The Expanding PLM Footprint and Impact on Innovation

The second law of thermodynamics states that everything is getting less organized, or something like that. If one gazes upon my desk they will see this law in action. It may not be obvious, but there is order in the seeming disorder of my desk. PLM has also been growing, expanding, and developing new solutions to provide opportunities for improved innovation. In the apparent disorder of all the new solutions and technologies there is an opportunity to enhance innovation, and take advantage of new and better methods for product development.

The first reason for this expansion of PLM is that the PLM vendors would like to provide a complete solution that can take your product from conception through to manufacturing. This is a huge challenge  for most companies, and very few have realized the holy grail of complete PLM deployment across the enterprise. Of course, today there are many PLM vendors that can provide a large part of the product development requirements. There are still gaps, but if you want to rely on one vendor's solution set for product development, you will have several very good options.

The second reason PLM is expanding is that today we have many new technologies that can support innovation. These new technologies have the potential to revolutionize the way we do product design, and allow a more seamless and streamlined process. Implementing these solutions will not be easy nor quick, but starting today will allow you to be ahead of your competition. A few of these new technologies are:

• The Cloud (Not really new, but the application of this technology is having a big impact)
• Social Tools (How will they impact PLM? The jury is still out)
• The Internet of Things (Lots of options here, but it will require an effort by many groups)
• Big Data/Analytics (There is so much information to analyze. How do we do it?)
• 3D Printing (Also not new, but the new materials and uses are making this a reality)
• Mobile Devices (Potentially allows global teams to collaborate more easily)

The list could go on. New technologies provide a way to increase the amount of innovation you put into your products while at the same time preparing you to take advantage of any other new technologies that may appear. If you still do much of your data management with MS Excel spreadsheets, and rely on disconnected silos for data management you will not be able to take advantage of these new technologies. PLM expansion is an opportunity for greater innovation and inefficiencies in product development, just don't look at my desk.

Would you like to learn more about the expanding footprint of PLM and how new technologies can support your product innovation? Then join me for a FREE webinar on September 10 at 11:00 AM to hear more details about these important topics. I'm sure you have nothing better to do.

Go here to register for this excellent FREE webinar!

Cheers,

Jim

RIP: The Death of the PC?

Is the PC dead? How will the next generation of computing look? What impact will this have on PLM? I was thinking about all of these as I read a recent article: So If The PC Is Dying, What Happens With Microsoft Next? I want to change the title to: So If The PC Is Dying, What Happens With PLM Next? What do you think is the answer? I like this quote from the article:

"What PC decline really reflects are changes in the innovation cycle and changes in the workplace. It also illustrates how desktop behavior, just like our preferences on smartphones, has migrated to apps and away from enterprise software suites."

Another great article on this topic, "The PC is Not Dead. Yet." by John C. Dvorak of PC Magazine talks about how technology has made the PC almost too good. What I think he means is that the hardware has gotten so good with storage, display, and other options being good enough for many years to come; there is no good reason to buy a new one. I like this quote from the article:

"The last nail in the dead PC coffin comes from the PC itself. The personal computer, for all practical purposes committed suicide."

Paradigm Shift

No matter where you stand on this issue, there is no way to ignore the paradigm shift that is happening across the computing industry. New, more portable devices with lots of power are in user's hands. Every day we see new ways to use apps, the cloud, big data, and other technologies to make computing easier. The old style of computing is wearing thin: monolithic programs that are hard to learn, infrequent updates, and resource hogs.

COFES 2013

Even Microsoft (MS) is starting to get into the game, at least as far as devices are concerned. At the recent COFES 2013, MS was there presenting Windows 8 and CAD/PLM applications running on 12+ devices. With Windows 8 on many devices you can now start using full-powered PLM solutions on laptops, tablets, phablets, and probably many other devices in the near future.

Collaboration Unchained

What does this mean for PLM? I don't have all the answers yet, but I think it will have a big impact on collaboration, for one thing. In the past, unless you had a powerful workstation at your disposal, you could not really participate in the PLM activities at most companies. Now there will be more opportunities for many people to interact and share information as the design process progresses. Like crowd-sourcing, this will provide the ability to entertain more new ideas, from more people, and include more options in your design process.

Vendors Beware

Vendors had better get ready for the brave new world of PLM. In the future there will be far less toleration for monolithic programs that require tons of resources to support design activities. Users will expect more app-like behavior, and more simplified interactions with information on many devices. Those vendors that persist in offering the same old style of solutions for PLM may see their customers going somewhere else to find a much better PLM experience.

Conclusion

So, what direction is your company taking with PLM? Are you looking for a better way to do things? The technology is coming...are you ready?

What do you think?

Cheers,

Jim

Is Your Business Ready for PLM?

Ready, set go! The race to implement PLM has started. Many people will approach PLM implementations like a sprint, when in reality it's a marathon. Successfully implementing any technology in your business is challenging, but PLM is especially tricky. That's because PLM is a strategic decision, not just software; and PLM never ends! There are also many people that must be involved to achieve PLM success.

What can you do to make sure your business is ready to get the most out of PLM? Here are some key areas that you can evaluate to see if you are ready for PLM success:

1) Executive Support - If you do not get support from a high level executive sponsor for PLM, you won't make if very far. PLM is a strategic activity with an enterprise vision, and it means that it must be supported from the very top of your organization.

2) Organizational Support - There will be many organizations that need to be part of the overall PLM implementation. If you do not have support from key people in all of your organizations, you will struggle to successfully implement PLM.

3) User Support - Do you have a good plan to involve your users in the PLM selection process, and a good Cultural Change Management Plan to continue interactions with users after the initial implementation?

4) IT Support - Like it or not, PLM technology will involve a large amount of commitment from your IT organization. If they are not on board, or if they just look at PLM as another piece of software to install, you really won't get very far with your PLM implementation.

5) Education - Are all of the people involved with PLM properly educated? If you educate right from the beginning, you will get much better success with your PLM implementation. All of the above people need PLM education so that there is no confusion about what PLM is, and how it can benefit your business.

There are obviously more aspects of PLM to consider, but these are some of the key items you must evaluate BEFORE you dash off on your PLM race.

What areas of PLM are you working on today?

Cheers,

Jim

How Will Collaboration Look in the Future?

If you're like me, you expected flying cars, personal jet-packs, and robot butlers by the year 2012; where are they? Like many predictions of the future, these did not come to pass. I will just keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

I read an interesting article recently titled: "Were they right? 25 years ago, science thinkers predicted the world in 2012". The answer to the question, "were they right", is no. They were not right. Most of their predictions were wrong, and were based on the world having about 1 Billion more people than it does today. However, it was interesting to see what people thought would happen in the future.

Another article that I read recently talked about collaboration, and looked at the many technologies that will impact our interactions in the future. This article was called: "The Changing Face of Collaboration - A CIMdata Commentary". Those guys at CIMdata really know their stuff! I should know, I'm one of them.

No matter how cynical you are about what the future holds, you cannot ignore some of the powerful changes that are impacting the way we collaborate. Social and mobile tools are generating tons of valuable information; this value can only be realized with strong data collaboration tools. Companies are being forced to address these issues by social-savvy consumers wielding smart phones, tablets, and other collaboration devices. In the future, companies that rely on PLM to develop products for these consumers will be required to interact in different ways than the standard email tools employed today.

How this will be done in the future is still an open question, but there are many companies working on this today. Nuage is one of those companies, and their approach to collaboration will have an impact on how we interact in the future. I liked the following passage:

"Some companies, such as Nuage (www.go-nuage.com), are offering social computing solutions as their product. This trend is a clear indication of what is to come. As the demand for more natural ways of finding, communicating, and collaborating on product data continues to increase, today’s PLM solution providers need to continue to adjust or they will not be part of the solution, but rather an example of other legacy systems–systems that today’s social media-savvy workers will bypass."

The trend is clear. If you want your business to be around in the future to enjoy flying cars, personal jet-packs, and robot butlers, you must learn how to adopt these new collaboration tools. No one knows exactly what it will be like in the next 25 years, but those who fail to adopt these new technologies will likely be no more than a smudged footnote.

What do you think. Do you have any good predictions for the next 25 years?

Let me know what you think.

-Jim

How Will Social Media Technology Impact PLM?

I just read an article (Read it here, if you like) that highlights the amazingly fast rise of Pinterest as a social media site. I also found some interesting statistics about people's experiences with social media:

• 91% of today’s online adults use social media regularly
• 300,000+ businesses have a presence on Facebook
• 28% of smartphone owners watch video on their phone in a typical month
• It has been found:
• $15,000 in direct mail = 200 new customers
• $7500 in billboard ads = 300 new customers
• $0 spent on Twitter = 1,800 new customers
• Only 18% of traditional TV ads generate a positive ROI

Facebook, Youtube, and eBay were the three top brand searches in 2011. The most popular social networks are Facebook, Twitter, and moving into third place, Pinterest; pushing Linkedin to number four.

Facebook is #1 today: 1 in 4 page views are on Facebook. Second is Youtube for video content, and finally Google is third. What this means is that if you don't have a presence on Facebook, or Youtube, then you are missing many of the eyeballs that you need to make money.

If you have a blog, or a traditional web presence, then you need to make sure people can link between your various social personas easily and quickly; many companies do not understand this yet. Mobility is also a strong trend, as more and more people log into the internet from smart-phones, iPads, Kindles, and other mobile devices. If your web site looks like a steaming pile of moose poo-poo on a mobile device, then you will not get the kind of traction you are hoping for from your web site.

Companies are not only working on their traditional web presence, but some of the heavy-weights are getting into the social media space big-time. SAP just bought Ariba for $4.3 billion to support the cloud and mobility, Salesforce.com bought Buddy Media for $690 million, and Oracle just bought Vitrue for $300 million and then they bought Collective Intellect, all to support social clouds, mobility, and social analytics.

All of these new technologies will have a big impact on PLM. The way your users collaborate will change dramatically in the next 5 years: We will go from a predominantly email collaboration model to a cloud-based social platform model; We will see a much stronger push for mobile access to all information; We will see the emergence of Social PLM. These changes will help you, or your competitors, to be more efficient and productive; which, is up to you.

What changes do you see coming in your business?

Cheers

-Jim

Making Connections at PLM Connection 2012

I recently spent several days at the Siemens PLM Connnection 2012 event in Las Vegas. Luckily, I did not lose all my money and end up in a ditch. I also did not sell my hair to a wig shop; but I digress. Despite all the distractions there, I was able to learn a lot of new things. There were tons and tons of sessions to choose from and a lot of good information was shared; three of the sessions were actually mine (below), so I am a bit biased.

CIMdata PLM University Session 1
CIMdata PLM University Session 2
CIMdata PLM University Session 3

Most importantly I met some great people! We often follow people on Twitter, or read blogs, or watch videos, but often we don't actually meet many of the people we follow. Two of the people I met there were Susan Cinadr (@susancinadr) and Dora Smith (@dorsmith). I have followed both of these interesting people for several months on Twitter, and now I have actually met them; they are much nicer in person, by the way.

There are many lessons one could take a way from PLM Connection 2012. What stands out for me is the amazing breadth and depth of PLM technologies available today. A popular Chinese saying, "May you live in interesting times", was actually an ancient curse. All the options for PLM today might seem daunting, but there is no reason to worry when you have an event like PLM Connection where you can learn as much as you want.

These are certainly interesting times for PLM. There are new technologies like cloud computing, big data analysis, mobility, gamification, social PLM, and others that will make big impacts. I look forward to seeing what Siemens PLM will do in the future to support these and other exciting technologies.

For me, PLM Connection 2012 provided a peek into the expanding world of PLM, and provided a lot of food for thought. I look forward to future events where I can continue to connect with my social peeps!

Cheers,

-Jim