Tag Archive

We, the PLM Green Global Alliance, started our first interviews with PLM-related software vendors two years ago in 2022 with SAP, and recently, we revisited them for a much broader interview.

The initial interview in 2022 focused on companies getting pushed by legislation related to plastic packaging and how they could collect and analyze their product data.

Now, two years later, we discussed a much broader scope, including the Circular Economy and even Circular Manufacturing in the automotive industry. You can read and listen to this interview following this link: The PGGA talking again with SAP on Sustainability.

However, as it is claimed that almost eighty percent of the environmental impact of a product is defined and decided during its design phase, we were eager to learn from the primary PLM vendors what they have observed.

PTC

We were fortunate to talk again with Dave Duncan,  VP Sustainability at PTC, who had just returned from a three-month tour in Europe, talking with 200 manufacturers in 21 different locations and having deep discussions to understand the market and their customer’s needs.

You could follow his movements through Europe on LinkedIn and his posting from the Munich workshop was fascinating. Besides meeting customers, there were also PTC partners like MakerSite, aPriori, and Transition Technologies PSC. All three companies have recently contributed to our PGGA series related to Sustainability.

Together with Dave, we spoke again with James Norman, who is responsible for driving PTC’s solutions and strategy for the digital and Sustainability transformation. He helped us make the connection between what’s happening in the field and what PTC is considering.

When listening to the interview, you will observe that in the PLM domain, so much has changed in the past two years.

Enjoy the 36 minutes of the interview and listen to what Dave has learned from the field, as reflected by James, on how PTC is addressing Sustainability.

Slides shown during the interview combined with additional company information can be found HERE.

What we have learned

•  The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) has forced companies to address Sustainability and the need for the digitalization of their processes (the digital thread)
• For Sustainability impact, do not focus just on the component properties; identify hot-spots when analyzing analyzing the impact of the product on the product level.
• As the OEM often only assembles the final product, the environmental impact is defined upstream in the supply chain.
• Modularity and Systems Thinking are crucial methodologies for implementing a Circular Economy.
• If you only consider the cradle-to-gate part of a product’s lifecycle, you might miss the big picture entirely. Even worse, you might implement design changes in the name of sustainability that result in outcomes far less sustainable than the original design. It’s crucial to look at the entire Product Service System/lifecycle to truly understand a product’s environmental impact
• We did not talk about Digital Twins and AI this time. Implementing a connected Digital Thread is, at this moment, the highest priority.

Want to learn more?

• There is the PTC Impact Report
• Dave Duncan’s article:  Join PTC on Our Sustainability Journey
• A customer story: How Cummins Prioritizes Sustainability for New Product Designs

Conclusion

I enjoyed the dialogue with Dave and James and the progress we all have made towards understanding what is needed to ensure a sustainable future for our planet. So much has changed in two years.

PLM plays a crucial role in the discussion of a circular economy, the need for modularity, and sustainability reporting. All of these elements require a digital infrastructure related to the products we manufacture or use.

In addition, I was impressed by Dave’s pragmatic approach, who was in the hot spots of European manufacturing companies to understand their needs instead of telling them about their should-be dreams.

Our first PGGA interview with PLM-related software vendors was two years ago with SAP. At that time, Sustainability became more visible in corporate strategies, and regulations were imminent.

This time, Klaus Brettschneider and I want to learn what has happened related to Sustainability. Is there visible progress in their organizations and customer base? And what is hot now?

And we were positively surprised by a conversation going in many directions.

SAP

The interview was again with Darren West. Darren is the product expert for SAP’s Circular Economy solutions and this time, Stephan Fester supported him. Stephan is co-leading the SAP Global Circular Manufacturing Practice and, therefore, is well-connected to the field. Last year, in particular, working in discrete manufacturing and discussing circular manufacturing.

Thanks to the expertise of our guests, the discussion went in various directions, with circularity as the central theme.

We discussed the progress of the Responsible Design & Production module that was just launched two years ago. We discussed the Green Ledger and Carbon Accounting, of course, in the context of circular manufacturing.

But also, we discussed the Digital Product Passport. Catena-X, what is it, and what is it targeting?

We also discussed how to deal with the scarcity of materials and materials harvesting.   The interview could not be complete without mentioning AI.

Enjoy the 35-minute interview with Darren and Stephan on our YouTube channel.

The slides shown in this recording can be found here: PGGA talking again with SAP.

What we have learned

• Regulations heavily push SAP customers and require adequate reporting tools, not only for finance and material use but also for sustainability KPIs
• The Responsible Design & Production module launched two years ago is already in use with 60+ customers, showing the importance of having data-driven decision support for plastic packaging – to be extended to the product. Of course, as a PLM community, we are interested in understanding the next steps toward the product.
• The insights from Stephan Fester on circular manufacturing can be a logical evolution of the linear product process, as Stephan’s image shows.
  
• Great insights on Catena-X as an independent network for data sharing in the global network

Want to learn more?

Events and Shows:

• SAP at Hannover Messe – April 22-26, 2024 – event information
• SAP Sapphire, Orlando, USA – June 3-5, 2024 – event information
• SAP Sapphire, Barcelona, Spain – June 11-13, 2024 – event information

Websites:

• Circular Manufacturing at Scale – Microsite
• SAP Responsible Design and Production – product page
• SAP Circular Economy page
• SAP Sustainability home page

Conclusion

It was a great discussion with a company that is quite active in supporting its customers on a sustainable journey. The journey is complex and has many aspects, as Darren and Stephan shared in this dialogue. The good news is that SAP’s customers are actively implementing measures and processes – going circular is happening!

Join the PDSFORUM next month and join me to get inspired an participate in a Think Thank session on day 2 related to designing more sustainable products. Will we meet there?