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In recent months, I’ve noticed a decline in momentum around sustainability discussions, both in my professional network and personal life. With current global crises—like the Middle East conflict and the erosion of democratic institutions—dominating our attention, long-term topics like sustainability seem to have taken a back seat.
But don’t stop reading yet—there is good news, though we’ll start with the bad.
The Convenient Truth
Human behavior is primarily emotional. A lesson valuable in the PLM domain and discussed during the Share PLM summit. As SharePLM notes in their change management approach, we rely on our “gator brain”—our limbic system – call it System 1 and System 2 or Thinking Fast and Slow. Faced with uncomfortable truths, we often seek out comforting alternatives.
The film Don’t Look Up humorously captures this tendency. It mirrors real-life responses to climate change: “CO₂ levels were high before, so it’s nothing new.” Yet the data tells a different story. For 800,000 years, CO₂ ranged between 170–300 ppm. Today’s level is ~420 ppm—an unprecedented spike in just 150 years as illustrated below.
Frustratingly, some of this scientific data is no longer prominently published. The narrative has become inconvenient, particularly for the fossil fuel industry.
Persistent Myths
Then there is the pseudo-scientific claim that fossil fuels are infinite because the Earth’s core continually generates them. The Abiogenic Petroleum Origin theory is a fringe theory, sometimes revived from old Soviet science, and lacks credible evidence. See image below
Oil remains a finite, biologically sourced resource. Yet such myths persist, often supported by overly complex jargon designed to impress rather than inform.
The Dissonance of Daily Life
A young couple casually mentioned flying to the Canary Islands for a weekend at a recent birthday party. When someone objected on climate grounds, they simply replied, “But the climate is so nice there!”
“Great climate on the Canary Islands”
This reflects a common divide among young people—some are deeply concerned about the climate, while many prioritize enjoying life now. And that’s understandable. The sustainability transition is hard because it challenges our comfort, habits, and current economic models.
The Cost of Transition
Companies now face regulatory pressure such as CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive), DPP (Digital Product Passport), ESG, and more, especially when selling in or to the European market. These shifts aren’t usually driven by passion but by obligation. Transitioning to sustainable business models comes at a cost—learning curves and overheads that don’t align with most corporations’ short-term, profit-driven strategies.
However, we have also seen how long-term visions can be crushed by shareholder demands:
- Xerox (1970s–1980s) pioneered GUI, the mouse, and Ethernet, but failed to commercialize them. Apple and Microsoft reaped the benefits instead.
- General Electric under Jeff Immelt tried to pivot to renewables and tech-driven industries. Shareholders, frustrated by slow returns, dismantled many initiatives.
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My presentation at the 2019 PLM Roadmap / PDT Europe conference – click on the image to get access through SlideShare.
- Despite ambitious sustainability goals, Siemens faced similar investor pressure, leading to spin-offs like Siemens Energy and Gamesa.
The lesson?
Transforming a business sustainably requires vision, compelling leadership, and patience—qualities often at odds with quarterly profit expectations. I explored these tensions again in my presentation at the PLM Roadmap/PDT Europe 2024 conference, read more here: Model-Based: The Digital Twin.
I noticed discomfort in smaller, closed-company sessions, some attendees said, “We’re far from that vision. ”
My response: “That’s okay. Sustainability is a generational journey, but it must start now”.
Signs of Hope
Now for the good news. In our recent PGGA (PLM Green Global Alliance) meeting, we asked: “Are we tired?” Surprisingly, the mood was optimistic.
Our PGGA core team meeting on June 20th
Yes, some companies are downscaling their green initiatives or engaging in superficial greenwashing. But other developments give hope:
- China is now the global leader in clean energy investments, responsible for ~37% of the world’s total. In 2023 alone, it installed over 216 GW of solar PV—more than the rest of the world combined—and leads in wind power too. With over 1,400 GW of renewable capacity, China demonstrates that a centralized strategy can overcome investor hesitation.
- Long-term-focused companies like Iberdrola (Spain), Ørsted (Denmark), Tesla (US), BYD, and CATL (China) continue to invest heavily in EVs and batteries—critical to our shared future.
A Call to Engineers: Design for Sustainability
We may be small at the PLM Green Global Alliance, but we’re committed to educating and supporting the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) community on sustainability.
That’s why I’m excited to announce the launch of our Design for Sustainability initiative on June 25th.
Led by Eric Rieger and Matthew Sullivan, this initiative will bring together engineers to collaborate and explore sustainable design practices. Whether or not you can attend live, we encourage everyone to engage with the recording afterward.
Conclusion
Sustainability might not dominate headlines today. In fact, there’s a rising tide of misinformation, offering people a “convenient truth” that avoids hard choices. But our work remains urgent. Building a livable planet for future generations requires long-term vision and commitment, even when it is difficult or unpopular.
So, are you tired—or ready to shape the future?
Wow, what a tremendous amount of impressions to digest when traveling back from Jerez de la Frontera, where Share PLM held its first PLM conference. You might have seen the energy from the messages on LinkedIn, as this conference had a new and unique daring starting point: Starting from human-led transformations.
Look what Jens Chemnitz, Linda Kangastie, Martin Eigner, Jakob Äsell or Oleg Shilovitsky had to say.
For over twenty years, I have attended all kinds of PLM events, either vendor-neutral or from specific vendors. None of these conferences created so many connections between the attendees and the human side of PLM implementation.
We can present perfect PLM concepts, architectures and methodologies, but the crucial success factor is the people—they can make or break a transformative project.
Here are some of the first highlights for those who missed the event and feel sorry they missed the vibe. I might follow up in a second post with more details. And sorry for the reduced quality—I am still enjoying Spain and refuse to use AI to generate this human-centric content.
The scenery
Approximately 75 people have been attending the event in a historic bodega, Bodegas Fundador, in the historic center of Jerez. It is not a typical place for PLM experts, but an excellent place for humans with an Andalusian atmosphere. It was great to see companies like Razorleaf, Technia, Aras, XPLM and QCM sponsor the event, confirming their commitment. You cannot start a conference from scratch alone.
The next great differentiator was the diversity of the audience. Almost 50 % of the attendees were women, all working on the human side of PLM.
Another brilliant idea was to have the summit breakfast in the back of the stage area, so before the conference days started, you could mingle and mix with the people instead of having a lonely breakfast in your hotel.
Now, let’s go into some of the highlights; there were more.
A warm welcome from Share PLM
Beatriz Gonzalez, CEO and co-founder of Share PLM, kicked off the conference, explaining the importance of human-led transformations and organizational change management and sharing some of their best practices that have led to success for their customers.
You might have seen this famous image in the past, explaining why you must address people’s emotions.
Working with Design Sprints?
Have you ever heard of design sprints as a methodology for problem-solving within your company? If not, you should read the book by Jake Knapp- Creator of Design Sprint.
Andrea Järvén, program manager at Tetra Pak and closely working with the PLM team, recommended this to us. She explained how Tetra Pak successfully used design sprints to implement changes. You would use design sprints when development cycles run too looong, Teams lose enthusiasm and focus, work is fragmented, and the challenges are too complex.
Instead of a big waterfall project, you run many small design sprints with the relevant stakeholders per sprint, coming step by step closer to the desired outcome.
The sprints are short – five days of the full commitment of a team targeting a business challenge, where every day has a dedicated goal, as you can see from the image above.
It was an eye-opener, and I am eager to learn where this methodology can be used in the PLM projects I contribute.
Unlocking Success: Building a Resilient Team for Your PLM Journey
Johan Mikkelä from FLSmidth shared a great story about the skills, capacities, and mindset needed for a PLM transformational project.
Johan brought up several topics to consider when implementing a PLM project based on his experiences.
One statement that resonated well with the audience of this conference was:
The more diversified your team is, the faster you can adapt to changes.
He mentioned that PLM projects feel like a marathon, and I believe it is true when you talk about a single project.
However, instead of a marathon, we should approach PLM activities as a never-ending project, but a pleasant journey that is not about reaching a finish but about step-by-step enjoying, observing, and changing a little direction when needed.
Strategic Shift of Focus – a human-centric perspective
Besides great storytelling, Antonio Casaschi‘s PLM learning journey at Assa Abloy was a perfect example of why PLM theory and reality often do not match. With much energy and experience, he came to Assa Abloy to work on the PLM strategy.
He started his PLM strategies top-down, trying to rationalize the PLM infrastructure within Assa Abloy with a historically bad perception of a big Teamcenter implementation from the past. Antonio and his team were the enemies disrupting the day-to-day life of the 200+ companies under the umbrella of Assa Abloy.
A logical lesson learned here is that aiming top-down for a common PLM strategy is impossible in a company that acquires another six new companies per quarter.
His final strategy is a bottom-up strategy, where he and the team listen to and work with the end-users in the native environments. They have become trusted advisors now as they have broad PLM experience but focus on current user pains. With the proper interaction, his team of trusted advisors can help each of the individual companies move towards a more efficient and future-focused infrastructure at their own pace.
The great lessons I learned from Antonio are:
- If your plan does not work out, be open to failure. Learn from your failures and aim for the next success.
- Human relations—I trust you, understand you, and know what to do—are crucial in such a complex company landscape.
Navigating Change: Lessons from My First Year as a Program Manager
Linda Kangastie from Valmet Technologies Oy in Finland shared her experiences within the company, from being a PLM key user to now being a PLM program manager for the PAP Digi Roadmap, containing PLM, sales tools, installed base, digitalization, process harmonization and change management, business transformation—a considerable scope.
The recommendations she gave should be a checklist for most PLM projects – if you are missing one of them, ask yourself what you are missing:
- THE ROADMAP and THE BIG PICTURE – is your project supported by a vision and a related roadmap of milestones to achieve?
- Biggest Buy-in comes with money! – The importance of a proper business case describing the value of the PLM activities and working with use cases demonstrating the value.
- Identify the correct people in the organization – the people that help you win, find sparring partners in your organization and make sure you have a common language.
- Repetition – taking time to educate, learn new concepts and have informal discussions with people –is a continuous process.
As you can see, there is no discussion about technology– it is about business and people.
To conclude, other speakers mentioned this topic too; it is about being honest and increasing trust.
The Future Is Human: Leading with Soul in a World of AI
Helena Guitierez‘s keynote on day two was the one that touched me the most as she shared her optimistic vision of the future where AI will allow us to be so more efficient in using our time, combined, of course, with new ways of working and behaviors.
As an example, she demonstrated she had taken an academic paper from Martin Eigner, and by using an AI tool, the German paper was transformed into an English learning course, including quizzes. And all of this with ½ day compared to the 3 to 4 days it would take the Share PLM team for that.
With the time we save for non-value-added work, we should not remain addicted to passive entertainment behind a flat screen. There is the opportunity to restore human and social interactions in person in areas and places where we want to satisfy our human curiosity.
I agree with her optimism. During Corona and the introduction of teams and Zoom sessions, I saw people become resources who popped up at designated times behind a flat screen.
The real human world was gone, with people talking in the corridors at the coffee machine. These are places where social interactions and innovation happen. Coffee stimulates our human brain; we are social beings, not resources.
Death on the Shop Floor: A PLM Murder Mystery
Rob Ferrone‘s theatre play was an original way of explaining and showing that everyone in the company does their best. The product was found dead, and Andrea Järvén alias Angie Neering, Oleg Shilovitsky alias Per Chasing, Patrick Willemsen alias Manny Facturing, Linda Kangastie alias Gannt Chartman and Antonio Casaschi alias Archie Tect were either pleaded guilty by the public jury or not guilty, mainly on the audience’s prejudices.
You can watch the play here, thanks to Michael Finocchiaro :
According to Rob, the absolute need to solve these problems that allow products to die is the missing discipline of product data people, who care for the flow, speed, and quality of product data. Rob gave some examples of his experience with Quick Release project he had worked with.
My learnings from this presentation are that you can make PLM stories fun, but even more important, instead of focusing on data quality by pushing each individual to be more accurate—it seems easy to push, but we know the quality; you should implement a workforce with this responsibility. The ROI for these people is clear.
Note: I believe that once companies become more mature in working with data-driven tools and processes, AI will slowly take over the role of these product data people.
Conclusion
I greatly respect Helena Guitierez and the Share PLM team. I appreciate how they demonstrated that organizing a human-centric PLM summit brings much more excitement than traditional technology—or industry-focused PLM conferences. Starting from the human side of the transformation, the audience was much more diverse and connected.
Closing the conference with a fantastic flamenco performance was perhaps another excellent demonstration of the human-centric approach. The raw performance, a combination of dance, music, and passion, went straight into the heart of the audience – this is how PLM should be (not every day)
There is so much more to share. Meanwhile, you can read more highlights through Michal Finocchiaro’s overview channel here.
I have not been writing much new content recently as I feel that from the conceptual side, so much has already been said and written. A way to confuse people is to overload them with information. We see it in our daily lives and our PLM domain.
With so much information, people become apathetic, and you will hear only the loudest and most straightforward solutions.
One desire may be that we should go back to the past when everything was easier to understand—are you sure about that?
This attitude has often led to companies doing nothing, not taking any risks, and just providing plasters and stitches when things become painful. Strategic decision-making is the key to avoiding this trap.
I just read this article in the Guardian: The German problem? It is an analog country in a digital world.
The article also describes the lessons learned from the UK (quote):
Britain was the dominant economic power in the 19th century on the back of the technologies of the first Industrial Revolution and found it hard to break with the old ways even when it should have been obvious that its coal and textile industries were in long-term decline.
As a result, Britain lagged behind its competitors. One of these was Germany, which excelled in advanced manufacturing and precision engineering.
Many technology concepts originated from Germany in the past and even now we are talking about Industrie 4.0 and Catena-X as advanced concepts. But are they implemented? Did companies change their culture and ways of working required for a connected and digital enterprise?
Technology is not the issue.
The current PLM concepts, which discuss a federated PLM infrastructure based on connected data, have become increasingly stable.
Perhaps people are using different terminologies and focusing on specific aspects of a business; however, all these (technical) discussions talk about similar business concepts:
- Prof. Dr. Jorg W. Fischer, managing partner at Steinbeis – Reshape Information Management (STZ-RIM), writes a lot about a modern data-driven infrastructure, mainly in the context of PLM and ERP. His recent article: The Freeway from PLM to ERP.
- Oleg Shilovitsky, CEO of OpenBOM, has a never-ending flow of information about data and infrastructure concepts and an understandable focus on BOMs. One of his recent articles, PLM 2030: Challenges and Opportunities of Data Lifecycle Management
- Matthias Ahrens, enterprise architect at Forvia / Hella, often shares interesting concepts related to enterprise architecture relevant to PLM. His latest share: Think PLM beyond a chain of tools!
- Dr. Yousef Hooshmand, PLM lead at NIO, shared his academic white paper and experiences at Daimler and NIO through various presentations. His publication can be found here: From a Monolithic PLM Landscape to a Federated Domain and Data Mesh.
- Erik Herzog, technical fellow at SAAB Aeronautics, has been active for the past two years, sharing the concept of federated PLM applied in the Heliple project. His latest publication post: Heliple Federated PLM at the INCOSE International Symposium in Dublin
Several more people are sharing their knowledge and experience in the domain of modern PLM concepts, and you will see that technology is not the issue. The hype of AI may become an issue.
From IT focus to Business focus
One issue I observed at several companies I worked with is that the PLM’s responsibility is inside the IT organization – click on the image to get the mindset.
This situation is a historical one, as in the traditional PLM mode, the focus was on the on-premise installation and maintenance of a PLM system. Topics like stability, performance and security are typical IT topics.
IT departments have often been considered cost centers, and their primary purpose is to keep costs low.
Does the slogan ONE CAD, ONE PLM or ONE ERP resonate in your company?
It is all a result of trying to standardize a company’s tools. It is not deficient in a coordinated enterprise where information is exchanged in documents and BOMs. Although I wrote in 2011 about the tension between business and IT in my post “PLM and IT—love/hate relation?”
Now, modern PLM is about a connected infrastructure where accurate data is the #1 priority.
Most of the new processes will be implemented in value streams, where the data is created in SaaS solutions running in the cloud. In such environments, business should be leading, and of course, where needed, IT should support the overall architecture concepts.
In this context, I recommend an older but still valid article: The Changing Role of IT: From Gatekeeper to Business Partner.
This changing role for IT should come in parallel to the changing role for the PLM team. The PLM team needs to first focus on enabling the new types of businesses and value streams, not on features and capabilities. This change in focus means they become part of the value creation teams instead of a cost center.
From successful PLM implementations, I have seen that the team directly reported to the CEO, CTO or CIO, no longer as a subdivision of the larger IT organization.
Where is your PLM team?
Is it a cost center or a value-creation engine?
The role of business leaders
As mentioned before, with a PLM team reporting to the business, communication should transition from discussing technology and capabilities to focusing on business value.
I recently wrote about this need for a change in attitude in my post: PLM business first. The recommended flow is nicely represented in the section “Starting from the business.”
Image: Yousef Hooshmand.
Business leaders must realize that a change is needed due to upcoming regulations, like ESG and CSRD reporting, the Digital Product Passport and the need for product Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), which is more than just a change of tools.
I have often referred to the diagram created by Mark Halpern from Gartner in 2015. Below you can see and adjusted diagram for 2024 including AI.
It looks like we are moving from Coordinated technology toward Connected technology. This seems easy to frame. However, my experience discussing this step in the past four to five years has led to the following four lessons learned:
- It is not a transition from Coordinated to Connected.
At this step, a company has to start in a hybrid mode – there will always remain Coordinated ways of working connected to Connected ways of working. This is the current discussion related to Federated PLM and the introduction of the terms System of Record (traditional systems / supporting linear ways of working) and Systems of Engagement (connected environments targeting real-time collaboration in their value chain) - It is not a matter of buying or deploying new tools.
Digital transformation is a change in ways of working and the skills needed. In traditional environments, where people work in a coordinated approach, they can work in their discipline and deliver when needed. People working in the connected approach have different skills. They work data-driven in a multidisciplinary mode. These ways of working require modern skills. Companies that are investing in new tools often hesitate to change their organization, which leads to frustration and failure. - There is no blueprint for your company.
Digital transformation in a company is a learning process, and therefore, the idea of a digital transformation project is a utopia. It will be a learning journey where you have to start small with a Minimum Viable Product approach. Proof of Concepts is a waste of time as they do not commit to implementing the solution. - The time is now!
The role of management is to secure the company’s future, which means having a long-term vision. And as it is a learning journey, the time is now to invest and learn using connected technology to be connected to coordinated technology. Can you avoid waiting to learn?
I have shared the image below several times as it is one of the best blueprints for describing the needed business transition. It originates from a McKinsey article that does not explicitly refer to PLM, again demonstrating it is first about a business strategy.
It is up to the management to master this process and apply it to their business in a timely manner. If not, the company and all its employees will be at risk for a sustainable business. Here, the word Sustainable has a double meaning – for the company and its employees/shareholders and the outside world – the planet.
Want to learn and discuss more?
Currently, I am preparing my session for the upcoming PLM Roadmap/PDT Europe conference on 23 and 24 October in Gothenburg. As I mentioned in previous years, this conference is my preferred event of the year as it is vendor-independent, and all participants are active in the various phases of a PLM implementation.
If you want to attend the conference, look here for the agenda and registration. I look forward to discussing modern PLM and its relation to sustainability with you. More in my upcoming posts till the conference.
Conclusion
Digital transformation in the PLM domain is going slow in many companies as it is complex. It is not an easy next step, as companies have to deal with different types of processes and skills. Therefore, a different organizational structure is needed. A decision to start with a different business structure always begins at the management level, driven by business goals. The technology is there—waiting for the business to lead.
In recent years, I have assisted several companies in defining their PLM strategy. The good news is that these companies are talking first about a PLM strategy and not immediately about a PLM system selection.
In addition, a PLM strategy should not be defined in isolation but rather as an integral part of a broader business strategy. One of my favorite one-liners is:
“Are we implementing the past, or are we implementing the future?”
When companies implement the past, it feels like they modernize their current ways of working with new technology and capabilities. The new environment is more straightforward to explain to everybody in the company, and even the topic of migration can be addressed as migration might be manageable.
Note: Migration should always be considered – the elephant in the room.
I wrote about Migration Migraine in two posts earlier this year, one describing the basics and the second describing the lessons learned and the path to a digital future.
Implementing PLM now should be part of your business strategy.
Threats coming from different types of competitors, necessary sustainability-related regulations (e.g., CSRD reporting), and, on the positive side, new opportunities are coming (e.g., Product as a Service), all requiring your company to be adaptable to changes in products, services and even business models.
Suppose your company wants to benefit from concepts like the Digital Twin and AI. In that case, it needs a data-driven infrastructure—
Digital Twins do not run on documents, and algorithms need reliable data.
Digital Transformation in the PLM domain means combining Coordinated and Connected working methods. In other words, you need to build an infrastructure based on Systems of Record and Systems of Engagement. Followers of my blog should be familiar with these terms.
PLM is not an R&D and Engineering solution
(any more)
One of the biggest misconceptions still made is that PLM is implemented by a single system mainly used by R&D and Engineering. These disciplines are considered the traditional creators of product data—a logical assumption at the time when PLM was more of a silo, Managing Projects with CAD and BOM data.
However, this misconception frames many discussions towards discussions about what is the best system for my discipline, more or less strengthening the silos in an organization. Being able to break the silos is one of the technical capabilities digitization brings.
Business and IT architecture are closely related. Perhaps you have heard about Conway’s law (from 1967):
“Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure.”
This means that if you plan to implement or improve a PLM infrastructure without considering an organizational change, you will be locked again into your traditional ways of working – the coordinated approach, which is reflected on the left side of the image (click on it to enlarge it).
An organizational change impacts middle management, a significant category we often neglect. There is the C-level vision and the voice of the end user. Middle management has to connect them and still feel their jobs are not at risk. I wrote about it some years ago: The Middle Management Dilemma.
How do we adapt the business?
The biggest challenge of a business transformation is that it starts with the WHY and should be understood and supported at all organizational levels.
If there is no clear vision for change but a continuous push to be more efficient, your company is at risk!
For over 60 years, companies have been used to working in a coordinated approach, from paper-based to electronic deliverables.
- How do you motivate your organization to move in a relatively unknown direction?
- Who in your organization are the people who can build a digital vision and Strategy?
These two questions are fundamental, and you cannot outsource ownership of it.
People in the transformation teams need to be digitally skilled (not geeks), communicators (storytellers), and, very importantly, connected to the business.
Often, the candidates come from the existing business units where they have proven skills. The challenging part is educating them and making them available for this mission.
Digital transformation is not a side job.
Education can come from the outside world. Making people available to work on the new digital infrastructure is a management decision and their sense of priority.
How to get external support?
If you are connected to the PLM world like me, a lot of information is available. In academic papers, projects and in particular on LinkedIn currently, there is an overflow of architectural debates:
Recently, I participated in the discussions below:
- How to Solve PLM & ERP (Oleg Shilovitsky)
- Last week, we finally solved PLM & ERP (Prof. Dr. Jörg W. Fischer / Martin Eigner)
- PLM and MBOM: Supply Chain Debates and Future Solution Architecture (Oleg Shilovitsky)
- Could be a Knowledge Graph resp. the Linked Data technologies the key to …. (Matthias Ahrens)
The challenge with these articles is that they are for insiders and far from shareable with business people. There is always a discussion, as we are all learning to match theory with reality. For example,Prof. Dr. Jörg W. Fischer introduced the Information Architecture as a missing link. You can read his recent post here and the quote below to get interested:
All of these methods focus either on Data Architecture or Business Architecture. And the blind spot? I am convinced that an essential layer between the two is missing. We at STZ-RIM Reshape Information Management call this Information Architecture.
Still, we remain in the expert domain, which a limited group of people understands. We need to connect to the business. Where can we find more education from the business side?
The reaction below in one of the discussions says it all, in my opinion:
Starting from the business
What I have learned from my discussions with the management is:
- Don’t mention PLM – you will be cornered in the R&D / Engineering frame.
- Don’t explain their problems, and tell them that you have the solution (on PowerPoint)
- Create curiosity about topics that are relevant to the business – What if …?
- Use storytelling to imagine a future state – Spare the details.
- Build trust and confidence that you are not selling a product. Let the company discover their needs as it is their transformation.
The diagram below, presented by Yousef Hooshmand during the PLM Roadmap/PDT Europe 2023 conference in Paris, describes it all:
It will be a continuous iterative process where, starting from business values and objectives, an implementation step is analyzed, how it fits in the PLM landscape and ultimately, how measures and actions guide the implementation of the tools and technology.
It is important to stress that this is not the guidance for a system implementation; it is the guidance for a digital transformation journey. Therefore, the message in the middle of the image is: Long-term Executive Commitment!
In addition, I want to point to articles and blogs written by Jan Bosch. Jan is an Executive, professor and consultant with more than 20 years of experience in large-scale software R&D management and business.
Although our worlds do not intersect yet, the management of mechanical products and software is different; his principles fit better and better with a modern data-driven organization. Often, I feel we are fighting the same battle to coach companies in their business transformation.
In the context of this article, I recommend reviewing the BAPO model coming from the software world.
BAPO stands for Business, Architecture, Process and Organization. As the diagram below indicates, you should start from the business, defining the needs for the architecture and then the preferred ways of working. Finally, the organization has to be established in accordance with the processes.
Often, companies use the OPAB approach, which makes them feel more comfortable (Conway’s Law). For further reading in this context, I recommend the following posts from Jan Bosch:
Business and technology
I want to conclude by discussing ways to connect business and technology as you need both.
First, I want to point to an example that we presented in the Federated PLM interest group on LinkedIn. Although the discussion initially focused on technical capabilities, we concluded by connecting them to business transformational needs. The diagram below is our characteristic image used to explain the interaction between Systems of Record (the vertical pillars) and the Systems of Engagement (the horizontal bars – modularity).
Have a look at the business discussion below:
Next, the diagram below comes from a 2017 McKinsey whitepaper: Toward an integrated technology operating model. Here, the authors describe how a company can move toward an integrated technology operating model using both coordinated and connected technologies.
They do not mention PLM; they have a business focus, and it is important to mention a company can work in different modes. This is an organizational choice, but don’t let people work in two modes,
Conclusion
With this post, I hope I moved the focus from technology and tools to an understandable business focus. Even within my 1500 words, there is much more to say, and this makes our (PLM) mission so complex and interesting. Let me know where you can connect.
The past two weeks have been a fascinating journey, delving into the intersection of Curiosity, Innovation, and modern PLM. Where many PLM-related posts are about the best products and the best architectures, there is also the “soft” angle – people and culture – which I believe is the most important to start from. Without the right people and the right mindset, every PLM implementation is ready to fail.
First, I worked with Stefaan van Hooydonk, the founder of the Global Curiosity Institute and author of the bestselling book The Workplace Curiosity Manifesto, on the article Curiosity as Guiding Principle for PLM Change, which explained the importance of Curiosity in the context of sustainable product development (PLM).
The intersection between Curiosity and modern PLM is Systems Thinking.
Systems Thinking: A Crucial 21st Century Skill for Sustainable Product Development, Driven by Curiosity.
Last week, I had the privilege of attending the CADCAM Lab conference in Ljubljana. In addition to my keynote, I was inspired by several presentations on the various aspects of digital transformation: the tools, possible enablement, and the needed mindset.
One of the highlights was the talk by Tanja Mohorič, the director for innovation culture and European projects in Slovene corporation Hidria and director of Slovene Automotive Cluster ACS. Tanja shared her insights on fostering Innovation, a crucial driver for a sustainable business as companies need to innovate in order to remain significant.
One of the intersections between Innovation and modern PLM is Curiosity
Innovation is defined as the process of bringing about new ideas, methods, products, services, or solutions that have significant positive impact and value.
Let’s zoom in on these two themes.
Curiosity
I knew Stefaan from his keynote at the PLM Road Map / PDT Europe 2022 conference; you can read my review from his session here: The week after PLM Roadmap / PDT Europe 2022.
It was an eye-opener for many of us focusing on the PLM domain. Stefaan’s message is that Curiosity is not only a personal skill; it is also something of a company’s culture. And in this age of rapid change, companies that embrace a culture of openness are outperforming their peers.
This time, on Earth Day (April 22nd), Stefaan organized an interactive webinar titled “Curiosity and the Planet,” which addressed the need for new technologies and approaches to living in a sustainable future. With my Green PLM-twisted mind, I immediately saw the overlap and intersection between our missions.
We decided to write an article together on this topic, in which we described a pathway for companies that want to develop more sustainable products or solutions, using Curiosity as one of the means.
As companies need to find their path to the digitization of their PLM infrastructure due to regulations, ESG reporting, and potentially the introduction of digital product passports and the circular economy, they need to act fast in an area not familiar to them.
Here, a curious organization will outperform the traditional, controlled enterprise.
You can read the full article here: Curiosity as Guiding Principle for PLM Change.
And as I know in our hasty society, not everyone will read the article although I think you should. For those who do not read the details, I close this topic with a quote from the article:
We define Curiosity as the mindset to challenge the status quo, explore, discover and learn.
Curiosity is often considered a trait linked to an individual, as exemplified by the constant questions of children or scientists. Groups of people or organizations can also be curious collectively. Research from INSEAD studying the level of Curiosity across the executive team uncovered that these teams are superior in two distinct ways: first, they are better at future Innovation, and second, they are better at optimizing their current operations. Curiosity on the executive team leads not only to future success but also to better short-term business results. Such teams create the perfect environment for their teams to thrive.
Change, however, is hard, and people are often left to their own devices; they prefer to perpetuate the known past rather than invite an unknown future. Curiosity helps us lean into uncertainty. It encourages us to slow down and observe whether the status quo we hold dear is still relevant. Curiosity is the prime catalyst for change. It invites open questions.
Innovation
There is often confusion between Invention and Innovation. Where invention is the “Eureka” moment where a new idea gets its shape, Innovation is the process of bringing new ideas, methods, products, services, or solutions to the market.
I presented this topic at the 2013 Product Innovation Conference in Berlin. The title of the presentation was PLM Loves Innovation, and you can find it here on SlideShare.
Looking back at the presentation, I realized we were thinking linear.
Concepts of an iterative approach, DevOps and a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) were not yet there. Meanwhile, thanks to digitization, bringing Innovation to the market has changed, which made Tanja Mohorič’s presentation a significant refresh of the mind.
Tanja’s lecture was illustrated by various quotes, you can find them in her presentation . Here are a few examples:
If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time. (Steve Jobs)
If you read Steve Jobs’s history at Apple, you will discover it has been a long journey. Although we like to praise the hero, there were many other, less visible people and patents involved in bringing Apple’s Innovation to the market.
Innovation is the ability to convert ideas into invoices (Lewis Dunacan)
What I like about this quote is that it also shows the importance of having a positive financial outcome. Bringing Innovation to the market is a matter of timing. If you are too early, there is no market for your product (yet), and if you are too late, the market share or margin is gone.
Minds are like parachutes – they only function when open (Thomas Dewar)
Curiosity and an open mind remain needed. The parachute quote is a quote to remember, mainly if you work in a traditional, established company. The risk of conformance is high, and a “we know the best” attitude might be killing the company, as we have seen from some management examples, like Kodak, NOKIA, and others.
Tanja’s presentation addressing the elements that support Innovation and those that kill Innovation can be found here: INNOVATION AS A PRECONDITION TO SUCCESS_Tanja Mohorič.
I want to close with one of the essential images that she shared, which is very aligned with how I see companies should consider their future, not as an evolutionary path to survive but as a journey to be inspired.
Coaching
As the CADCAM Group is a significant implementer of the Dassault Systèmes portfolio, my presentation about digital transformation in the PLM Domain was focused on their terminology and capabilities. You can find my presentation on SlideShare here.
However, the HOW part of digital transformation is more or less independent of the software. Here, it is about people, digital skills and new ways of working, which can be challenging for an existing enterprise as the linear business must continue. You might have seen the diagram below from previous blog posts/presentations.
The challenge I discussed with a few companies was how to apply it to your company.
First of all, I am still promoting McKinsey’s approach described in their article Our insights/toward an integrated technology operating model from 2017, which might not directly mention PLM at first glance. The way you work in your business should reflect the way you work with PLM and vice versa.
Where the traditional application-domain-based model reflects the existing coordinated business, the transformation takes place by learning to work first in small pods and later in digital product teams.
It seems evident that these new teams will be staffed with young, digital-native people. However, it remains crucial that these teams are coached by experienced people who help the team benefit from their vast experience.
It is like in soccer. Having eleven highly skilled young players does not make a team successful. Success depends on the combination of the trainer and the coach, and it is a continuous interaction throughout the season.
Therefore, a question for your organization: “Where are your coaches and trainers?”
I addressed this topic in my post: PLM 2020- The next decade (4 challenges), where the topic of changing organizations and retiring people became apparent.
As a rule of thumb, I would claim that you should try to give somebody with unique knowledge and who will be retiring in 2 – 3 years the role of coach and is no longer an operational mission. It may look less effective; however, it will contribute to a smooth knowledge transition from a coordinated to a coordinated and connected enterprise.
Conclusion
It was great to be inspired by some of the “soft” topics related to modern PLM. We like to discuss the usage of drawings, intelligent part numbers, the EBOM, MBOM, and SBOM or a cloud infrastructure. However I enjoyed discussing perhaps the most essential parts of a successful PLM implementation: the people, their motivation and their attitude to Curiosity and Innovation – their willingness to get inspired by the future.
What do you see as the most important topic to address in the future?
Last week, I participated in the annual 3DEXPERIENCE User Conference, organized by the ENOVIA and NETVIBES brands. With approximately 250 attendees, the 2-day conference on the High-Tech Campus in Eindhoven was fully booked.
My PDM/PLM career started in 1990 in Eindhoven.
First, I spent a significant part of my school life there, and later, I became a physics teacher in Eindhoven. Then, I got infected by CAD and data management, discovering SmarTeam, and the rest is history.
As I wrote in my last year’s post, the 3DEXPERIENCE conference always feels like a reunion, as I have worked most of my time in the SmarTeam, ENOVIA, and 3DEXPERIENCE Eco-system.
Innovation Drivers in the Generative Economy
Stephane Declee and Morgan Zimmerman kicked off the conference with their keynote, talking about the business theme for 2024: the Generative Economy. Where the initial focus was on the Experience Economy and emotion, the Generative Economy includes Sustainability. It is a clever move as the word Sustainability, like Digital Transformation, has become such a generic term. The Generative Economy clearly explains that the aim is to be sustainable for the planet.
Stephane and Morgan talked about the importance of the virtual twin, which is different from digital twins. A virtual twin typically refers to a broader concept that encompasses not only the physical characteristics and behavior of an object or system but also its environment, interactions, and context within a virtual or simulated world. Virtual Twins are crucial to developing sustainable solutions.
Morgan concluded the session by describing the characteristics of the data-driven 3DEXPERIENCE platform and its AI fundamentals, illustrating all the facets of the mix of a System of Record (traditional PLM) and Systems of Record (MODSIM).
3DEXPERIENCE for All at automation.eXpress
Daniel Schöpf, CEO and founder of automation.eXpress GmbH, gave a passionate story about why, for his business, the 3DEXPERIENCE platform is the only environment for product development, collaboration and sales.
Automation.eXpress is a young but typical Engineering To Order company building special machinery and services in dedicated projects, which means that every project, from sales to delivery, requires a lot of communication.
For that reason, Daniel insisted all employees to communicate using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud. So, there are no separate emails, chats, or other siloed systems.
Everyone should work connected to the project and the product as they need to deliver projects as efficiently and fast as possible.
Daniel made this decision based on his 20 years of experience in traditional ways of working—the coordinated approach. Now, starting from scratch in a new company without a legacy, Daniel chose the connected approach, an ideal fit for his organization, and using the cloud solution as a scalable solution, an essential criterium for a startup company.
My conclusion is that this example shows the unique situation of an inspired leader with 20 years of experience in this business who does not choose ways of working from the past but starts a new company in the same industry, but now based on a modern platform approach instead of individual traditional tools.
Augment Me Through Innovative Technology
Dr. Cara Antoine gave an inspiring keynote based on her own life experience and lessons learned from working in various industries, a major oil & gas company and major high-tech hardware and software brands. Currently, she is an EVP and the Chief Technology, Innovation & Portfolio Officer at Capgemini.
She explained how a life-threatening infection that caused blindness in one of her eyes inspired her to find ways to augment herself to keep on functioning.
With that, she drew a parallel with humanity, who continuously have been augmenting themselves from the prehistoric day to now at an ever-increasing speed of change.
The current augmentation is the digital revolution. Digital technology is coming, and you need to be prepared to survive – it is Innovate of Abdicate.
Dr. Cara continued expressing the need to invest in innovation (me: it was not better in the past 😉 ) – and, of course, with an economic purpose; however, it should go hand in hand with social progress (gender diversity) and creating a sustainable planet (innovation is needed here).
Besides the focus on innovation drivers, Dr. Cara always connected her message to personal interaction. Her recently published book Make it Personal describes the importance of personal interaction, even if the topics can be very technical or complex.
I read the book with great pleasure, and it was one of the cornerstones of the panel discussion next.
It is all about people…
It might be strange to have a session like this in an ENOVIA/NETVIBES User Conference; however, it is another illustration that we are not just talking about technology and tools.
I was happy to introduce and moderate this panel discussion,also using the iconic Share PLM image, which is close to my heart.
The panelists, Dr. Cara Antoine, Daniel Schöpf, and Florens Wolters, each actively led transformational initiatives with their companies.
We discussed questions related to culture, personal leadership and involvement and concluded with many insights, including “Create chemistry, identify a passion, empower diversity, and make a connection as it could make/break your relationship, were discussed.
And it is about processes.
Another trend I discovered is that cloud-based business platforms, like the 3DEXERIENCE platform, switch the focus from discussing functions and features in tools to establishing platform-based environments, where the focus is more on data-driven and connected processes.
Some examples:
Data Driven Quality at Suzlon Energy Ltd.
Florens Wolters, who also participated in the panel discussion “It is all about people ..” explained how he took the lead to reimagine the Sulon Energy Quality Management System using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and ENOVIA from a disconnected, fragmented, document-driven Quality Management System with many findings in 2020 to a fully integrated data-driven management system with zero findings in 2023.
It is an illustration that a modern data-driven approach in a connected environment brings higher value to the organization as all stakeholders in the addressed solution work within an integrated, real-time environment. No time is wasted to search for related information.
Of course, there is the organizational change management needed to convince people not to work in their favorite siloes system, which might be dedicated to the job, but not designed for a connected future.
The image to the left was also a part of the “It is all about people”- session.
Enterprise Virtual Twin at Renault Group
The presentation of Renault was also an exciting surprise. Last year, they shared the scope of the Renaulution project at the conference (see also my post: The week after the 3DEXPERIENCE conference 2023).
Here, Renault mentioned that they would start using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform as an enterprise business platform instead of a traditional engineering tool.
Their presentation today, which was related to their Engineering Virtual Twin, was an example of that. Instead of using their document-based SCR (Système de Conception Renault – the Renault Design System) with over 1000 documents describing processes connected to over a hundred KPI, they have been modeling their whole business architecture and processes in UAF using a Systems of System Approach.
The image above shows Franck Gana, Renault’s engineering – transformation chief officer, explaining the approach. We could write an entire article about the details of how, again, the 3DEXPERIENCE platform can be used to provide a real-time virtual twin of the actual business processes, ensuring everyone is working on the same referential.
Bringing Business Collaboration to the Next Level with Business Experiences
To conclude this section about the shifting focus toward people and processes instead of system features, Alizée Meissonnier Aubin and Antoine Gravot introduced a new offering from 3DS, the marketplace for Business Experiences.
According to the HBR article, workers switch an average of 1200 times per day between applications, leading to 9 % of their time reorienting themselves after toggling.
1200 is a high number and a plea for working in a collaboration platform instead of siloed systems (the Systems of Engagement, in my terminology – data-driven, real-time connected). The story has been told before by Daniel Schöpf, Florens Wolters and Franck Gana, who shared the benefits of working in a connected collaboration environment.
The announced marketplace will be a place where customers can download Business Experiences.
There is was more ….
There were several engaging presentations and workshops during the conference. But, as we reach 1500 words, I will mention just two of them, which I hope to come back to in a later post with more detail.
- Delivering Sustainable & Eco Design with the 3DS LCA Solution
Valentin Tofana from Comau, an Italian multinational company in the automation and committed to more sustainable products. In the last context Valentin shared his experiences and lessons learned starting to use the 3DS LifeCycle Assessment tools on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
This session gave such a clear overview that we will come back with the PLM Green Global Alliance in a separate interview. - Beyond PLM. Productivity is the Key to Sustainable Business
Neerav MEHTA from L&T Energy Hydrocarbon demonstrated how they currently have implemented a virtual twin of the plant, allowing everyone to navigate, collaborate and explore all activities related to the plant.I was promoting this concept in 2013 also for Oil & Gas EPC companies, at that time, an immense performance and integration challenge. (PLM for all industries) Now, ten years later, thanks to the capabilities of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, it has become a workable reality. Impressive.
Conclusion
Again, I learned a lot during these days, seeing the architecture of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform growing (image below). In addition, more and more companies are shifting their focus to real-time collaboration processes in the cloud on a connected platform. Their testimonies illustrate that to be sustainable in business, you have to augment yourself with digital.
Note: Dassault Systemes did not cover any of the cost for me attending this conference. I picked the topics close to my heart and got encouraged by all the conversations I had.
Last week I had the opportunity to discuss the topic of Systems of Engagement in the context of the more extensive PLM landscape.
I spoke with Andre Wegner from Authentise and their product Threads, MJ Smith from CoLab and Oleg Shilovitsky from OpenBOM.
I invited all three of them to discuss their background, their target customers, the significance of real-time collaboration outside discipline siloes, how they connect to existing PLM systems (Systems of Record), and finally, whether a company culture plays a role.
Listen to this almost 45 min discussion here (save the m4a file first) or watch the discussion below on YouTube.
What I learned from this conversation
- Systems of Engagement are bringing value to small enterprises but also as complementary systems to traditional PLM environments in larger companies.
- Thanks to their SaaS approach, they are easy to install and use to fulfill a need that would take weeks/months to implement in a traditional PLM environment. They can be implemented at a department level or by connecting a value chain of people.
- Due to their real-time collaboration capabilities, these systems provide fast and significant benefits.
- Systems of Engagement represent the trend that companies want to move away from monolithic systems and focus on working with the correct data connected to the users. A topic I will explore in a future blog post/
I am curious to learn what you pick up from this conversation – are we missing other trends? Use the comments to this post.
Related to the company:
Visit Authentise.com
Related to the product:
Learn more about Collaborative Threads
Related to the reported benefits:
– Surgical robotics R&D team tracks 100% of their decisions and saves 150 hours in the first two weeks… doubling the effective size of their team:
Related to the company:
Visit Colabsoftware.com
Related to the product
Raise the bar for your design conversations
Related to the reported benefits
– How Mainspring used CoLab to achieve a 50% cost reduction redesign in half the time
– How Ford Pro Accelerated Time to Market by 30%
Related to the company:
Visit openbom.com
Related to the product:
Global Collaborative SaaS Platform For Industrial Companies
Related to reported benefits:
– OpenBOM makes the OKOS team 20% more efficient by helping to reduce inventory errors, costs, and streamlining supplier process
– VarTech Systems Optimizes Efficiency by Saving Two Hours of Engineering Time Daily with OpenBOM
Conclusion
I believe that Systems of Engagement are important for the digital transformation of a company.
They allow companies to learn what it means to work in a SaaS environment, potentially outside traditional company borders but with a focus on a specific value stream.
Thanks to their rapid deployment times, they help the company to grow its revenue even when the existing business is under threat due to newcomers.
The diagram below says it all. What are your favorite Systems of Engagement?
Hot from the press
Don’t miss the latest episode from the Share PLM podcast with Yousef Hooshmand – the discussion is very much connected to this discussion.
This month it is exactly 15 years ago that I started my blog, a little bit nervous and insecure. Blogging had not reached mainstream yet, and how would people react to my shared experiences?
The main driver behind my blog in 2008 was to share field experiences when implementing PLM in the mid-market.
As a SmarTeam contractor working closely with Dassault and IBM PLM, I learned that implementing PLM (or PDM) is more than a technology issue.
Discussing implementations made me aware of the importance of the human side. Customers had huge expectations with such a flexible toolkit, and implementers made money by providing customization to any user request.
No discussion if it was needed, as the implementer always said: “Yes, we can (if you pay)”.
The parallel tree
And that’s where my mediation started. At a particular moment, the customer started to get annoyed of again another customization. The concept of a “parallel tree,” a sync between the 3D CAD structure and the BOM, was many times a point of discussion.
So many algorithms have been invented to convert a 3D CAD structure into a manufacturing BOM. Designing glue and paint in CAD as this way it would appear in the BOM.
The “exploded” data model
A result of customizations that ended up in failure were the ones with a crazy data model, too many detailed classes, and too many attributes per class.
Monsters were created by some well-willingly IT departments collecting all the user needs, however unworkable by the end users. See my 2015 post here: The Importance of a PLM data model
The BOM concepts
While concepts and best practices have become stable for traditional PLM, where we talk more about a Product Information backbone, there is still considerable debate about this type of implementation. The leading cause for the discussion is that companies often start from their systems and newly purchased systems and then try to push the people and processes into that environment.
For example, see this recent discussion we had with Oleg Shilovitsky (PLM, ERP, MES) and others on LinkedIn.
These were the days before we entered into digital transformation in the PLM domain, and starting from 2015, you can see in my blog posts the mission. Exploring what a digital enterprise would look like and what the role of PLM will be.
The Future
Some findings I can already share:
- No PLM system can do it all – where historically, companies bought a PLM system; now, they have to define a PLM strategy where the data can flow (controlled) in any direction. The PLM strategy needs to be based on value streams of connected data between relevant stakeholders supported by systems of engagement. From System to Strategy.
- Master Data Management and standardization of data models might still be a company’s internal activity (as the environment is stable). Still, to the outside world/domains, there is a need for flexible connections (standard flows / semantic web). From Rigid to Flexible.
- The meaning of the BOM will change for coordinated structures towards an extract of a data-driven PLM environment, where the BOM mainly represents the hardware connected to software releases. Configuration management practices must also change (see Martijn – and the Rise and Fall of the BOM). From Placeholders to Baselines.
- Digital Transformation in the PLM domain is not an evolution of the data. Legacy data has never been designed to be data-driven; migration is a mission impossible. Therefore there is a need to focus on a hybrid environment with two modes: enterprise backbone (System of Record) and product-centric infrastructure (Systems of Engagements). From Single Source of Truth to Authoritative Source of Truth.
Switching Gears
Next week I have reached the liable age for my Dutch pension, allowing me to switch gears.
Instead of driving in high-performance mode, I will start practicing driving in a touristic mode, moving from points of interest to other points of interest while caring for the environment.
Here are some of the topics to mention at this moment.
Reviving the Share PLM podcast
Together with the Share PLM team, we decided to revive their podcast as Season 2. I referred to their podcast last year in my PLM Holiday thoughts 2022 post.
The Share PLM team has always been the next level of what I started alone in 2008. Sharing and discussing PLM topics with interest on the human side, supporting organizational change through targeted e-learning deliverables based on the purpose of a PLM implementation. People (first), Processes (needed) and the Tools (how) – in this order.
In Season 2 of the podcast, we want to discuss with experienced PLM practitioners the various aspects of PLM – not only success stories you often hear at PLM conferences.
Experience is what you get when you do not get what you expect.
And PLM is a domain where experience with people, processes and tools counts.
Follow our podcast here, subscribe to it on your favorite platform and feel free to send us questions. Besides the longer interviews, we will also discuss common questions in separate recordings or as a structured part of the podcast.
Sustainability!
I noticed from my Sustainability related blog posts that they resonate less with my blogging audience. I am curious about the reason behind this.
Does it mean in our PLM community, Sustainability is still too vague and not addressed in the reader’s daily environment? Or is it because people do not see the relation to PLM and are more focused on carbon emissions, greenhouse gasses and the energy transition – a crucial part of the sustainable future that currently gets much attention?
I just discovered this week I just read this post: CEO priorities from 2019 until now: What has changed? As the end result shows below, sustainability has been ranked #7 in 2019, and after some ups and downs, it is still at priority level #7. This is worrying me as it illustrates that at the board level, not so much has changed, despite the increasing understanding of the environmental impact and the recent warnings from the climate. The warnings did not reach the boardrooms yet.
In addition, I will keep on exploring the relationship between PLM and Sustainability, and in that context, I am looking forward to my learnings and discussions at the upcoming PTC Liveworx event in Boston. Do I see yo there?
Here I hope to meet with their sustainability thought leaders and discuss plans to come up with concrete activities related to PLM and Sustainability.
Somehow it is similar to the relationship between Digital Transformation and the PLM domain. Although we talk already for over 10 years about the digitalization of the entire business; in the PLM domain, it has just started,
Awareness sessions
Companies have a considerable challenge translating a C-level vision into a successful business transformation supported by people active in the field.
Or on the opposite, highly motivated people in the organization see the opportunity to improve their current ways of working dramatically due to digitization.
However, they struggle with translating their deep understanding into messages and actions that are understood and supported by the executive management. In the past ten years, I have been active in various transformational engagements, serving as a “translator” between all stakeholders. I will continue this work as it is a unique way to coach companies, implementers and software vendors to understand each other.
Conclusions
Fifteen years of blogging has brought me a lot – constantly forcing yourself to explain what you observe around you and what it means for the PLM domain. My purpose in sharing these experiences with you in a non-academic matter has led to a great network of people and discussions. Some are very interactive, like Håkan Kårdén and Oleg Shilovitsky (the top two) and others, in an indirect way, provide their feedback.
Switching gears will not affect the blogging and the network – It might even lead to deeper insights as the time to observe and enjoy will be longer.
Keep your seatbelts fastened.
About a year ago we started the PLM Global Green Alliance, further abbreviated as the PGGA. Rich McFall, the main driver behind the PGGA started the website, The PLM Green Alliance, to have a persistent place to share information.
Also, we launched the PLM Global Alliance LinkedIn group to share our intentions and create a community of people who would like to share knowledge through information or discussion.
Our mission statement is:
The mission of the new PLM Green Alliance is to create global connection, communication, and community between professionals who use, develop, market, or support Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) related technologies and software solutions that have value in addressing the causes and consequences of climate change due to human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. We are motivated by the technological challenge to help create a more sustainable and green future for our economies, industries, communities, and all life forms on our planet that depend on healthy ecosystems.
My motivation
My personal motivation to support and join the PGGA was driven by the wish to combine my PLM-world with interest to create a more sustainable society for anyone around the world. It is a challenging combination. For example, PLM is born in the Aerospace and Defense industries, probably not the most sustainable industries.
Having worked with some companies in the Apparel and Retail industry, I have seen that these industries care more about their carbon footprint. Perhaps because they are “volume-industries” closely connected to their consumers, these industries actively build practices to reduce their carbon footprint and impact societies. The sense or non-sense of recycling is such a topic to discuss and analyze.
At that time, I got inspired by a session during the PLM Roadmap / PDT 2019 conference.
Graham Aid‘s from the Ragn-Sells group was a call to action. Sustainability and a wealthy economy go together; however, we have to change our habits & think patterns. You can read my review from this session in this blog post: The weekend after PLM Roadmap / PDT 2019 – Day 1
Many readers of this post have probably never heard of the Ragn-Sells group or followed up on a call for action. I have the same challenge. Being motivated beyond your day-to-day business (the old ways of working) and giving these activities priority above exploring and learning more about applying sustainability in my PLM practices.
And then came COVID-19.
I think most of you have seen the image on the left, which started as a joke. However, looking back, we all have seen that COVID-19 has led to a tremendous push for using digital technologies to modernize existing businesses.
Personally, I was used to traveling every 2 – 3 weeks to a customer, now I have left my home office only twice for business. Meanwhile, I invested in better communication equipment and a place to work. And hé, it remains possible to work and communicate with people.
Onboarding new people, getting to know new people takes more social interaction than a camera can bring.
In the PGGA LinkedIn community, we had people joining from all over the world. We started to organize video meetings to discuss their expectations and interest in this group with some active members.
We learned several things from these calls.
First of all, finding a single timeslot that everyone worldwide could participate in is a challenge. A late Friday afternoon is almost midnight in Asia and morning in the US. And is Friday the best day – we do not know yet.
For that reason, we are probably moving to the PLM Green Alliance website and combine this environment with a space for discussion outside the LinkedIn scope. More to come on the PGGA website.
Finally, we will organize video discussion sessions to ask the participants to prepare themselves for a discussion. Any member of the PGGA can bring in the discussion topics.
It might be a topic you want to clarify or better understand.
What’s next
For December 4th, we have planned a discussion meeting related to the Exponential Roadmap 2019 report, where 36 solutions to halve carbon emission by 2030 are discussed. In our video discussion, we want to focus on the chapter: Digital Industries.
We believe that this topic comes closest to our PLM domain and hopes that participants will share their thinking and potential activities within their companies.
You can download the Exponential Roadmap here or by clicking on the image. More details about the PLM Global Green Alliance you will find in the LinkedIn group. If you want to participate, let us know.
The PGGA website will be the place where more and more information will be collected per theme, to help you understand what is happening worldwide and the place where you can contribute to let us know what is happening at your side.
Conclusion
The PLM Global Green Alliance exists now for a year with 192 members. With approximately five percent active members, we have the motivation to grow our efforts and value. We learned from COVID-19 there is a need to become proactive as the costs of prevention are always lower than the costs of (trying) fixing afterward.
And each of us has the challenge to behave a little differently than before.
Will you be one of them ?
In the last two weeks, three events were leading to this post.
First, I read John Stark’s recent book Products2019. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the full reach of product lifecycle related activities. See my recent post: Products2019, a must-read if you are new to PLM
Afterwards, I talked with John, discussing the lack of knowledge and teaching of PLM, not to be confused by PLM capabilities and features.
Second, I participated in an exciting PI DX USA 2020 event. Some of the sessions and most of the roundtables provided insights to me and, hopefully, many other participants. You can get an impression in the post: The Weekend after PI DX 2020 USA.
A small disappointment in that event was the closing session with six vendors, as I wrote. I know it is evident when you put a group of vendors in the arena, it will be about scoring points instead of finding alignment. Still, having criticism does not mean blaming, and I am always open to having a dialogue. For that reason, I am grateful for their sponsorship and contribution.
Oleg Shilovitsky mentioned cleverly that this statement is a contradiction.
“How can you accuse PLM vendors of having a limited view on PLM and thanking them for their contribution?”
I hope the above explanation says it all, combined with the fact that I grew up in a Dutch culture of not hiding friction, meanwhile being respectful to others.
We cannot simplify PLM by just a better tool or technology or by 3D for everybody. There are so many more people and processes related to product lifecycle management involved in this domain if you want a real conference, however many of them will not sponsor events.
It is well illustrated in John Stark’s book. Many disciplines are involved in the product lifecycle. Therefore, if you only focus on what you can do with your tool, it will lead to an incomplete understanding.
If your tool is a hammer, you hope to see nails everywhere around you to demonstrate your value
The thirds event was a LinkedIn post from John Stark – 16 groups needing Product Lifecycle Knowledge, which for me was a logical follow-up on the previous two events. I promised John to go through these 16 groups and provide my thoughts.
Please read his post first as I will not rewrite what has been said by John already.
CEOs and CTOs
John suggested that they should read his book, which might take more than eight hours. CEOs and CTOs, most of the time, do not read this type of book with so many details, so probably mission impossible.
They want to keep up with the significant trends and need to think about future business (model).
New digital and technical capabilities allow companies to move from a linear, coordinated business towards a resilient, connected business. This requires exploring future business models and working methods by experimenting in real-life, not Proof of Concept. Creating a learning culture and allowing experiments to fail is crucial, as you only learn by failing.
CDO, CIOs and Digital Transformation Executives
They are the crucial people to help the business to imagine what digital technologies can do. They should educate the board and the business teams about the power of having reliable, real-time data available for everyone connected. Instead of standardizing on systems and optimizing the siloes, they should assist and lead in new infrastructure for connected services, end-to-end flows delivered on connected platforms.
These concepts won’t be realized soon. However, doing nothing is a big risk, as the traditional business will decline in a competitive environment. Time to act.
Departmental Managers
These are the people that should worry about their job in the long term. Their current mission might be to optimize their department within its own Profit & Loss budget. The future is about optimizing the information flow for the whole value chain, including suppliers and customers.
I wrote about it in “The Middle Management Dilemma.” Departmental Managers should become more team leaders inspiring and supporting the team members instead of controlling the numbers.
Products Managers
This is a crucial role for the future, assuming a product manager is not only responsible for the marketing or development side of the product but also gets responsibility for understanding what happens with the product during production and sales performance. Understanding the full lifecycle performance and cost should be their mission, supported by a digital infrastructure.
Product Developers
They should read the book Products2019 to be aware there is so much related to their work. From this understanding, a product developer should ask the question:
“What can I do better to serve my internal and external customers ?”
This question will no arise in a hierarchical organization where people are controlled by managers that have a mission to optimize their silo. Product Developers should be trained and coached to operate in a broader context, which should be part of your company’s mission. Too many people complain about usability in their authoring and data management systems without having a holistic understanding of why you need change processes and configuration management.
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) deployers
Here I have a little bit of the challenge that this might be read as PLM-system users. However, it should be clear that we mean here people using product data at any moment along the product lifecycle, not necessarily in a single system.
This is again related to your company’s management culture. In the ideal world, people work with a purpose and get informed on how their contribution fits the company’s strategy and execution.
Unfortunately, in most hierarchical organizations, the strategy and total overview get lost, and people become measured resources.
New Hires and others
John continues with five other groups within the organization. I will not comment on them, as the answers are similar to the ones above – it is about organization and culture.
Educators and Students
This topic is very close to my heart, and one of the reasons I continue blogging about PLM practices. There is not enough attention to product development methodology or processes. Engineers can get many years of education in specific domains, like product design principles, available tools and technologies, performing physical and logical simulations.
Not so much time is spent on educating current best practices, business models for product lifecycle management.
Check in your country how many vendor-independent methodology-oriented training you can find. Perhaps the only consistent organization I know is CIMdata, where the challenge is that they deliver training to companies after students have graduated. It would be great if education institutes would embed serious time for product lifecycle management topics in their curriculum. The challenge, of course, the time and budget needed to create materials and, coming next, prioritizing this topic on the overall agenda.
I am happy to participate to a Specialized Master education program aiming at the Products and Buildings Digital Engineering Manager (INGENUM). This program organized by Arts Et Metiers in France helps create the overview for understanding PLM and BIM – in the French language as before COVID-19 this was an on-site training course in Paris.
Hopefully, there are more institutes offering PLM eductation – feel free to add them in the comments of this post.
Consultants, Integrators and Software Company Employees
Of course, it would be nice if everyone in these groups understands the total flow and processes within an organization and how they relate to each other. Too often, I have seen experts in a specific domain, for example, a 3D CAD-system having no clue about revisioning, the relation of CAD to the BOM, or the fundamentals of configuration management.
Consultants, Integrators and Software Company Employees have their own challenges as their business model is often looking for specialized skills they can sell to their clients, where a broader and general knowledge will come from experience on-the-job.
And if you are three years working full-time on a single project or perhaps work in three projects, your broader knowledge does not grow fast. You might become the hammer that sees nails everywhere.
For that reason, I recommend everyone in my ecosystem to invest your personal time to read related topics of interest. Read LinkedIn-posts from others and learn to differentiate between marketing messages and people willing to share experiences. Don’t waste your time on the marketing messages and react and participate in the other discussions. A “Like” is not enough. Ask questions or add your insights.
In the context of my personal learning, I mentioned that I participated in the DigitalTwin-conference in the Netherlands this week. Unfortunately, due to the partial lockdown, mainly a virtual event.
I got several new insights that I will share with you soon. An event that illustrated Digital Twin as a buzzword might be hype, however several of the participants illustrated examples of where they applied or plan to apply Digital Twin concepts. A great touch with reality.
Another upcoming conference that will start next week in the PLM Roadmap 2020 – PDT conference. The theme: Digital Thread—the PLM Professionals’ Path to Delivering Innovation, Efficiency, and Quality is not a marketing theme as you can learn from the agenda. Step by step we are learning here from each other.
Conclusion
John Stark started with the question of who should need Product Lifecycle Knowledge. In general, Knowledge is power, and it does not come for free. Either by consultancy, reading or training. Related to Product Lifecycle Management, everyone must understand the bigger picture. For executives as they will need to steer the company in the right direction. For everyone else to streamline the company and enjoy working in a profitable environment where you contribute and can even inspire others.
An organization is like a human body; you cannot have individual cells or organs that optimize themselves only – we have a name for that disease. Want to learn more? Read this poem: Who should be the boss?
Jos Voskuil's Weblog 
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