Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.Business Intelligence (BI) is a fascinating combination of words. Each time I hear about BI, I’m confused a bit. The formal definition of BI is very complex. Here is the extract from Wikipedia and, in my view, it is too long to be explained to a human. You can navigate to the following Wikipedia link to read more.

Business intelligence (BI) mainly refers to computer-based techniques used in identifying, extracting,[clarification needed] and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes.[1]. BI technologies provide historical, current and predictive views of business operations. Common functions of business intelligence technologies are reporting, online analytical processing, analytics, data mining, process mining, complex event processing, business performance management, benchmarking, text mining and predictivepan> analytics. Business intelligence aims to support better business decision-making. Thus a BI system can be called a decision support system (DSS).[2]

For many years, I thought about BI as a reporting mechanism or set of tools. The number of vendors in this space decreased significantly after mega acquisitions that were made in this space by Oracle (Hyperion), SAP (Business Objects) and IBM (Cognos). Few more acquisitions in this space were made, but today I don’t see a dominant pure-BI player that competes with large three I mentioned above.

Is there a role BI can play in PLM? CIMdata recently published a white paper "The strategic value of Business Intelligence in PLM". The paper sponsored by eQ BI Technology – an interesting outfit playing with BI technologies in the domain of product development. The whitepaper is available for free and you can download it from CIMData website. Navigate to the following link (note- you have to be a registered user of CIMData. It is free, but I found CIMData website user experience a bit complicated). What I can learn from CIMData pages, in a nutshell, can be summarized as following.

1. To analyze information in manufacturing company is important, and it is not a simple task.
2. Decision makers need to have various types of information reports
3. Many of the available solutions in this space are complicated and not easy to deploy and use.
4. The value of a potential solution that can bring a decision-oriented information can be significant.

Here is an interesting passage from CIMData paper:

Personnel at all levels need concise, timely information tailored to their task needs, regardless of whether they are a designer, a project management or a senior executive. To address the torrent of data that is being created by multiple business systems, companies are using business intelligence and analytics solutions that provide users the right information, in the context, for their needs. This is especially important for product development and PLM. BI solutions gather, aggregate, analyze and disseminate information with historical, current and predictive views of that information to facilitate decision making.

CIMData wasn’t the only analytic company in PLM space researching Business Intelligence topic. Jim Brown ofTechClarity discussed the value of BI in PLM in his whitepaper – Business Intelligence Extending PLM value. This paper was published back in 2009, but I found it quite relevant today. Jim is talking about multiple options of BI applications that can provide a return – connecting engineering and services, improving project timeline, identify cost saving opportunities and many others. Here is a passage from Jim’s conclusion about BI:

PLM implementations have matured to a scope and state that offer significant potential value from mining the underlying data. Accessing this information can help identify exceptions, manage and improve processes, and identify strategic trends that may uncover significant insight and value.

What is my conclusion? BI is clearly addressing the right problem. However, it seems to me, the approach of BI is a bit outdated. My hunch there is a segment of BI market that will pay big money to analyze their business data. The two companies CIMData brings in their whitepaper – Lockheed Martin and ATK Space are probably these types of companies. However, for many companies’ BI – means an expensive addition to existing ERP systems (result of Oracle, SAP and IBM acquisitions). If I will try to think about BI in simple language, I’d be still using word "reporting". eQ BI (company mentioned by CIMData) is providing reporting solution for TeamCenter. To extend reporting solutions of existing PLM tools can be a reasonable next step for BI in PLM. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

ROI is an important topic, and many times I’ve seen customers are not focusing on ROI assessment before starting PDM/PLM implementation. At the same time, I always found ROI definition and calculation as somewhat mystical. One of my best slides about ROI belongs to CIMData.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

SolidWorks made available PDM ROI calculator. I find an CIMData logo on the website. The following disclaimer proves that methods were reviewed by CIMData: CIMData has reviewed this ROI model and finds its benefits ranges to of CIMData’s ROI research and ROI study undertaken by CIMData. The calculator is free and available on this link. Yesterday, I’ve made some experiments. Take a look on the example of the calculation I’ve made.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

What is my conclusion? There is no conclusion today. In general, the logic of the calculator makes sense to me. Some of the assumptions are very straightforward, such as dependencies between annual revenues and time-to-market saving; number of ECOs and risk-reduction saving. Try to play with this and tell me what do think. I’d be interested to know your impression and feeling about the data. Does it feel right?

Best, Oleg

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.Think about the most overused term in PDM/PLM software for the last decade (or even more). Collaboration. It was developed and sold in different flavors and packages. Remember CPDM – Collaborative PDM? Later it became Collaborative PLM. Moreover, don’t forget e-Collaboration and many others. If you want to refresh your memory, navigate to the following link with CIMdata article – Definition of cPDM.

Time is moving fast. Last decade of internet, consumer devices, mobile and web 2.0 changed the face of how we share information and collaborate online. At the end of the day, I need to collaborate with my family, kids, friends and I do it on-line in a very efficient way. So efficient, that the question "how I can do the same in my company?" becomes almost obvious.

Earlier today, the following paper commentary from CIMdata came to me via twitter (thanks Chad Jackson for his tweet). The article The Changing Face of Collaboration (Commentary) is speaking about how Collaboration is changing as a result of influence made by the technology, mobile and consumer based software. Here is the first important passage I captured

In many ways we are witnessing the convergence of a number of technology-driven themes that have the potential of significantly changing collaborative work processes within and outside of a company’s four walls. The first technology-driven theme can be categorized as the consumerization of information technology (IT). The second is the explosion in the availability, capability, and usability of mobile information delivery devices. And the third is the entrance of social media-savvy individuals, who’ve grown up using Facebook, Twitter, and the Internet, into the corporate workforce. This convergence is well underway and today’s companies need to prepare and implement the appropriate processes and technologies that support the new way of collaborating.

Later, author is making the conclusion about the absolute need to develop new collaborative processes, otherwise we will become dinosaurs of the previous PLM solutions. Here is another passage:

The need to define and enable new collaborative processes and enabling technologies are not optional, they are mandatory–not only for Generation Y but also for the rest of us who need to compete in this highly collaborative and connected world. Without providing the correct level of support, today’s PLM solutions will be tomorrow’s legacy systems.

Well, we have a bunch of new technologies, new Gen-Y workforce. What next? What needs to be done in order to deliver a new kind of collaborative processes? It made me think about openness again. Let think about the web and social networking. Availability of the information on the web was one of the most important prerequisites allowed companies to develop websites and apps that deliver value (starting from Google search and ending with last social nets like Pinterest).

There is a problem that does exist in all PDM / PLM systems. These systems are taking data hostages. Let me explain what I mean. Whatever they manage – files, processes, communication stays in the system. In general, almost all of them claim openness, but in practice it doesn’t mean much. You can make a test by trying to share data out of these systems using some generic infrastructure without exporting the date (for example, in Excel file). How I can share Bill of material from my PDM system in SharePoint without exporting it? How I can share preview of my CAD model on the supplier website of my company without "dance with a tambourine" and additional coding?

What is my conclusion? In order to facilitate collaboration, PDM/PLM software products need to stop taking data hostages. It means sharing of information out of these systems needs to become a first priority for product data management software. The open infrastructure of data sharing will create a new eco-system that will help people to collaborate. After this stage, we can expect many other companies and products to come with applications helping people to collaborate using openly available information. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

image credit sheelamohan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.IP (Intellectual Property) is the term used by PLM very often. You probably had a chance to hear about IP management, IP lifecycle, IP protection, etc. I don’t know about you, but to me, it usually provided a feeling of dealing with something important. While I agree that IP is important, it often comes to people in a very blurred way. You can also see how people are switching from speaking about IP to other terms (Bill of Materials, Parts, Drawings) when it proliferates down in the organization from top management level to engineering and manufacturing organization.

Few days ago, my attention caught the article written by Peter Bilello of CIMdata – PLM View: Management Intellectual Property. CIMdata is a well known analytical outfit specialized in research and consulting in the field of engineering and manufacturing software. PLM is one of their key specialties. The article was available via ConnectPress community website. Navigate to the following link to access (It requires registration on ConnectPress available for free). Have a read and make your opinion. Here is a definition of the IP provided by Peter.

What is IP? The common-sense answer is information that defines the product and how it is to be manufactured, delivered, supported and recycled, and that may be required to support patent applications and to defend patents if challenged or infringed. These definitions also include new-product engineering data: requirements, conceptual and detailed designs, analyses and trade-off studies, simulations of production systems, and even ergonomic analyses.

To me it sounds like all information regarding the product in the company actually represents product IP. So, you probably can ask what information is NOT belonging to IP? Here is the answer you can find in the same article:

And What is Not IP. Information that is probably not IP includes transactional data that doesn’t provide a company with any particular competitive advantage. Of course, the distinctions remain fuzzy. In its PLM consulting work, CIMdata encourages the use of two litmus tests. Does the information in question relate to basic enterprise or product capabilities that could become competitive issues, or legal issues, or touch on regulatory compliance? If yes, the information is IP. Secondly, is retention of the information mandatory? If yes, the information is IP.

This definition made me think about the variety of information sources nowadays. We are living in the world where information is aggressively collected by any company and devices. I’m sure you are familiar with multiple incidents and information leaked and collected by Google services, Apple iPhone tracking information, Facebook activities and many other sources. E-commerce websites are collecting a lot of information about people purchasing different products and services. Thinking about organization is very hard to predict what information is actually related to legal, regulatory, retention.

Speaking about clarification of what IP is and how PLM can help us to deal with IP, I found the following passage very important:

Ultimately, IP governance is about extracting real value from misunderstood assets. Amid the 21st century’s data tsunami and its constant disruptions to accustomed ways of thinking and working, the value of these assets keeps going up. Part of the new awareness of IP is the tremendous value as source of insights for solving problems and making decisions. Applying PLM strategies to IP helps ensure that decision-makers can get whatever data they need in a timely manner. To state this in another way, resources dedicated to reusing IP data are true investments and not just money spent digging up information.

What is my conclusion? I think companies need to move from mystical blurred strategies to simple terms and definitions. PLM IP is one of them. Companies need to collect and retain data that important for their business and lifecycle. As manufacturing company, I want to collect information about my customers, product usage, suppliers, etc. As engineering organization, I want to collect the information about how to develop and manufacture the product. There are many other fields that become important, and we need to discover them. To get whatever data people need in a timely manner is the best IP management strategy I can think about. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.Last week I attended PLM Innovation Americas 2012 conference in Atlanta. I already published few posts inspired by the conference – PLM Innovation and 5 PLM Trends and PLM Innovation: Who will provide PLM to Boeing in 2015? Few facts about the conference itself: about 250 attendees, reasonable sized for large presentation and small roundtables. Exhibition floor was presented by all PLM vendors. This is one of very few vendor-independent PLM conferences. Actually, I know only one more – PLM Roadmap. I’ve been reading blogs and twitter stream from the last PLM Innovation. The following press release caught my attention – PLM Road Map To Be Presented with PLM Innovation Americas 2013.

CIMdata, Inc., the leading global PLM strategic management consulting and research firm, announces that it will be co-locating its PLM Road Map conference in conjunction with MarketKey’s PLM Innovation conference in 2013, the date to be announced. The name of the combined event will be Product Innovation Featuring the PLM Road Map. Both organizations will participate in planning and program development for these events. CIMdata brings its extensive PLM knowledge and 20 years of PLM Road Map experience to bear. MarketKey provides its marketing and event organization skills to the combined effort.

It made me think why PLM events became so rare and what can make non-vendor event successful and popular. In the world of the web, blogs, youtube and social media, you need to provide something very special to drive people to get on board of airplanes and travel across the country to attend the conference for few days. I found only one reason to come – to listen to customer stories and speak to customers live.This unique opportunity is priceless and can justify the time and money you need to spend.

Actually, I found a confirmation of my idea reading Michael Fauscette blog post Recap of Oracle Open World 2012. Michael is comparing Oracle Open World and Salesforce.com user conference Dreamforce by analyzing how customers were presenting during the conference. Here is an interesting passage:

Having just attended Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference two weeks before OpenWorld it’s hard not to compare the two mega-conferences. Both vendors put on a great show, but there were some differences. For me the thing that Salesforce did right, and I think is clearly a best practice in vendor conferences, was weaving powerful customer stories, told by executive from those customers, all through every keynote and discussion. In other words Salesforce lets its customers tell much of its story. This is simply not true of Oracle. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of Oracle customer stories involved, many in the form of videos, but the approach is just different. Oracle prefers to tightly control the message and have its executives present the information, backed up mostly by customer videos. It’s just not as compelling to me, and its a shame because there are some great customer stories to tell.

What is my conclusion? In our online world, there is a single reason to come and attend the conference – to connect and speak to customers. In this context, vendor-independent events are more appealing. During these events, customer can speak about real customer experience without obligation to promote a specific vendor. These are speeches that help you to learn a lot about the product, implementations and industry practices. Unfortunately, there are not so many PLM vendor-independent events. I’m looking forward to seeing more PLM events in 2013. Vendors should take a note to promote customer presentations during the events. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image courtesy of [fotographic1980] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.It is almost 2 years since Dassault Systems completed the transaction to acquire and integrate IBM PLM operations into DS. The historical IBM/DS press release is here. At the same time, IBM is continue to focus on product innovation. Navigate here and may learn about IBM product development innovation, system engineering and lifecycle support. In parallel, the adoption of PLM software is growing. More companies in the world are implementing PLM and requires more products, systems, solutions and services in PLM. For the last 3-5 years we can see how IBM is pumping infrastructure software companies… Does it mean we will see again IBM services and services solving manufacturing and product development problems? I’ve been reading Seeking Alpha’s article “So What Does IBM Mean When It Says It’s In The Solutions Business?” explains what type of solutions IBM will be providing in the future:

“It is not individual packaged products per se, but groups of related software products, services, and systems. And we know at very high level where IBM is going to focus its solutions efforts. IBM has always been about software, services, and systems – although in recent years the first two have taken front stage. The flip side is that some of these solutions areas are overly broad. Smarter Analytics is a catch-all covering the familiar areas of business intelligence and performance management, predictive analytics and analytical decision management, and analytic applications.”

I found the following video about IBM usage of system engineering to streamline smarter product development quite interesting.

During the last PI Congress in Berlin 3 weeks ago, CIMdata was talking about the need of integration between configuration management, PLM and system engineering. Peter Bilello of CIMdata mentioned such integration as an absolutely needed element of future of product innovation.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

What is my conclusion? Business intelligence, decision support, system engineering and integration. These functions are quite desired by manufacturing companies to solve prod development problems. Large companies these days are looking how to streamline product development processes. Enterprise PLM business seems to be impossible without system services and integration support. IBM is collecting a significant software stacks that can be used for this purposes. Maybe we see IBM renaissance in PLM soon? Just a thought…

Best, Oleg

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.I’d like to provoke the discussion about PLM implementations today. I assume most of your had a chance to hear the term "business transformation". That was the way majority of PLM vendors, consulting and service companies approached PLM implementation for the last decade. In a nutshell, it means to transform business processes in a company to follow PLM strategy. Implementation of PLM products and infrastructure was part of "business transformation" process. I found a good description of what means PLM transformation in the following paper by Kalypso. Kalypso is well know service and consulting outfit – sort of "department store" in the business of PLM implementation. Their viewpoint is unique and interesting since they are partnering with the majority of PLM companies in the world (according to the following list). I found the following quote interesting:

In the past several years we have watched companies try to implement PLM solutions on a tactical basis; focusing on a single department or system function, defining the business problem narrowly, or taking a technology-replacement approach to their programs. These projects inevitably fail to deliver any significant business impact, but they are safe, small, and can “fly below the radar” of the executives. Nobody gets promoted, but nobody loses their job… Companies that adopt a strategic, “vision-driven” approach to their PLM programs are significantly outperforming those that view PLM more tactically. Specifically,there is a strong correlation between best-in-class program performance and the following actions taken by leading companies: 1/ Developing a firm vision and strategy for PLM that identifies a future state to achieve from PLM, and tie that vision back to the overall business strategy; 2/ Adopting a PLM program approach to implementing PLM, addressing the implementation of PLM as a series of related projects. 3/ Approaching the PLM implementation as a business transformation as opposed to a technology installation, recognizing the need to change behavior and business processes in addition to providing new software.

It is very solid statement. There is nothing wrong in the business of developing long term strategic programs and investing in product development innovation. There is only one problem here – the dynamic of business is different these days compared to what we had 5-10 years ago. The cost demand is different too. These days businesses are running much faster and requires speedy and flexible reaction of IT and all business systems (PLM included).

Speaking about flexibility in PLM implementation, I was reading commentary published by CIMdata yesterday – Using PLM In the Cloud to Improve Business Flexibility. You can navigate to the publication via this link. CIMdata speaks about PLM delivery via cloud actually speaking about TeamCetner and virtual cloud model. Siemens PLM recently announced the availability of TeamCenter via IaaS cloud infrastructure. I found the following passage from CIMdata commentary interesting:

Today companies are not looking to buy “PLM.” They want solutions that solve specific business “pains” for their specific industry focus. Businesses must be able to more quickly acquire and deploy PLM functionality and solutions that give them operational flexibility and improve the efficiency and the pace of product development, production and service. They need to be able to take advantage of new capabilities without having to go through lengthy installation and tailoring processes – and they need to deploy and operate these new capabilities in a cost efficient manner. Reducing the time to deploy new PLM functionality with less (or no) IT support and infrastructure costs can significantly improve operational flexibility

What is my conclusion? Flexibility and agility of PLM implementation is getting more attentions. Cloud is a perfect way to increase the flexibility of PLM deployment by providing infrastructure and tools to deliver PLM systems. The fact TeamCenter is moving towards cloud deployment just another confirmation of the fact customers are looking for alternative to existing PLM deployment models. Cost is another aspect. I don’t know if TeamCenter in the cloud is cheaper than traditionally licensed option. However, I can imagine how cloud PLM can provide cost advantage compared to existing PLM implementations. Together with flexibility it can become a deal-breaker for many manufacturing companies. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

PLM industry is moving towards broader adoption of cloud solutions. More people these days are asking how to implement cloud. It becomes more and more clear that devil is in details and cloud environment can be very different. It comes in variety of aspects related to infrastructure, support of browsers, the need to have elements of software installed on your desktop and mobile devices. It depends on many options. I’ve been touching some of them in my earlier blog – PLM cloud options and 2014 SaaS survey.

As part of overall eduction about cloud technology, it is not unusual to get a question about what is definition of cloud solution in general and more specifically – cloud PLM. I’ve been reading CIMdata commentary – Next Generation Cloud-Based PLM Solutions. I found the following passage as a good summary of cloud PLM definition:

1- On-demand solutions with new cost models that have lower upfront costs for software licenses, subscriptions, or rights-to-use, allowing smaller companies to afford PLM

2- Hosted computing services and environments that do not require investments in infrastructure, providing access to information for anyone at any time while minimizing administrative overhead

3- The ability to add and increase scope of capability and the performance of the solution and processes without requiring additional investment in the underlying IT infrastructure

4- Global access to required application functions, information, and processes

CIMdata’s cloud PLM definition combines some technical aspects blended with business and licensing characteristics of PLM solutions. In my view it is clear indication that cloud PLM story is not pure technology. Customer demands are to find solution that solves multidisciplinary problem of system – technological, business, licensing. It is also shows the fact customers are dissatisfied with today’s business practice of PLM software licensing.

What is my conclusion? The technology and business are going together. Cloud PLM is about to solve customer problems in different aspects – improved business models, low cost and better experience. However, in my view, an interesting part of cloud PLM innovation can be related to the part of PLM system implementation. For many years, implementation was one of the most complicated element of PLM. It takes time to adjust system, capture business processes and set up tools to run and optimize product development. The first PLM vendor who will crack how to leapfrog PLM implementation using cloud business model and technology can gain a significant competitive advantage. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

photo credit: JD Hancock via photopin cc

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

One of the topics I touched in my yesterday post about future PLM platforms is platform migration. The ability of customer to make a move is significantly dependent on how existing environment can be migrated. You can catch up on some of my earlier thoughts about PLM migrations by reading the following posts – PLM upgrades, release cycle and legacy software; PLM migration and product data rock-n-roll; PLM cloud and future of upgrades.

Most of large manufacturing companies (and even smaller companies) already made some sort of investment in PLM products. What is ROI of move to a new platform? How to calculate it? How not to get troubled by supporting multiple versions of applications and environment? These are good questions. Customers and PLM vendors are equally interested how to manage it in a right way.

My attention caught Dassault Systemes’ 3Dperspective blog post – Top Three Considerations for Planning Your Move to the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. It speaks about how customer can migrate into new 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Here is an interesting passage:

The same data model and business process rules that power the 3DEXPERIENCE platform also powered the ENOVIA platform. In fact, the same basic approach also powered the MatrixOne platform. This is why so many of ENOVIA’s current customers have been able to successfully upgrade since their first implementation in the mid to late 1990’s.

The following picture shows the history of 3DEXPERIENCE platform evolution. It basically means that the say foundation platform used by all MatrixOne and ENOVIA customers and migration is effortless. I’m not sure if I’m happy to know that the same data technology used by all generation of systems from mid 1990s. However, it is clear benefit for customers looking how to migrate data between different versions of MatrixOne and ENOVIA V6.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Dassault System’s rival – Siemens PLM and its TeamCenter platform also has long history of transformations. I didn’t find specific public references on compatibility between data models and application among TeamCenter versions. However, the following article from Tech-Clarity blog by Jim Brown presents an interesting diagram of TeamCenter evolution – Siemens PLM vision 2014+.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

More information about evolution of TeamCenter can be found in the following CIMdata document – TeamCenter “unified”. The following passage speaks about “migration” issues:

Siemens PLM will continue to support Teamcenter Engineering and Enterprise for those customers that have them in production. Importantly, with each release of these older products, they have updated the underlying architecture and technology so that when a customer decides to change, the transition to the unified Teamcenter solutions will be easier. They have also developed a robust suite of migration tools that can be used when moving from earlier versions of Teamcenter products to the unified platform.

What is my conclusion? The migration is a complex topic. It is probably one of the most important topics that will define ability of large vendors to move into bright future of next generation PLM platforms. Regardless on what platform customer is going to move, migration will have cost that must be calculated and validated. The idea of “federated platforms” brings some promise of minimizing of migration cost. However, the mechanics of this process is not very clear. At the end of the day, data must be brutally dumped out and transferred. Application migration is even more complex. Users must be re-trained. All together, it is not a simple task. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Few months ago, I posted about latest development of Kenesto cloud data management solutions – Kenesto revamp: does it change cloud PLM game? I saw it as a sharp turn for Kenesto from focusing on collaboration towards engineering and product data management business. From earlier comments made by Steve Bodnar of Kenesto here, I’ve learned Kenesto is developing technology to synchronize CAD data between desktops and cloud locations. Here is the comment made back in October:

…automatic synchronization maintains appropriate version control as well as permissions. This way, if you have “download only” permission, as an example, you can synchronize to one or more of your locations, and any updates will automatically be synchronized to those locations for you (in addition to notifications being sent).

CIMdata recent publication about Kenesto Collaboration Platform made me think again about what it does and how it might be different from other cloud PDM products available now or soon become available on the market. What caught my special attention in CIMdata publication is related to so called “innovative intersection of cloud-based file management and data sharing with traditional PDM vaulting”. A massive amount of CAD data is stored on corporate networks and just CAD desktops. It made me think Kenesto is trying to bring solution to customers that already have traditional PDM systems and extend it with a better collaborative option. The following passage from CIMdata commentary provides more explanations:

The Kenesto solution is a secure, hybrid, cloud-desktop collaboration platform where product development and delivery teams can collaborate using discussion threads, or by co-authoring documents and design files, with anytime, anywhere access. Kenesto puts a broad range of capabilities at the fingertips of product delivery teams to organize and manage their programs, products, and projects. Teams can create their workspaces with people, workflow, forms, data, and reports—including bills of materials, change requests, and purchasing forms—and be kept on the same page with Kenesto’s proprietary intelligent synchronization approach. Each user is provided with a dashboard that can be customized to personal preferences. An important feature in Kenesto is that users are always in full control of their documents and designs. A user can permit their teammates to view, mark-up, or edit their documents and designs and can collaborate with them in real time or asynchronously.

Many of features such as project, workspaces, workflow, forms, bill of materials, change requests etc. are not new in PDM industry. However, “cloud-desktop” hybrid sounds like a new buzzword. Does it mean Kenesto found something unique in terms how to bring desktop CAD users to the cloud? It hard to say based on a commentary, but it might go that way.

What is my conclusion? Market dynamics are bringing more engineering and manufacturing companies to the cloud. It gives more opportunities to cloud PDM/PLM vendors. At the same time, it raises more questions how existing environment and data assets will be managed and how people will collaborate in a hybrid environment. Kenesto might solve an interesting problem here and compete with other vendors in the same domain – Autodesk, SolidWorks, GrabCAD and others. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

photo credit: ukCWCS via photopin cc

Photo is an illustration only and does not reflect Kenesto architecture.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

PLM business and software vendors are transforming. Manufacturing companies are looking for new type of solutions that can give a faster ROI as well as become a better place for engineering and manufacturing innovation. The dissatisfaction of customers about slow ROI and low value proposition is growing. Back in 2012 I was listening to Boeing presentation – Reaching for the value of PLM at Boeing Commercial Airplanes. You can read my notes in the old blog post – PLM Innovation: Who will provide PLM to Boeing in 2015. I hope to hear more about new PLM trends at upcoming PLM Innovation congress in Dusseldorf next month and later this year at PI Americas in Boston in November 2015.

Earlier last year I posted – Traditional PLM have reached their limits. My main point was around ability to PLM platform to support a continues pipeline of business solutions in current business environment. Integration is one of the key inhibitors that preventing easy PLM implementation and deployment. However, from a broader perspective, existing PLM platforms were invented 10-20 years ago and vendors made only minor changes since then. In my view it means a lot in terms of changing paradigms of today’s business and computing environment and processes.

I found an interesting explanation about distribution nature of design in a recent blog by OnShape by Jon Hirschtick – Why we started from scratch (again) in the CAD business:

The Design World Has Changed – The way that design and manufacturing teams work together has dramatically changed. Teams that used to be under one roof are now fragmented and globally distributed. And teams are also changing faster, with people coming on and off projects all the time.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Another provoking statement was made by Autodesk CEO Carl Bass at few conferences last year – Why yesterday’s tools are failing today’s engineers”. He speaks abut inefficient tools and a conflict of paradigms. You can watch his presentation here:

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

My attention was caught by CIMdata post – Platformization: The Next Step in PLM’s Evolution by Peter Bilello. An article speaks about what future development can support PLM growth and, specifically, about the impact of circular economy in manufacturing. Here is an interesting passage:

So what should/will the PLM enabling innovation platforms of the future look like? In my opinion, these platform-centric solutions need to be reliable, robust, and boundaryless. Reliable solutions must be able to withstand multiple system upgrades and platform migrations. In turn, these robust solutions must be adaptable, maintainable, extensible, scalable, reconfigurable, compatible, and stable. And finally, these boundaryless solutions must be free of artificial limitations on functionality that are imposed by the marketplace segmentation of design and engineering systems with conventional architectures. Meeting these characteristics will be a tall order for many of today’s commercially available PLM solutions, but one that must be met for the future of PLM to be successful.

I specially liked a notion of boundaryless solution and conventional architecture. It hard to say what is behind, but I wanted to speculate and connect it one of my previous articles – the end of single PLM database architecture is coming. To me it make sense – the amount of data is growing, companies are getting even more distributed, distributed design nature becomes a norm.

What is my conclusion? Existing tools and platforms limitation can slow down engineers and companies to innovate. Desktop tools and existing database architectures are limiting ways to implement and use them for new innovative process. Future PLM platforms will re-think existing design, product data management and business process paradigms by making them distributed and boundaryless. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Platform is a topic, which comes quite often in the discussion about future of PLM. CIMdata recently came with a topic of “platformization” in PLM. You can catch up on the discussion – A CIMdata dossier: PLM platformization. I can probably divide all existing PLM platforms into two groups – 2D/3D design platform and Object Database Modeling platform. Last year, I charted some of possible options for a foundation of future PLM platform – System Engineering, 2D/3D services, product development standards, New database technologies. From another standpoint, the debates about future PLM platforms are often raising a question of single vs. federated platform for PLM.

New technological trends and demands of customers can bring new platforms into PLM world. One of them is cloud storage. I touched cloud storage topic in my article – CAD companies and cloud storage strategies. One of the points was related to longevity of “cloud storage” business. Cloud companies want to store your data. It gives them an opportunity to understand your business better. However, the prediction is that cloud storage cost is eventually coming to zero. Which leaves cloud companies with the need to develop solutions to elevate productivity and improve collaboration and document creation. This is where it comes to PLM as a future platform for product innovation.

BOX is a company which is located at the intersection of cloud storage and enterprise business. My attention was caught by BI article – In One Slide, Box Explains What Everybody’s Getting Wrong About The Company. Here is the slide:

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Here is an interesting passage and conclusion from the article:

In an interview with Business Insider, Box CEO Aaron Levie said he knew storage business was going to turn into a commodity business back when he first started the company. Instead, he said he’s creating a platform business, where more value is added on top of things like storage, computing, and security. “It’s all about going into the top 8 to 10 industries and finding where are companies reimagining their business, where are they going digital, where are they transforming their business model, and how does Box act as a platform that could accelerate that push into the future,” he said. If the critics are right, Box is doomed. If Box is right, it has a chance at being a valuable enterprise company along the lines of Salesforce.

Looking on customers, partners and, especially BOX enterprise content collaboration platform, made me think about an interesting intersection between product lifecycle and BOX business. Of course BOX is not in the business of design and engineering software. However, enterprise collaboration has a significant overlap with what most of PLM platforms are providing – metadata, security, workflow, collaboration, content search. These are topics that always presented in PLM. It seems to me current focus of BOX is outside of manufacturing companies. However, maybe future BOX growth will take it towards manufacturing enterprises.

What is my conclusion? I don’t think BOX is focusing today on manufacturing companies. However, elements of BOX platform have a perfect sense when you think about product lifecycle collaboration. What is especially interesting is content collaboration on an enterprise scale. This is a topic, which most of PLM companies are struggling with. Existing PLM platforms have good representation in engineering domain, but lack of broad enterprise adoption. This is a place where future competition between PLM vendors and BOX (or similar companies) can occur. On the other side, BOX can become a platform to take PLM collaboration forward in enterprise companies. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Picture credits box.com

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Cloud is huge enabler for collaboration between people. It makes your data and processes accessible everywhere from a browser. It can help you to collaborate between engineers and suppliers. It can help you to integrate systems and people across enterprise.

Let me speak about the last one. The integration topic is actually tricky. I’ve been sharing some of my thoughts about cloud integration challenges – Integration is holding back PLM cloud adoption few months ago. Last week, I had a chance to attend two webinars about PLM and integration.

Become a Connected Manufacturing Enterprise with Agile Integration by Jitterbit. The following picture gives you a perspective on a problem of “connected manufacturing” and architecture solutions like Autodesk PLM360 and Jitterbit are solving this problem.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Here is the view that shows you the reality of mixed (cloud and on-premise) integrations.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Another webinar by CIMdata – “PLM & ERP: What’s the Difference, and Why Should you Care?” is providing another perspective on integration challenges between engineering an manufacturing.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Companies are moving into mixed cloud and on premise environment. This is a reality and we cannot avoid it. So, for a foreseeable future, we will have to deal with integration of multiple systems – some of them will continue to run on premises and some of them will be elsewhere (public cloud). It made me think about potential mistakes you can run into while integrating systems.

1- Lost data semantics

Most of integration scenarios are about how to send data back and forth between systems. It is hard to keep semantics of data and not to loose it when exchanging information. So, define what data means and keep an overall integration data schema. Otherwise, the result can be messy.

2- Data transfer limitation

Although some of integration infrastructure can allow you to implement data exchange quickly, you can underestimate the bandwidth requirements. Sending large packets of data can cause significant latency and create runtime errors and problems. Check what monitoring tools are available to handle such situations.

3- Transaction management

Most of manufacturing systems are sensitive to transactions. To manage distributed transactions can be tricky and require some fine tuning. Pay attention on how you handle error processing when integrating transaction system managing ordering, lifecycle and bill of materials.

What is my conclusion? The complexity of integration is growing. Cloud systems are bringing many advantages, but will create additional challenges to IT and professional services. Most of integrations are not working out of the box. New tools running from the cloud can help you to integrate it faster, but it will require good coordination with IT and planning upfront to prevent potential mistakes. Data integration is hard and requires experience and familiarity with manufacturing systems. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

photo credit: freefotouk via photopin cc

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

I’m returning home from CIMdata PLM market forum in Ann Arbor. For those of you who are not familiar with CIMdata and this event, take a moment of time and look here. Today’s event is the first in a row of "CIMdata world tour" to review 2014 PLM market analysis. You can see agenda and list of topics discussed at forum today. You can also take a look on the twitter stream here. The day was packed with information and it will take some time to digest it. The information about PLM market share, numbers, dynamics and vendors specific is available from CIMdata. PLM market grew up 6.8% in 2014 to $37.2B (vs. 5.8% forecast), which is obviously a good thing.

Two topics caught my special attention today – PLM "platformizaiton" and PLM "PLM obsolescence". I want to share my observations and thoughts about it after presentations and discussion at CIMdata forum.

PLM platformization

This is a new buzzword CIMdata is coming to discuss a broad trend in PLM industry. How existing PLM products and tools will be transformed into "business platforms"? In my view, the topic is important but controversial. It is going back to the reality of many PLM implementations – a diverse set of tools used by a company in a different areas of design, engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, etc. "Platformization" is a process, which supposed to run product development differently, innovate and transform PLM tools into new type of business process.

In my view, the discussion about platform is very important. It can make PLM industry more integrated and open. However, it raises many questions: 1/ What is a difference between business platform and integrated set of tools. 2/ How platforms delivered by PLM vendors will form a business platform for a specific customer; 3/ How multiple platforms will co-exist in a universe of large and small manufacturing companies.

According to CIMdata, "platformization" is not coming to replace PLM, but supposed to bring a better vision of PLM business and innovation.

PLM obsolescence

What is a lifecycle of PLM implementation? How often companies are replacing PLM systems? How to create a sustainable product development environment which will support manufacturing company for a period of product lifecycle (some of them are 25+ years)? These are very interesting and important questions.

Manufacturing companies are seriously concerned about sustainability of PLM platforms and tools. To replace PLM system was often a very painful process. Companies often considered this step only after PLM vendors stopped to develop and support PLM products. A traditional approach of "rip and replace" was criticized by customers, vendors and industry community. At the same time, vendors and customers didn’t find many alternatives to a brutal process of PLM platform replacements. In my view, cloud can impact PLM platform sustainability because of increased interest of vendors to support software lifecycle.

What is my conclusion? I found platformization and obsolescence topics connected. Here is the thing… Vendors and customers are concerned about sustainability and progress of PLM platform development. The "rip and replace" approach was always problematic for customers and manufacturing vendors. Even so, many vendors handled that in the past. We are coming to the point of time when customers won’t be able to afford a big bang PLM replacement processes. The fundamental issue is to rethink the way we are managing product lifecycle – existing PLM paradigm. Industry is looking how to make continues delivery of PLM platforms together with new solutions. Companies are more connected these days. Future PLM solutions should enable collaboration between different players in PLM eco-system and remain sustainable for a long time. Just my thoughts..

Best, Oleg

Image courtesy of KROMKRATHOG at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

CIMdata PLM forum yesterday was a good place to discuss ideas that from a first look can sound a bit crazy. One of them – how to rethink PLM. Wait… you can say. We just came to some sort of understanding about what is PLM and how to sell PLM values to management. There are enough references online from customers that sharing information about how to plan, implement and maintain PLM environment. Why do we need to rethink it?

Here is the thing. My attention caught by the results of the following poll during CIMdata forum (see below). What will be the biggest market disruptions. The results are a bit surprising. The future PLM disruption isn’t coming from cloud, social or new user devices. On the other side, new business models came to the focus.

So, what does it mean to PLM?

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

The simple and straightforward answer on this question – customers are looking for cheaper PLM licenses or subscriptions to ease future proliferation of PLM in an organization. It might be true and there is a demand to lower license cost. Now, imagine the dream- to license price of PLM is $0 (zero). Does it make a significant change in the way you think about PLM? Maybe a bit. But I don’t see the PLM adoption problem solved by doing that. Actually, there is one PLM vendor who is not selling PLM licenses, but selling optional subscription – Aras.com. There is high interest to discover new PLM business model developed by Aras, but other PLM vendors are catching up providing subscription based PLM licenses too. So, where is the problem?

One of things I want to discuss is implementation lifecycle. In other words what it takes organization to agree about PLM implementation. The first and most critical step in every PLM implementation is planning. This is a step when company is engaging with business and technical sales people. It is also the time when companies are actively collaborating internally and with PLM consultants to create and/or tailor PLM implementation plan. There is nothing wrong with that, but…. it takes time and it is very costly process. What is the alternative, you can ask? This is $1M question and I’m not sure have an answer.

However, here are some of my thoughts.

1- PLM planning and implementation should turn agile. For the last few years, agile became de-facto product development standard for software companies. PLM vendors and manufacturing companies should discover agile world for PLM implementations. It goes around 3 main things- how to start fast; how to capture data painlessly and how to solve interoperability problem. More thoughts about PLM agile practices here.

2- Take PLM away from corporate process alignment. There are no perfect companies (although some of my friends from manufacturing companies may disagree). Every company is messy in their own way. We should disconnect PLM implementations from solving corporate politics and internal conflicts. Easy to say, but hard to implement. In my view, focus on providing useful tools that company can leverage fast can be helpful.

3- Look on PLM as a tool to manage a complete product lifecycle. Today most of PLM implementations are starting in engineering department and crawl towards manufacturing and support organizations. PLM industry did it for the last decade and it is proven as complex and painful process. What if PLM tools will provide a way for company to manage product lifecycle by focusing on critical milestones – requirements, product data, marketing, design, manufacturing, supply chain, sales, support.

What is my conclusion? The existing paradigm of PLM is to focus on engineering lifecycle and resolving complexity of existing business processes. It is complex and has few critical points of failure. Crawling through corporate politics and conflicts to create process management tool is costly and slow. It is a time to rethink PLM with new paradigm of lifecycle management. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

It is hard overestimate the importance of Bill of Materials for product development. In my keynote at ProSTEP iViP symposium in Stuttgart earlier this month I’ve been sharing my thoughts why developing of single BOM across multiple disciplines in critical for organization. I wanted to bring few examples that can demonstrate why having a single BOM strategy can bring benefits to product development and manufacturing organization.

Earlier today, at Siemens PLM connection event in Dallas, I captured the following slide demonstrating an integrated approach in design, manufacturing, planning and production. What is really interesting is how as-design, as-planned and as-build views in PLM are integrated with design, manufacturing, planning and production.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Few days ago, I the following article by 3D CAD World article caught my attention – Progress in closing the product lifecycle’s loops  by Peter Bilello, president of CIMdata. The article speaks about the importance of collaboration across diverse enterprise groups.

For many years, the PLM industry has greatly benefited from a steady stream of improvements in collaboration among ever more diverse enterprise groups—in data interoperability, for example, and in the transparency of workflows and processes. The development, manufacture and support of globally competitive new products are, however, still hamstrung by the remaining open loops new and old.

Later in the article it came to the topic I was looking for – Bill of Materials. According to article, BOM is a biggest remaining challenge to make integration running smooth. Here is the passage, which explains that.

Between engineering, manufacturing and finance, a big remaining challenge is the bill of materials (BOM) in its many forms—the as-designed BOM, the as-engineered BOM, the as-manufactured BOM, and so on. Generated and managed with PLM and often executed by enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, BOMs themselves are loop closers. PLM-ERP connectivity and interoperability are steadily improving, but some open-loop issues are resolved only after time consuming face-to-face meetings.

What is my conclusion? Single BOM could be a great thing if vendors will figure out how to implement that. As you can learn from Biello’s article, PLM-ERP has open-loop issue and BOM is a tool to close that. However, companies are concerned about bringing single BOM strategy since it can raise lot of organizational challenges for them. At the same time, the demand for better integration and collaboration can put companies in front of decision to bring single BOM to close open loops between engineering, manufacturing and production anyway. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

I’ve been following CIMdata PLM roadmap for HTE event on twitter yesterday. Navigate to the following link if you want to see tweets. One of the topic that CIMdata put on the agenda was “PLM platformization”. You can take a deep look on what is behind CIMdata’s fancy definition of “platformization” by navigating to the following link – A CIMdata Dossier: PLM Platformization. According to Peter Bilello of CIMdata, platformization is the future of PLM.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

It made me think about the trajectory of PLM implementations in most of manufacturing organizations that already have some PLM experience. My hunch is that most of manufacturing companies in the world that are able to grasp the idea of PLM implementations already made at least 1-2 attempts to implement PLM. Some of these companies are probably running more than one PLM systems because of legacy, M&A or other reasons.

I cannot resist by placing the following “spaghetti” system picture below tweeted by Stan Przybylinski. I guess this is a very typical representation of how processes are managed using existing legacy software and bunch services.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

It made me think how “platformization” will solve a problem of PLM implementations. According to CIMdata, the challenge is a gap in PLM, which is created between vision, technology and implementation. I couldn’t agree more. The dilemma is always between vision and the next step. Some people want to see a big picture, some people just want to focus on the next step. PLM vendors clearly focused on a big picture and missed the next step.

ZDNet article Legacy tech can kill the CIO by Michael Krigsman gives you a very interesting perspective on how organizations are adopting new technologies. I like the following passage:

The cost of maintaining legacy infrastructures can crowd-out the company’s investment in new technology. Research from Forrester indicates that only 28 percent of IT investment goes toward innovation; the remainder supports old technology. Users may resist adopting new technology even when better alternatives are available. The so-called diffusion of innovation is an old problem, identified in a book first published in 1962, by Everett M. Rogers.

The former chief technology officer of Portugal Telecom, Manuel Rosa da Silva, said: Our legacy holds us back. Hiding all this legacy is like putting on cosmetic cream to hide wrinkles. Unless you take a machete to your legacy and kill applications, you won’t get anywhere.

What is my conclusion? Manufacturing companies invested tons of money and resources in the implementations of PLM systems. It allowed to gather experience and learn from mistakes. I think companies achieved great results too. I know many examples of brilliant PLM implementations. However, what is not clear for most of manufacturing companies today is how to make a next step into future of PLM and new platforms. For many companies it sounds like one more commitment to invest 5 years and millions of dollars into replacement of existing PLM assets. The question about platformization is coming exactly here and it look likes big picture is still not connected with the next step. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Picture credit ZDNet article and Workday

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

For the last decade, many industries learned lesson or two about disruption and how internet and other technologies can change the reality of their businesses. It happened to publishing and newspapers. The way we consume news is radically different (although we still can see printed newspapers around). Uber and Airbnb are leading the trend of changes transportation and hospitality business.

I think changes are coming to manufacturing too. For the last few decades, manufacturing became global with companies leveraging market, design, engineering and manufacturing facilities located around the globe. The growing specialization in specific manufacturing verticals created industry of contract manufacturers and suppliers. Most of these companies are acting like independent entities, obeying some rules and trying to optimize their behavior.

Small is a new big. You don’t have to be a large company with established manufacturing facilities to manufacture things today. New production technologies and global manufacturing environment created a new opportunity for small teams and companies to innovate to create new products. But these small entities have to be organized in a different way. Hence an increased demand for collaboration, communication and optimization.

Next month, I’m going to learn more about new manufacturing and innovation at CIMdata workshop – A CIMdata Collaborative Innovation & Product Development Workshop. The detailed agenda is here. I’m super excited to join an group of innovation leaders Taylor Dawson of FirstBuild, John B. “Jay” Rogers of Local Motors and Dr. Svetlana Dimovski of BASF and to share my thoughts and learn about future of manufacturing in a new connected world.

Here is a short passage from CIMdata workshop introduction:

With rapid advances in digital technology and hyper-connectivity around the globe, the early 21st century has all the signs of a transitional time with no clear pathway to the future. Complexity is increasing as familiar boundaries are being altered forever and information is growing exponentially. While PLM has been embraced by many as a successful business strategy and more recently has emerged as a platform for innovation, significant challenges remain. Companies want to embed business processes with intelligent workflows in the tools to help easily identify experts, get close to customers, collaborate externally with partners, and reduce operational cycles with better internal collaboration, yet they struggle with strategic, cultural, and technology questions.

It made me think about future relation of manufacturing and networks. The dependence on networks in our lives is growing every day and is not just limited to communication. Manufacturing companies are going to have a lesson of networked world. It will be impossible to optimize the performance of single manufacturing entity without relevant network information. It will not happen overnight. Companies will try to get connected and operate more intelligently. Those companies that will be able to transform into new connected reality and leverage the power of network will create a significant competitive differentiation for themselves.

What is my conclusion? Networks made a transformative influence on the way we live, work, and conduct business. Increasingly manufacturing companies are leveraging market, design, engineering, and facilities located around the globe. The networking paradigm will apply to manufacturing companies and will be transformative. The growing specialization in specific manufacturing verticals will create a new type of manufacturing company, one that is capable of leveraging networks, allowing them to optimize performance, improve collaboration, and reduce cost. Intelligent PLM software with a networked mind can provide a competitive power to future manufacturing. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image courtesy of watcharakun at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

We love to speak about latest gadget features and disruptive technologies. Earlier this month, CNet posted about “telepresence robot” is currently holding a place for a woman in Sydney who will be one of the first in the world to own Apple’s latest smartphone. Wow… it sounds great, but here is an immediate disappointment – the new smartphone biggest difference is invisible.

Stories about enterprise software progress and innovation can disappoint too. Companies are spending huge amount of money on sales and marketing activities to demonstrate their financial strength and vendor sustainability. Dreamforce 2015 was one of the biggest enterprise software conference in the world organized by Salesforce.com. A very interesting data point about the event is here – Dreamforce has almost become bigger than Salesforce and it accounts for more than half of annual revenues.

Over the weekend, I read the article – You Call this Progress? I liked the article. The following conclusion passage was my favorite:

I think we should admit that our hypothetical 1885 person would be more bewildered by the passage of 65 years than the 1950 “modern” human. I think we should admit that the breathtaking pace of major breakthroughs has actually declined. That’s different from stopping, note. I think we need to take our energy predicament seriously, and acknowledge that we have few new ideas and don’t have any consensus on how to design our future infrastructure given the pieces we already know very well.

It made me think about PLM development progress. It is impossible to track 100 years back for PLM, but I can honestly think about comparison between 1995 and 2015 which can give us solid 20 years distance of innovation. And to be more specific about what is PLM, my commentary is specifically about what CIMdata defines as cPDM.

No question – PLM software is getting better. We finally got enterprise software vendors to acknowledge the importance of user interface importance. And you cannot ask to tolerate bad performance. For the last 2-3 years, all PLM vendors came to the agreement about importance of “cloud technologies” and the fact companies will be interested how to bypass hardware purchase and to use system hosted somewhere. But the problem is that after all PLM tech innovation companies still need to spend time and effort to get these systems “implemented” and adopted. Which highlights the fact traditional PLM reached their limits – costly, slow ROI and hard to bring new business functions.

I’ve been sharing my thoughts about PLM and manufacturing in a networked world last week at CIMdata Collaborative Innovation & Product Development Workshop in Louisville, Kentucky. Here is a slide from my presentation:

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

In a nutshell, 20 years ago and now, PLM (cPDM) was about two main things – to define data model and to set workflow processes. Then spend time on importing of legacy data and synchronizing between silos. The marketing changed, but these fundamental things remained unchanged.

The problem with “data+workflow” PLM vision is that humans (especially engineers) often have a tough time expressing exactly what they want. Items, parts, classes, business objects, data models, workspaces, primary identificators, attributes, characteristic, parameters, classification, links, references, semantics, data model, information model, knowledge model, etc. Also, very often, humans may not know what the heck they want. Many decisions have political flavor and when PLM system is usually stays for at least 10 years, for many people the decision is still about “no one ever got fired for buying IBM”.

What is my conclusion? If I bring engineers from 1995 into today their biggest surprise might be actually large flat screens. Enterprise systems changed very little and for many companies and still managing data with Excel spreadsheets. It is still hard to grasp the idea of how to implement PLM system. The data model of items, parts, documents, bill of materials, changes still looks the same. And it is still enormously hard move data between people, systems and organizations. Perhaps this is something to think about before inventing new PLM buzzword. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Last week I traveled to Louisville, KY to attend CIMdata collaborative innovation and product development workshop. The agenda is here. Two presentation in the agenda caught my special interest.

One was a presentation by Taylor Dawson, evangelist at FirstBuild Product Development in the Age of the Internet. FirstBuild is an interesting outfit created by GE Appliances and Local Motors. It is a new model for appliance industry, engaging a community of industrial engineers, scientists, engineers, makers and early adopters to address tough engineering challenges.

What does it mean in a nutshell? The following two slides can give you an idea. The main point is the fact interaction between engineers, manufacturing and customers. It leverage flexibility of microfactory approach and agility of communication in the internet era.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

The second presentation was done by Local Motors co-founder and CEO Jay Rogers. Named – Welcome to Local Motors and the Third Industrial Revolution: The story of Local Motors and the 3D Printed Car, it gave a very interesting perspective on how Local Motors is innovating via collaboration in distributed global community.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

The thing that bold in both examples is distributed community. PLM industry vendors are talking about communities for the last 5 years. There is a chance you’ve heard about “social PLM” in the past. It failed without getting much traction.

Thoughts about distributed communities made me think about networks as an organization behind the community of engineers, makers, contract manufacturers and suppliers. Here is a slide from my presentation at CIMdata workshop.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

You can ask what is the difference between this picture and what we have now. Aerospace, automotive and other industries are relying heavily on a network of suppliers already today. Here is the thing – the PLM paradigm behind current OEM/Supply chain relationships is database driven. Look behind the scene and you will see large PLM databases spinning in data centers with expensive PLM implementations. Nothing wrong with databases, but single RDBM architecture cannot scale endlessly.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

With cloud and IoT technologies the trend towards distributed computing and network organization is coming. If you have some time, navigate the following interview with A16z partner Peter Levine on why mobile phones are future of datacenters. It speaks about future distributed computing architecture trends. Here is an interesting passage:

I think it’s very early, but I can see a world where endpoint distributed computing becomes more popular, just like we saw when corporate IT shifted from mainframes and onto workstations and PCs. Are there hot projects right now? Not yet, but I’m starting to see university work being done in this area.

There’s also a very interesting trend, relating to the relationship between datacenters and endpoint computing. If you look back over the history of computing, it started as mainframes or terminals. As PCs or work stations became prevalent, computing moved to the edge and we had applications that took advantage of edge computing, and the CPU and processing power at the edge. Cloud computing brought things back to the center. There has been an ebb and flow in enterprise IT, of centralized versus distributed.

Distributed architecture combined with memory-centric storage can end up with new type of data architecture. An interesting example I captured in the article – Tachyon project – memory-centric distributed storage system enabling reliable data sharing at memory-speed across cluster frameworks.

What is my conclusion? Distributed teams, data and networks – these are reality of new manufacturing environment and initiatives. These realities will demand for PLM abstraction different from single PLM databases managing processes in large manufacturing organization. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.