Other departments and the management do not see how this engineering / CAD extension could benefit for them and the whole organization. Why not extending our ERP system as this already exists ? And here a stand still will come up until a push comes. The push can come from the top or from the outside world. From my experience more then half of the companies that started this silent PLM approach got stuck where they are ……..

So this time another approach, called the academical approach. And again a disclaimer, I am generalizing and putting some points a little more in the extreme to demonstrate the difference between the approaches. Any similarity with the real world is pure coincidence

Approach 2:  Academical PLM

Inside our mid-market company ACCPY,  the management has understood that PLM will bring a lot of benefits and in case they were not aware of it, they have learned from analyst reports, from blogs and from their network that PLM should bring a lot benefit for them.

myplm So the management decides to prepare and educate themselves and they start a PLM taskforce inside ACCPY to collect and digest all the information. The team has enthusiastic members from all departments and starts buying some books and reports on PLM. In addition they visit some PLM events all around the country and sometimes around the continent. These visits lead to contact with PLM Vendors who also start to educate why their PLM is the one fitting ACCPY the best. After one or two years of education they are theoretical skilled and know to differentiate between EDM, PDM, cPDM and even they learn to understand the difference between PDM and ERP.

As a conclusion of their learning stage the PLM taskforce presents to the management a firm report, explaining what is PLM and how ACCPY can benefit from it plus recommendations how to proceed.

PLMmindsharers The management is happy with the result, that what they thought two year ago was really valid and agrees with the report and recommendations. Now the selection of the PLM system needs to be done and who will be the implementation partner. Although all PLM vendors have been knocking on their door already to explain the benefits and implementation approach from their solution, ACCPY decides to hire an ‘independent’ PLM consultancy firm to assist with the selection of the solution.

The consultancy firm starts with interviewing the key members of ACCPY, in order to understand the major processes and the needs per department. A month later they present to the management a PLM Vendor Selection Procedure, where in 15 pages the PLM Vendor has to explain and confirm requirement per requirement, the implementation approach and give a budget estimate.

searchThis RFQ will be sent to 5 PLM vendors which were already in touch with ACCPY since the PLM research started. Also the consultancy firm brought in a company which they new very well.  It takes a few weeks for the consultancy firm to compile the RFQ and two months later the responses are there.

From the received proposals three PLM vendors are invited to benchmark their system and company based on a business case developed by the consultancy firm together ACCPY.

PLM Vendor 1

The first PLM vendor gives a standard demo of the system and explains that the business case is well known to them and therefore instead of showing it, they give a whole set of screenshots and references. The attendees had a good feeling with this vendor

PLM Vendor 2

The second PLM vendor tries to follow exactly the business case as defined. The attendees liked the fact that  all was demonstrated so well, however the PLM system seems to be rather too complex and giving a lot of overhead to the engineers,  according to their impression.

PLM Vendor 3

The third PLM vendor was already known to the company as they were also providing the 3D CAD system.  In their presentation they explained how well they knew ACCPY already and that the business case was too artificial. They demonstrated some gadgets of their PLM system which none of the competing vendors could do, thanks to their tight integration with the CAD system. The attendees were impressed, however a few days later, they were asking themselves, why were those gadgets needed ? None of the other vendors talked about it and it was also not part of the RFQ.

sel_a So now it was time for the consultancy firm together with the task force to  process all the information and to determine the final score. On product features they had a nice comparison – only hard to tell what was most important. On usage it was more difficult, as they got three different approaches during the benchmark, so the scores for this section was rather artificial. Also the financial part seemed to be hard to compare but at least it gave an indication.

As it is an academical approach, my post for this week ends here. We need to give the ACCPY task force together with the consultancy firm some time to build a justification for their choice and next week we will discover how this story ended. Meanwhile ask yourself:

  • how much time has passed since the management decided PLM was good for their organization ?
  • how independent is the consultancy firm ?
  • did they consider open source PLM as a solution ?
  • what was the ranking of the PLM vendors ?
  • read the book Blink the power of thinking without thinking about intuition

Conclusion (so far): Academical PLM takes time and it would be unfair to explain it all in one post.
So next week the real conclusion.

Who decides for PLM in a mid-market company ?

September 21, 2009 in Change, ERP, Observations, PDM, PLM, SMB | Tags: , , , | 2 comments

observation This week I realized that, although I believe the benefits of PLM are more and more accepted in mid-market companies, the decision how to start and where to start with PLM is often not clear. I recognize several approaches which I will describe in this and some upcoming posts.

All persons in this post are fiction and in case you recognize these persons in your company, it is pure coincidence. Instead of talking about approaches,I was tempted to call it strategies, but when you read my observation you will realize the word strategy would not fit.

Approach 1:  The silent PLM

PxM Inside our company, often there is an engineer or an engineering manager, who got caught by the PxM virus. The PxM virus is a modern virus, which makes you a believer that PDM or PLM will bring your company a lot of benefits. Documents and proof points of the severe impact exist all around the world. However nobody has gotten infected so far in this company. Everyone is working the way they worked since many years and life is secure and predictable.

Now this infected engineer is getting exited and dreams about the introduction of PLM in his company and how he will become the hero of the company and gets a big promotion. Unfortunate for him in this kind of business there are no big bonuses to collect, so the honor of promotion is already a big achievement.

So the first thing this engineer does is chatting with his peers and friends to find out where PxM has been implemented successful  and he studies some success stories which he learned from his network.

Now the challenge starts.

He goes to the management and shows a nice PowerPoint, explaining why the company needs PxM and what are the expected benefits, based on reference stories. The management has no real clue what he is talking about, but it looks promising and they allow him to select a PxM system for his department and to start a pilot.

sel_a The engineer already knows which PxM system to choose. The one, recommended by the friendly reseller, who sold them their 3D CAD system (which is a success) and worked hard with him to finalize the slides. As requested by the management he had to invite two other PxM vendors to make an objective selection and at the end an impressive comparison matrix is shown to the management why system A has been chosen.

Now the implementation starts and step 1 is very successful. The document management part around the CAD system goes smoothly and everyone in the engineering department starts to be happy.

Following this successful implementation there are two options:

  • the engineer does not get promoted and the implementation ends. It will remain a silent document management implementation and the dream is put aside.
  • the engineer gets promoted and continues to push his vision as now he has a broader audience to spread the PxM virus. We will follow this story line…….

The engineer gets promoted and continues to push his vision

This is the best that can happen and the engineer, who now became the head of engineering, starts to express his vision to his fellow managers, explaining the advantages of PLM. Notice, he is now talking about PLM as the scope has been extended beyond product data management, involving other disciplines in the organization.

vision

And here the head of engineering discovers that his fellow managers are also infected by a virus. Not the PxM virus, but one of them has already for many years the ERP virus. And as the ERP virus addresses the operational and financial tasks in the organization, the management trusts him.  The sales and marketing department seems to be infected by CRM, but currently they caught a social disease, which made them push for all kind of communities. The management either likes it (as their kids are also on Facebook) or dislikes it, because they believe work is a serious business and being on internet all day is considered gaming.

myplmSo the head of engineering realizes that he has some freedom within his department, but the other departments and the management have their own priorities. And PLM is not on their list. Together with the friendly CAD reseller, who meanwhile was promoted to be Senior PLM Consultant, they work on a perfect PLM environment within the engineering department and they believe their success will show off in the upcoming years.

And then the crisis came and the company had to cut budgets. To be continued in (hopefully) 1 or 2 years

Conclusion: The silent PLM approach has a huge chance to fail as there is no corporate vision and management push to get PLM implemented. PLM should be addressed top-down. As in many mid-market companies there was also no strategically partner, who could assist the management to build a vision and to set priorities.

Next week:

approach 2: Academical  PLM

What have PLM and capitalism in common ?

August 31, 2009 in Change, Innovation, Observations, PLM, ROI on PLM, SMB | Tags: , , , , | 3 comments

observation This week I was reading a management article completely unrelated to PLM, but very applicable for PLM. The article stated that one of the basics of capitalism is innovation through crisis. Never let a crisis pass by without using it for your benefits was the message.

As we are currently in the middle of the economical downturn (according to the optimists or pessimists – we still have to figure out who is right), this is the moment for the management to decide. Do we try to sit still till it does not hurt anymore , or are we making strategic changes that will for sure demolish some holy houses but from the other hand will create a more lean and stronger organization after the change ?

Examples of IBM and GM were given from the nineties.  IBM made the change from a hardware company towards a software company, where GM kept on doing the same with even bigger SUVs’.  We know the results…….

Does it prove anything ?

For sure there are many companies that haven’t survived the nineties as they were not successful in their transformation, although they really tried. So where is the relation to PLM ?

frog I believe that the problem of implementing PLM, and specially in mid-market companies is the fact that there is no ambition for change when things are going relatively well. In one of my old posts I referred to the story of the boiling frog.

This happens when an organization is slipping down slowly and it is hard for the management to change and define and sell internally another strategy. Jobs and people are kept in place as long as affordable and only natural evolvement (an aging workforce) or mergers are drivers for a change.

Now with this crisis it is different. Everyone realizes (or should realize) that going on the same manner with the same people is not good for survival (unless you are in one of the few industries that benefit from the crisis – apparently the fast food industry I read)

In times of a crisis, first of all the management is challenged to come with a survival plan and in most cases this time they can get support from their employees as there is always the threat of lay offs if people are not creative or flexible for change. Secondly, employees will be also more flexible to save their jobs and the company (usually in this order)

Therefore this is the ideal moment to implement PLM in phased approach. For a successful PLM implementation you need employees, who are open minded to change the way they work,  plus you need internal resources that have time to work with the implementer to fine tune the PLM system.

This moment exists now and by implementing PLM in a phased approach, each phase will bring ROI, perhaps even before the end of the crisis as you can start with the low hanging fruits and start to collect the benefits.

In parallel there is the discussion around free open source software or dumping software for free by some PLM providers in order to stay in the market. I think here as a customer you should always realize that every company, also software providers, need to survive the crisis and will look for income in another way – services / maintenance / additional software.

So my conclusion this time:

I never realized that both capitalism and PLM were striving for innovation. They have a crisis in common – For capitalism it is a must to push innovation for PLM it is an enabler for innovation

Some unstructured PLM thoughts

August 15, 2009 in Change, Observations, PLM, WEB 2.0 | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

observation I am not sure if it depending on the holiday season but apparently from my side at this moment things have gone quiet. Customers are either on holiday or delaying their PLM processes due to holidays or economical downturn. For that reason some unstructured thoughts

How PLM is Nokia ?

nav Two weeks ago I wrote a post about the problems found with the introduction of the new N97 phone from Nokia – see How PLM is NOKIA. As a victim of their NPI process I am still trying to understand their business reasons to be quiet in their responses. From the NOKIA forum, at this moment already 14 pages of discussion, there is no response from NOKIA, see GPS is cutting out on my N97. It is clear that NOKIA is following the discussion as the moderator has removed some posts, but no positive response from NOKIA’s side. Personally I believe a missed opportunity.

Interesting to see that NOKIA avoids to communicate around this problem. I can imagine keeping the problem silent at least does not alert people not using the GPS, from the other side, in times of crisis customer loyalty is probably something that assists a company in hard times.

PLM lesson learned: the costs of fixing problems once your product is in the field is dramatically higher as compared to the cost made during engineering. Did they do virtual testing ? Did they have a prototype phase ? Or was the product dumped into the market to compete with the iPhone ?

An interesting case to follow – anyone from NOKIA to comment ?

PLM Market Forecast Revised Downward.
V or a W-shape?

Another surprise was the report coming out from CIMdata where they mention that the initial growth expectation for PLM needs to be adjusted – see PLM Market Forecast Revised Downward.

In March, the research house had predicted 3.8% year-over-year growth in 2009 and 6.3% compound annual growth over the next five years — which would have pushed the market to $36 billion in revenue in 2013. Stating in a mid-year report released this week that “the global economic situation has been even more severe than anticipated,” the PLM consulting and research firm said it circled back to include data from the first half of 2009 in its figuring.

CIMdata revised its forecast for the PLM software market in 2009 and beyond, saying it now expects a decline of 2.1% in 2009 from 2008 revenue levels and a 3.5% compound annual growth rate from 2009 to 2013, to just under $31 billion in 2013. The company estimated the 2009 market at $25 billion.

The article contains some more interesting details, as it is also mentions virtual manufacturing, which I believe is one of the key benefits of PLM. I see it as one of the competitive advantages many companies should pursue to cut costs even though it requires an investment and change of work ( real PLM implementation)

wshapeThis brought me to the good (or relative good) news. According to the first optimistic signs we have had our worst point of the recession and things can only go better – this are the V-shape believers. After the downturn we will continue as before.

The more pessimistic analysts say we are in a W-shaped recession. Although things are getting better, we will fall back again and recover later, perhaps in 2010.

Both might be right, but what I see is that either end of 2009 or end of 2010 the estimates are that PLM is back in focus. Will this be business as usual or did companies take the opportunity to modernize themselves towards PLM ? The CIMdata reports suggest the opposite, in my post Economical Crisis and PLM – YES WE CAN I tried to explain that investing now in PLM brings an advantage for the future. Companies that now do not look or investigate in PLM might come in a more difficult situation when the economical growth starts again. As the focus will be than on the old business, the chance for management attention and focus on PLM might become too low. Companies that currently invest in PLM take obviously more risk at this time, but will already reap the benefits faster

PLM, PLM 2.0 or a new PLM ?

coop Another interesting and ongoing discussion is the discussion where PLM is heading. Where in mid-market companies the discussion often is around the need for PLM beyond CAD data management and ERP, others are already visionary talking about the new PLM, which is based on people, social networking and communities.  Look at Vuuch and discussions on PLMTwine and Tech-Clarity. Main question here how will people change, will it be the new workforce that naturally replaces the old workforce and while replacing introduces new ways of PLM or will it be a concept driven from the big enterprises as a new wave of PLM  ? I believe this will become more clear when the economy picks up again and companies might have the bandwidth again for some experiments in this area.

Meanwhile I stay on my island

How PLM is NOKIA ?

August 3, 2009 in Customer centric, Observations, PLM | Tags: , , , | 4 comments

observation For many years NOKIA has been my favorite phone brand. I grew up with with their phones – every two years a new subscription and enjoying the new stuff. Although to be fare, 10 years ago a phone was just there to make phone calls and send SMS messages.

My previous and last successful phone was the N95, which had the nice feature that beside the fact it was a telephone, you could do a lot more with this apparatus, making pictures, listening to stereo music from decent built-in speakers and my favorite, an accurate GPS using for it navigation and sports.

For my job this was the perfect phone. The GPS brought me all around the globe, to places I did not know they exist, but the GPS brought me there. Every time I rented a navigation license for a week when i was in South Africa, the US, Greece or Asia and it worked – and the man or lady spoke my language.

shout_leftAs as I have seen NOKIA presentations on several PLM events like the ECF in Paris, i was sure that beside the nice features of various phones type, there are managing their portfolio well and everyone in the audience was always impressed by the short go-to-market time for a mobile phone and how competitive this market is and how NOKIA addressed these challenges. Other phone manufactures do no feel jealous (yet), as so far, I never had the drive to switch to another mobile phone manufacturer.

Yes, I was tempted when I saw the iPhone coming up and for sure, I would have switched to it, if Nokia had not announced the N97. For me the logical next phone as:

  • I am loyal to the brand
  • the N97 is the logical extension of the N95
  • it counters all the remarks from my friends that have an iphone

Of course the announcement was in time and the availability was a little later as expected. But this is what you accept as a loyal customer. The grass might be greener elsewhere, but as long as you feel you have a “communication partner” you will feel comfortable and not jump over (the worst nightmare for any competitor – happy customers)

But then it happened:

nav Two weeks ago, I got my new 97 and immediately after going through the new gadgets and look-and-feel, I decided this phone was worth waiting. Specially the combination of touch screen and keyboard pleased me a lot. Then I decided to drive from the Netherlands to Paris and used my GPS.

This was the biggest disaster so far.

Even in situations that there was only the highway, the GPS was trying to snap to roads 200 meters to the left or right and my fear became right, once in a dense area as Paris you have no clue where you were driving.

But I am a loyal customer so I go to the NOKIA support forum and to my satisfaction, I found already 4 pages of remarks from other people experiencing the same – not being alone helps. Here the NOKIA community was working well, suggestions and remarks from others lead to at least a better understanding of the issue but not to a solution.

Here I was surprised to see the absence of Nokia technical experts, who could assist the audience in the right direction.  And some of the local NOKIA helpdesk responses were even worse – see quote from the forum below:

And what are Nokias’ thoughts on all this???  It would appear nothing, unless they do not read this feedback. Having said that, on one occasion I contacted Nokia “support” they blamed it on the satellites, and the fact they are owned by the USA government, and Nokia have no control on them!!!!  Honest, that is EXACTLY what I was told. Dohhhh  (A “knee jerk” response from a body which SHOULD be supporting their product(s).

listen So I went to a NOKIA care center, where the latest available phone software was loaded. I had an interesting of-the-record discussion there with one of the specialists. He mentioned that this kind of issues became more and more standard not only for NOKIA.
Due to time-to-market pressure, phone suppliers bring their products on the market, almost untested. It is the first wave of gadget chasers who detect all the bugs and then in the longer term, the telephone will come with a stable fix almost at End-Of-Life of the phone.

I agreed that this was an interesting strategy and I have seen other companies doing the same, only difference: They mention to their gadget chasers: “Note is is a preliminary version, our official release date is xx – xx – 2009”

Meanwhile the new installed software version improved some of the features, still the GPS is unacceptable. In parallel the amount of pages on the Nokia support forum has grown to 7+ and people, like me, getting more and more frustrated from the lack of response from Nokia. They keep silent ……..

So now coming back to my question: How PLM is NOKIA ?

On of the major benefits of PLM is being more focused on customer inputs and feedback, allowing you to make better products. I know the whole PLM infrastructure is in place at NOKIA, but there is no response:

It is all about connecting people

To my understanding none of the people exposing their GPS problem have been able to get an useful answer. Is it because there is no answer ? Making mistakes is not dramatic but as Confucius said: “A man who has committed a mistake and doesn’t correct it, is committing another mistake”.

So I am waiting for the Nokia response to create a solution path – and yes for the competition the door gets open

Below in this YouTube video you can see how it was tested 🙂

How PLM 2.0 am I ? A thought for the holidays.

July 19, 2009 in ENOVIA, Observations, PDM, PLM, SMB, WEB 2.0 | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 comments

observation Last week was a week of transition. As I wrote in my previous post, I finalized a traditional PLM 1.0 project ( I will come back on this term ‘traditional’ PLM 1.0) and now probably because of the sunny days and some interesting articles I read (each word goes to a different article), I am reflecting what it means to think about the new trends:  WEB 2.0 or even PLM 2.0

In this post I will try to explain the developments I have seen so far in the mid-market and from there project what might happen.

In the 80’s there was no PDM or PLM in the mid-market. This was the time most companies were moving away from the drawing board towards CAD. Most of the CAD was 2D and at that time in the mid-market AutoCAD was the dominant CAD software.

CAD At that time I was working for the biggest AutoCAD distributor in the Netherlands (picture on the left). This was the golden age for hardware and software resellers – margins were high and there was little or none IT-knowledge inside mid-market companies. In order to keep the high margin we provided a free helpdesk for our customers to differentiate from others. It was an interesting time. Prospects came to our demo room to plot a drawing of A0 format and to discuss the quality of the lines and the hatching as compared to handmade drawings. There was always the discussion if CAD was more productive and must of us agreed that benefits only came when rework or changes were needed. In parallel we offered a training course for the heads of a design department how they learned to  understand if their designers were productive. They were used to observe the behavior of the draftsman and the minor bar on the drawing board and from there they understood if someone was productive. We were talking about the new digital generation that would replace the people at the drawing board.

Are there still drawing boards ? Is there still free support as the margins are high ? This was 20 years ago.

Then slowly 3D CAD was introduced for the mid-market, initially only on Unix boxes, but with the introduction of Microsoft Windows it became achievable – SolidWorks for sure was leading in this area. Hardware became already more a commodity so the customer relation changed from free support to paid support, which required quality and knowledge. At that time in my company, we also saw the first demands for what customers called an “engineering database”.  In the 2D world it was all about drawing management, now with 3D the focus was on managing the whole product. Initially called EDM (Engineering Data Management), later evolving in Product Data Management. The term PDM was not known at that time and I remember one of our customers visiting us with a sample of 13 reports – drawing list, spare part list, manufacturing BOM, etc. He told us:  “I need a system that can generate these reports for me at anytime”.  The solution: we implemented a PDM system for this customer. At the end of the nineties 3D was introduced in the mid-market combined with PDM. We were talking about the new generation of people that thinks in 3D which would replace the people who still worked in 2D

Are we still working with 2D ? Do we still look for support on hard- and software ? This was 10 years ago.

express Then came the era of connectivity, initially  through the first internet wave, leading to terms as cPDM and ultimately PLM.  Instead of focusing on productivity in a single department, the intention was to focus on collaboration between departments, development teams and to address the whole product lifecycle. Specially Dassault Systems extended this concept by focusing on the process and virtualization: test and build your product virtually before you spend any money on prototypes. Autodesk does the same in different words, they call it Digital Prototyping and they try to avoid talking about the processes as here we touch the most sensitive point in mid-market companies: touching or changing processes – ‘classical PLM 1.0. And this is also what I read between the lines of Jim Brown’s post Is innovation or product pipeline killing profitability ? As long as we do not change our product development process but focus still on doing the same with better tools, the real innovation will not come. We are now talking about the global collaboration generation that has to learn to work together and replaces the people who are not changing their processes.

Are we still solving our departmental problems only ? Can we survive keep on doing the same ? This is now !

And meanwhile mid-market companies are learning to understand and digest the above, we already see the new wave coming. WEB 2.0 – social networking – social collaboration – PLM 2.0 – communities and more. Instead of companies working on their own data, the future is to work in communities, live data, cross-company with employees, who are focused as a team to bring a result, we do not send so much emails anymore, we chat, we twitter, we …….. and more. In addition as we will see the trend that teams have members from all around the world, the question comes up: What is the standard communication language ? German (past) , English (present), Chinese  (future) ?  Here I am a big fan and believer of the Dassault vision that 3D becomes the global language for communication as the people participating do not come from the same educational background anymore – so it easier to see what you mean. Meanwhile the futurists are all the time talking about the aging workforce (a lot of people plan to retire), but if you read back, you will notice every ten years we are talking about an aging workforce. Every time there was a new generation picking up the new capabilities and challenging the next generation.

Are we in 2020 a global, 3D twittering world ? What is each individual’s added value ? What are companies doing to anticipate to the above trends ? It looks like it is going to happen and the current economical downturn allows us to anticipate even earlier till the next pit stop.

A thought I take with me on the summer holidays.

(Yes, in Europe we still have holidays that are so long you have time to think about work –
you can find me on the island below in August)

anafi

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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