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It is the holiday season many groups, religions have their celebrations in this period, mostly due to the return of the light on the Northern hemisphere – Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Santa Lucia are a few of them. Combined with a new decade upcoming, also a time for me to reflect on what have we learned and what can we imagine in the next ten years.
Looking back the last decade
Globalization is probably one of the most significant changes we have seen. Almost the whole world is connected now through all kinds of social and digital media. Information is instantly available and influences our behavior dramatically. The amount of information coming to us is so huge that we only filter the information that touches us emotionally. The disadvantage of that, opinions become facts and different opinions become enemies. A colorful society becomes more black and white.
These trends have not reached us, in the same manner, the domain of PLM. There have been several startups in the past ten years, explaining that PLM should be as easy as social communication with Facebook. Most of these startups focused on integrations with MCAD-systems, as-if PLM is about developing mechanical products.
In my opinion, the past decade has shown that mechanical design is no longer a unique part of product development. Products have become systems, full of electronics and driven by software. Systems Engineering became more and more important, defining the overall concept of a product, moving the focus to the earlier stages of the product design – see image below.
During Ideation and system definition, we need “social” collaboration between all stakeholders. To get a grip on this collaboration, we use models (SysML, UML, Logical, 2D, 3D) to have an unambiguous representation, simulation and validation of the product already in the virtual world.
Actually, there is nothing social about that collaboration. It is a company-driven demand to deliver competitive products to remain in business. If our company does not improve multidisciplinary collaboration, global competitors with less nostalgic thoughts to the past will conquer the market space.
Currently in most companies there are two worlds, hardware and software, almost 100 %-separated managed by either PLM or ALM (Application Lifecycle Management). It is clear that “old” PLM – item-driven with related documents cannot match the approach required for ALM – data-elements (code) based on software models (and modules).
In the hardware world a change can have a huge effect on the cost (or waste) of the product, however, implementing a hardware change can take months. Think about new machinery, tooling in the worst case. In the software domain, a change can be executed almost immediately. However here testing the impact of the change can have serious effects. The software fix for the Boeing 737 Max is not yet proven and delivered.
Therefore, I would like to conclude that in the past decade we learned in the PLM-domain to work in a Coordinated manner – leaving silos mostly in place.
Next week I will look forward to our challenging upcoming decade. Topics on my list for the next decade are:
- From Coordinated to Connected – Generation Change
- Sustainability of our Earth (and how PLM can help)
- Understanding our human behavior to understand how to explain PLM to your execs- PI PLMx London 2020
- All combined with restoring trust in science
I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year – take time to listen and learn as we need dialogue for the future, not opinions.
See you in 2020
It was Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, living around 500 BC, who told the Greek people that change is the only constant: Τα πάντα ρεί – the title of this blog post. Apparently he was not a popular philosopher and telling people there will be change during a comfortable period of time in their society does not make you loved.
As I am personally passionate about Greece in my personal life, I have also some business activities in Greece. From these experiences, I wish Heraclitus would be their leading guru. Greece at this moment is stuck in their inability to change. Old habits and private interests prevent new initiatives, and the blame for their current situation goes to the outside world: Europe.
This trick has been used over and over again by politicians when a country needs to restructure or reorganize. Create an external enemy and the majority of people swallow their distressing situation. The outside world is to blame and thanks to the external focus nothing changes internally as the population focuses on the enemy first. Where Heraclitus implies there is always change, which could be evolution, it seems that the Greek need a revolution to change their old habits and patterns in order to adapt to the new global society.
But are the Greek the only ones that need to change?
Τα πάντα ρεί also came in my mind when I read Chad Jackson’s blog post: PLM requires Business Transformation ? Bollocks for the first time. I envy Chad’s powerful writing style, which calls for action, a BLOGFIGHT among the PLM community. Unfortunate due to the word Bollocks some of the younger PLM consultants (do they exist?) might not be able to participate to this blog fight as their parental filter on the computer has blocked the page.
My first impression from Chad’s post was that he claims we just need to go to for global centralized data management and build processes digital and automated. And as he calls a PLM journey bollocks, I suppose in Chad’s ideal world all would be done in a single step or focused project. A new Big Bang! The last known successful Big Bang was approx 13.798 billion years ago. All other Big Bangs failed.
Τα πάντα ρεί
However my first impression was not 100 % correct and after rereading the post and the related comments a more elaborated picture comes up. The few other PLM consultants that participated in the BLOGFIGHT demonstrated there are many viewpoints often based on the consultant’s background. Often PLM is associated with “The single source of the Truth”, it is precisely on that point where PLM as a concept is struggling. There is no single opinion for PLM.
I am glad that we (Chad and I) agreed there is a need for change. This axiom (another Greek word known from Euclid’s Elements) is to my opinion the first starting point to consider for any PLM implementation. If you do not expect change, you will be probably forced to customize the new system the way your company worked before, maybe a little faster, leaving the organization structure as-is. And by building automation similar to the as-is organization you actually make your organization less flexible to adapt for new concepts.
Why do most of the large automotive companies have a problem with their PDM / PLM platforms? Because they have automated and customized their environments year after year. For sure there was ROI (Return On Investment) at that time, but gradually it also created an inability to change. And change is happing faster and faster. Globalization has come up so fast that most large PLM implementations seem to be too rigid to change. What to do? Change their CAD system?
Τα πάντα ρεί !
Knowing that there will be always change, companies should anticipate for change. And this is what I mean by the PLM journey. If implementing PLM is a onetime shot, you might be shooting in your own foot. And if you do not change, you end up with the same problem that Greece is currently facing: revolution or bankruptcy. Revolution is something nobody sane wants, neither bankruptcy.
Evolution is the only way to go even if this is against the way we humans in general behave: we want things to stay the same.
Now combining all ancient Greek wisdom with modern PLM wisdom, I would like to post my five axioms for PLM.
- There will be always change – build your vision for the upcoming 5 – 10 years with the anticipation there will be change – do not try to consolidate the now.
- Look for the latest best practices, not your current best practices
- Implement systems (PLM / PDM / ERP) as much as possible Out-Of-The-Box again avoiding to become dependent on specific releases or fixed environments
- Focus on areas where there is direct visible ROI or long term strategic advantage. As there will be always change, identify where to improve or alter moving towards the big picture brings visible comfort (business wise / users wise)
- Focus on a clear and business oriented data model – it is easier to maintain data through a long lifecycle when their definition is clear. This is a call for open data standards (STEP / ISO) as they bring you long term flexibility.
Concluding notes and call for action:
- If you are a respected PLM consultant, feel motivated to continue the blog fight and share your thoughts here related to this post or related to Chad’s post.
- If you are a respected PLM consultant or PLM enthusiast, please take a moment to answer six questions in the following anonymous survey to share your opinion and background. The survey closes on July 1st 2013: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PYSMBJ9
I will publish the results in July.
LOOKING FORWARD TO YOUR RESPONSES
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- PLM is a journey (virtualdutchman.com)
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