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People, wherever you are, we are in a kind of lockdown. Some countries more restricted than others. Still, the challenge will be for most of us how to survive in two perhaps three months of being locked in your home and make the best of it. As I am not a virus expert, I will not give you any recommendations on this topic. As a PLM geek, I want to share with you the opportunities I see for the upcoming months.

A crisis is an opportunity

Most of us should be lucky that we do not live in the same situation as twenty years ago. At that time, internet connectivity was expensive and slow. Meaning working from home would mean isolation from the rest of the world. The positive point now is that we can be connected virtually without travel, without face-to-face meetings, and we are pushed to do so. This external push is an interesting point for me.

The traditional attitude for my PLM engagements was that face-to-face meetings are crucial for creating a human connection and trust. Now I ask myself is this a behavior of the past that should become obsolete in the future. Probably we cannot afford this approach anymore in the future if we take sustainability and the environment into consideration. We live now in a globally connected world, but should we act still in the old way?

Perhaps not. Let’s look at some of the examples that it is time to shift behaviors.

We might think in the Western world we know it all due to our dominance in the past hundred years. However, when you study history, you will see civilizations come to power and after hundreds of years, they lose power because they kill themselves internally. Apparently, a typical human property that will not disappear – still interesting to analyze when considering a globally connected world. Where is the point of gravity today?

Interestingly, the ancient Chinese population already knew that a crisis was an opportunity, as I am being told. The Chinese characters for crisis mean danger and opportunity, respectively, according to Wiki – see the image above. Joe Barkai was one of the first in my network that took action to explain that instead of focusing on the loss of what is happening now, we should take the opportunity to be better prepared for the future. You can read his post here: The Corona virus and your company’s brand. And these kinds of messages are popping up more frequently now. Let’s stay safe while thinking and preparing for the future.

Now a PLM related example.

Remember what the FFF is happening?

Two-three weeks ago, we had a vivid discussion in our PLM and CM community based on the famous FFF mnemonic.  What the FFF is happening was a post sharing my point of view, and there were a lot of reactions from different people.

The purpose of my post was to explain that the whole discussion was based on paradigms that drawings are defining the part. Because of that, we have a methodology to decide if YES or NO we need a new part number or revision. To me, this practice should no longer be a discussion.

A part has a unique identifier, and a document has a unique identifier. In PLM-systems, the information is managed by relations, no longer by identifiers – who knows the exact unique identifier? In a PLM-system information is connected, and the attributes of the part and document will tell you the details of the type of information. “Intelligent or meaningful” identifiers are in such an environment no longer relevant. Think about that…..

In the comments of my post, Jesse Leal was confirming this statement:

This in contrary to Joe Brouwer, who you might have noticed, always is spitting his opinion that the good old days of the draftsman are gone, Boeing made a tremendous mistake and that PLM is fake. This all combined with hyperlinks to his products and opinions. The comment below says it all:

Two points to observe in this response:

“Hey, Bob, send me the new digital identifier”.

This statement assumes that if a person needs to retrieve information from someone else, they need to contact this person (Bob).

Bob then needs to drop his current work and answer to the response and send the latest version of a drawing?  This is old school. In a PLM-system,  information should be connected, and if Bob has released his latest drawing (no matter if it is FFF), any user could find the latest approved version, not even having to look at the identifier (which could be meaningless) but by following the relations between products, parts, and documents.

This is PLM!

One of the benefits, Bob does not get disturbed during the day by these kinds of questions and can focus on his critical work as an expert.

Second, if you need to sit with a designer to understand PLM, then you are probably talking with the wrong person. Designers work in the context of PDM. When we speak about PLM, we are talking about a broader scope beyond engineering and design.

This is a common mistake in a lot of marketing stories. Companies that focus on the design space only, some EBOM-integrations with CAD-systems, are most of the time focusing on PDM.  When Agile PLM came out (later Oracle E9) and later Aras without CAD-integrations, these companies were focusing on the flow of information inside the company, not necessarily driven by CAD. Of course, the traditional PLM companies combine CAD integration with other capabilities. Dassault Systèmes, Siemens, and PTC all have a strong relationship with their native CAD-systems. However, their offerings go way beyond CAD-integrations e.g. end-to-end governance, change processes and an item-centric backbone.

The diagram above explains the basics for the future. In a push-mode, the person in the middle has the responsibility to distribute information and ensure it remains accurate for all stakeholders. This makes this person crucial (good job security) but extremely inefficient compared to people working in the pull-mode, being responsible for getting the accurate data themselves. It may be clear the pull-mode is the model of a digital enterprise.

So if you have the time now, take this time to rethink how well your company is ready for a digital future. Companies that currently rely on Bob are in trouble as Bob is currently sitting at home. Companies that have learned to shift from the push-mode to the pull-mode could continue working as planned, as they do not need Bob. And don’t worry about your job. If you are in Bob’s position you will lose your job over time. However, when you keep on evolving, learning and adding value to your company, you will be always needed – don’t lock yourself in.

If you want to be inspired more in this area, read Jan Bosch’s post: This is not the end . Here Jan mentions the opportunity to move to digital practices (and more) – get out of our traditional patterns

What can you do?

Even though COVID-19 has, and will have, a dramatic impact on our society, this is also the moment to rewire some of our processes.  Because there was never time to think and act due to the running business. It reminded me of the financial crisis in 2008, when the market for PLM vendors was terrible, no significant sales for them as companies could not invest.

However, for me, 2008 was an extremely busy year,  thanks to all kinds of regulations from governments. There was time and budget to support employees to raise their skills and PLM was one of these domains. That year I conducted many workshops. It was also the year that I started my blog virtualdutchman.com.

Now we are in a similar situation and probably worse as now we are locked to our homes. However, we are also better connected. Imagine this situation without the internet. Now we can learn even better.

So let’s benefit from this connectivity and use the lockdown time to learn, think, and discuss with peers. Challenge and involve the management of your company how they see and lead to the future.

In that context, I am happy to spend on average one day per week on free conference calls if you need clarification or support for your PLM-related ideas.

Contact me through a personal message on LinkedIn, and we will find a way to connect.

Conclusion

This decade will be decisive for many of us. At the beginning of this year, I wrote PLM 2020- The next decade (4 challenges). With my narrow PLM-mind, I overlooked viruses. Bill Gates did not do that, as you can see from his 2015 TED talk: The next outbreak? We’re not ready.  Bill also explains that our traditional thinking patterns should change in a globally connected world.

I wish you all the time to think and educate yourself and prepare for a changed future. Stay safe inside, stay healthy, knowing for some of you it will be a big challenge.