PLM and Big Data: the Wave is Coming!

This morning, after getting myself together and reading some email, I happened upon this article from The IBM Smarter Computing Blog. One of the impressive facts in this blog was: "IDC predicts that the digital universe will grow to 2.7 zettabytes in 2012, up 48% from 2011. And by 2015, we may be looking at 8 zettabytes of data. Zettabytes are huge, equaling one sextillion bytes, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes."

It was an interesting article! I was impressed by the amount of information that is generated every day. Now, I knew there was a lot of information out there (and, I am adding to it with this blog), but I really had no idea how fast it was multiplying. I even learned a few new words, zettabyte, and yottabyte. It seems like we completely skipped exabytes and petabytes, but, no matter. I remember thinking a Gigabyte was large: wimpy!

Then, I read an article on the Inforbix blog (@olegshilovitsky) about virtual data organization. The big data issues for PLM businesses and PLM vendors in the future are, well, BIG. Imagine, right now there are employees and customers out there creating information about your products: blogs, Facebook posts, Linkedin posts, Youtube videos, many tweets, and more. These posts are happening on internal and external sites at your company. How can you get a handle on all that information, and use it as a competitive weapon? These are the questions that we need to ask.

This week at the CIMdata 2012 PLM Market & Industry Forum (#PLM4um) we will review the PLM market numbers from 2011, and talk about new technologies that will be impacting PLM in the future. Big data is one of those new areas for PLM. Imagine the PLM vendor who is able to create solutions that don't just manage, but track, gather, analyze, and provide insight to all this information. Whoever can do this will have a solution that customers will want to buy.

We are starting to see many people work on these issues, but the future is wide open for anyone with the guts and creativity to grab it!

What do you think?

PLM Education is the Key to Innovation, and Golf

It's that time of year again! The time when we brush the cobwebs off of our golf clubs, and hit the links in search of a good round. "This is the year that I will shoot really low", you say. What happens after that is usually not pretty.

For example, the other day I was standing in the rough, contemplating how to hit a 5-iron under a tree onto a well-bunkered green 160 yards away. At that moment, I wished there was someone knowledgeable standing next to me who could help me with this challenging shot. Someone like Jack Nicklaus, or Phil Mickelson (who, by the way, is an expert with these types of shots since he gets them all the time). What I lacked at that moment was enough knowledge to successfully execute my vision of hitting a low fade under the tree that would clear the bunker and land on the green.

PLM implementations are a lot like golf, minus the tree, and the bunker, and the honking big divot. When you begin a PLM implementation there are many things you cannot know or anticipate. Sadly, all of your colleagues are in the same boat with you: they haven’t done a PLM implementation before either. This is when PLM knowledge can really come in handy. What you need is someone that can help you understand and navigate all the challenges you will encounter. You need an expert who has been there; many, many, times. Learning from trusted experts is always better than making many of your own mistakes, because it lowers risk, and increases your odds of success.

PLM education is a great way to provide the best chance of success. PLM education provides your key personnel with knowledge to make your PLM implementation more successful. A successful PLM implementation of any size will support increased innovation. It has been proven that an organizations ability to enable innovation provides a competitive advantage. Educated employees are your greatest assets because they drive innovation. Once your people are trained, they will be able to navigate the sand bunkers, rivers, lakes, and other twists and turns that will potentially get in your way (metaphorically speaking).

PLM education will teach your key people how to transform intellectual assets into innovative deliverable assets. They will also learn how to evaluate and choose the right PLM solutions, how to schedule and sequence various PLM implementation activities, how to gauge the value of the PLM solutions, how to put tools in place for on-going measurements, and many other things. Mostly, they will learn to make any PLM implementation a success, and this will drive your innovation down the middle of the fairway, so to speak.

So, the next time you’re behind a tree, think of PLM education. Then, get out your 5-iron, and give the ball a good whack!

Let me know what you think!

How Does PLM Support Innovation?

Do you ever wish your products were more innovative? Have you ever looked at your product design process and thought that it was not very efficient? Have you ever wished they would shoot the new iPad full of holes? (you can see that here). Innovation is required to produce better products and delight your customers. PLM is the key to your journey down the road to enhanced innovation.

Innovation is an important topic; most people will agree that it is the key to America's future. Just ask any of the candidates currently stumping for your vote in November. A recent Time Magazine article was titled: "The Future of Innovation: Can America Keep Pace?" That's a very good question, and one that PLM is here to answer. In fact, without the use of PLM, it will be very hard for America to keep pace with the rest of the world.

PLM supports the three pillars of innovation: People, processes and technology. Without support for all three, there will be little chance of innovation, and limited ability to produce really cool, new products that cause customers to say: "Woweeee"!

Most people only think of innovation in terms of cool products, but innovation can take on many forms: product, process, markets, service offerings, customer interactions, and so on. There are many ways to provide innovation to a new market or customer. Anything that establishes, maintains, or enhances your market position, or provides a product or process differentiation, or improves customer satisfaction/retention, or excites people, partners, and customers is innovation.

One of the great strengths of PLM is it manages your intellectual assets. When these assets are managed properly with PLM, people are free to use technology to come up with very cool new products. PLM allows workers to focus on multiple iterations of products in a shorter time early in the design process. This leads to higher quality, innovative products that get to market faster. Without PLM, people are often at the mercy of technology, and innovation is the last item on their task list.

So, as you make the journey towards more innovative products, processes, and services, take a look at PLM. This is where your journey will start, and where it will end, as you manage your virtual and delivered assets. It might take an investment of time and money, but in the end it will be well worth your efforts.

What do you think? Are you trying to be more innovative in the coming year?

@PLMJim

Why Should you Attend the CIMdata 2012 PLM Market & Industry Forum

There's a new day dawning in PLM. New technologies and a new vision of the future are promising to dramatically alter the way people and technology interact. Those vendors and companies that understand how to exploit these new opportunities will leap-frog the competition.

The CIMdata 2012 PLM Market & Industry Form will provide a one-of-a-kind opportunity for PLM solution providers to come together and examine the industry's performance, gauge its progress, and set the vision for its future. This forum is regarded as the premier industry event for PLM solution providers of all sizes. If you plan to sell PLM in 2012 you cannot afford to miss this opportunity; your competitors will be there, so don't get left behind.

I believe we are witnessing a "rebirth" of PLM and new technologies. There are many vendors that have no clue about these new technologies; They will be left behind when the dust settles. As Oleg Shilovitsky said in one of his recent blogs, "PLM is fun again!" Don't miss out on all the fun!

As a vendor, PLM is fun when many people want to buy more of your software. With the opportunity to exploit the cloud, social technologies, big data, better search, mobility, and a host of other tools, the PLM footprint can be expanded and radically altered in the future. The way we interact with our product design processes, and develop products for manufacturing will be altered greatly during the next 5 years. As a vendor, you will either be part of these new opportunities, or you will be out of business.

So, I encourage you to attend the CIMdata 2012 Market and Industry Forum. If you need further proof, watch this very excellent video to learn more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_zuYaB7TKE&feature=colike

Or, you can go to cimdata.com to get the full treatment!

I hope to see you there!

PDM & PLM: What's the Difference?

Recently I have witnessed several discussions on Twitter, Facebook, the China Garden Buffet (Yum!), and a few other places about the difference between PDM and PLM. Many people use these two acronyms interchangeably, and I think some people are confused. PDM and PLM are not the same and it is important to understand the differences.

Product Data Management (PDM) has been around for a long time. When 2D CAD systems were first developed, we quickly learned that they are very good at one thing: creating lots and lots of files. As 3D CAD became popular, and more and more product information became a large collection of CAD files, it was hard for people to keep track of all this data. So, PDM systems were developed to allow check-in and check-out of these files from a secure vault. This is the reason that most early PDM systems were nothing more than CAD data vault mangers. These PDM solutions not only kept track of relationships between parts and assemblies, but also prevented multiple people from working on the same files at the same time. Thus, PDM became the way that design files were vaulted, tracked, and managed.

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is a relatively new term that was coined to include the full gamut of tools and methodologies that are used to manage the virtual product during the entire lifecyle (go here to see our simplest definition of PLM). A more detailed definition of PLM from CIMdata is: "The collaborative creation, use, management and dissemination of product related intellectual assets." Remember, PLM is not just about technology, it is a strategic business approach that includes innovation around products AND processes. PLM supports the extended enterprise and spans the full product lifecycle from concept to end of life. Without properly managed intellectual assets, it is impossible to consistently infuse new products and processes with innovation.

Now that we have defined PDM and PLM, I think we can clearly see the differences. PDM is a subset of PLM; It includes the management of intellectual asset information and their relationships. PDM is an important basic requirement that supports PLM, and you cannot do PLM without PDM. PLM includes asset creation through CAD, Analysis, Digital Manufacturing, Documentation, Images, Software, etc...there is generally no creation of intellectual assets in PDM. There are usually few collaboration capabilities within PDM. However, a strong foundation for PLM starts with a comprehensive and strong PDM solution.

The confusion between these terms, I think, often comes in the way people choose to use them. Many companies, and even vendors, will call the selection and implementation of a PDM system PLM. While it is true, in a sense, that the first step on the long PLM road is putting a strong PDM solution in place, that is only one small piece of the PLM puzzle. There will still need to be much work done on configuration management, visualization and DMU, collaboration, digital manufacturing, integrations (ERP, MES, CRM, SCM...), and on, and on, and on...along with all the business process innovation work that will be required.

I could go into more detail, but it gets complex and I need to go get some Chinese food now; I'm starving!

So, where are you on the path to PLM?

Is the Cloud a Panacea for PLM Deployment?

I was following the recent announcement of Autodesk PLM 360. The announcement appears to include a host of good tools for any company to use that will help them deploy PLM. The solution is "insanely configurable" with more than 140 apps available. PLM applications such as Project Management, Change Management, Supplier Management, and Design Reviews were mentioned. These applications are templates that the customer can configure to match their business processes. A learning curve of  "3 days" was referenced, and ease of use is clearly one of the key benefits for this technology.

This all sounds great but one thing worries me: companies might get the mistaken notion that in order to start using PLM, all you need is new cloud technology: the cloud is mysterious, the cloud is awesome and powerful, it must have the answer!

We already have PLM technology literally coming out of our ears, yet most companies still struggle to deploy PLM. Why is that? We surely need PLM solutions that are easier to use, maintain, and deploy. Having a PLM solution based on the cloud can theoretically remove many of the challenges that face the average PLM customer: hardware upgrades, user support, software installation, maintenance, and a host of other potential challenges.

However, I hope Autodesk customers don't get the mistaken idea that all you need to do to implement PLM is sign up for Autodesk PLM 360, and Whalla! you have PLM. Implementing PLM properly at any company is a process that must be planned and approached properly to gain good results. I am always afraid someone might get the idea that PLM has just been made simple. All PLM vendors like to sell their technology as so simple even a caveman can do it (I think that's the wrong vendor). PLM is not simple! Implementing PLM properly is not simple! You can do small, simple parts of PLM, like data vaulting or visualization, and work on it step by step, but implementing PLM requires a good plan and a determination to follow that plan through to the end.

One of the challenges for Autodesk is that many of their users are familiar with 2D/3D CAD and basic CAD Vault data management, but they are less familiar with other important concepts of PLM, such as configuration mangement, structure management, classification mangement, DMU, and other PLM concepts that span the enterprise, like digital manufacturing. They will also need to raise the level of PLM understanding that currently exists within their partners who will ultimately sell this solution. So, what is to be done?

I believe the key to any PLM deployment is training. Before launching off into the PLM space, you and your team need to be trained about PLM. Training allows you to understand the importance and power of PLM to support innovation: not just product innovation, but process innovation as well. A company should always consider their business processes, industry, competitors, users, and company goals before choosing technology for PLM. If you choose technology first, automate out-dated, inefficient processes, and push information up to the cloud, that will not support innovation. Making process innovation changes that support the work you want your people to do first will allow the new technology included in the AutodekPLM360 solution to make a real difference in any business.

I know where to get PLM training, do you?

Who Needs Product Lifecycle Management?

People seemingly cannot agree on who really needs Product Lifecycle Management, or PLM.  What is my response? EVERY business needs PLM! Why, you ask, well, let me tell you.

Every business has a large pile of information that supports their products. It may be in the form of paper, but thankfully today, most businesses have a large amount of digital information that supports their business. Managing that virtual information is what allows the company to continue delivering products and support to their customers. PLM is all about managing virtual information to support physical products.

Some people believe that only companies with very large, or very complex products need PLM. Of course, these large companies need PLM because it is impossible for them to manage all the information that is required to build their products. However, with the increasing speed required for new product introductions, with the increasing pressure of global competitors, and with the increased complexity of all products, every business can be improved with the benefits of PLM.

PLM supports the virtual product, no matter what that product is. You may not have 3D CAD models of your product, but you do have a Bill of Information of some type that is used to create your product. Whether you have recipes, or formulas, or patterns, or unique process steps, or whatever, there is some type of information that must be managed. This is true whether you are a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker. And, all businesses want to capture feedback from customers no matter what the products or deliverable.

For example, let’s say you run a cupcake business. Your final product is a tasty cupcake that customers will eat. Now, after the cupcake is eaten, you don’t wanna know what happens! But, your job is not done. You would like to capture a response from your customer about that cupcake, and then use that information to enhance your recipes, improve your processes, and develop new, innovative cupcakes. Your business has many recipes and processes that support the creation of your tasty cupcakes, these must be modified and continuously managed to deliver only the very best products to your customers;  that’s PLM.

There are also many new technologies that have the potential to change your business and improve your interactions with customers, suppliers, partners, and others. If your processes, recipes, and other information are not managed properly, it will be difficult, or impossible to take advantage of new innovation in your business.

For example, improvements in mobile technologies, and the capabilities within social networking tools provide a rich new playground that can add innovation to any business. But, it you don’t have your basic processes and products managed properly with PLM, you will struggle to take advantage of these new opportunities; Your competitors are taking advantage of them today!

So, what do you think! I am always interested in feedback, and I really want to eat a cupcake now!