One of the big project level benefits of a PLM implementation is that most PLM solutions can be rolled out to the users in stages. New PLM processes and workflows and modules can be incrementally added after the foundation is laid - this is GREAT and it is TERRIBLE.

It is great that PLM can have core functionality within weeks or months of starting a deployment - systems like Arena Solutions or Teamcenter Express that target the small businesses can be rolled out literally in 1-2 weeks if your business can accept out of the box workflows for change management. For the mid-sized businesses systems such as Agile and Windchill can typically be deployed within 3 to 4 months with core functionality in place. What addes time to these types of deployments is typically dealing with preparing the training program and process documentation associated with implementing these solutions. With the larger enterprises implementing Windchill, Teamcenter or Enovia the enterprise complexities come into play earlier and take longer to deploy at 6-9 months, but even the large enterprises tend to only see a small piece of the PLM vision and only obtain limited benefit due to stopping at change management.

What is terrible is how many PLM systems get implemented without an enterprise roadmap that takes the implementation beyond the foundational deployment. Change management is put in place without enabling the part classification (to enable reductions of duplicated parts). BOMs are built without enabling Multisite or BOM variants (tracking the site specific build data or the engineering vs. manufacturing BOM). Manufacturer and Supplier data is managed with the product information, yet the external partners are still sent CD’s or paper and kept outside the loop on major changes that impact their contribution to the finished product.

Why is this? It is the curse of the initial success of a PLM deployment. When an ERP system is rolled out for the first time (after 2-3 years preparation) it gets turned on with 90% of the functionality in place and then is very cautiously modified mostly for tuning purposed. PLM on the other hand can be rolled out successfully with only 40-50% of the business functionality implemented and considered successful at which point the senior management often thinks the project is done - losing the vision for the other 50-60% of business benefits that have yet to be obtained.

It is this tendency that makes the initial long term roadmap so critical. Without defining what the long term business objectives are that the PLM deployment is to address the execution typically halts after the “engineering” system is in place yet the enterprise enabling capabilities have not even been tapped into. The selection of the system is often targeted at a short term objective, then the longer term benefits may be hindered or require a second PLM system to obtain the next tier of benefit. (See Gartner’s

Predicts 2008: Manufacturing IT Becomes More Than Business IT

, December 2007)

No company would deploy ERP without a 5 year plan. Yet PLM, which impacts 30-40% more end users than ERP, typically is deployed without a similar long term plan. Then the users and the management end up stymied about why the benefits expected from PLM have yet to be achieved. (See Aberdeen’s July 2007 report -

Profiting from PLM: Strategy and Delivery of the PLM Program

)

What is your PLM roadmap?
Have you tied the PLM implementation to true business benefit or are you just implementing a data vault?
Do you have a phased plan that identifies the business value obtained from each and every phase?

What many companies will find is that for true understanding of what is possible and what to do to build that roadmap - it takes experts in PLM and in your industry issues to help you build that vision. To expect the IT or Engineering department to vision cast is often not possible - as internal resources often do not have the subject matter or process expertise to cast the PLM initiative into a plan that ties the implementation to direct business strategy.

I attended an incredible meeting of some of the top minds in PLM at Purdue University’s PLM Center of Excellence last week and while there was far too much discussion to cover in detail, I found Dr. Grieve’s closing comments to be worth noting. With his permission, I am including just a few highlights - very paraphrased as he is an orator worth taking note of and I just can’t take notes that fast…

Some of the key points he raised were:
* The need to understand that PLM involves a paradigm shift - from atoms to bits - as our technology allows for more and more simulation of the real world - we can do more “virtually” to pre-build our designs and even our manufacturing plants - without physical prototypes - a savings of time, material, energy and more.
* People issues with PLM are bigger than the technical issues - to extract value from PLM means educating people about the possibilities that the PLM tool training alone does not provide (investing in the subject matter training is as important as the software training and perhaps more so).
* The absence of PLM related metrics is concerning but we should not allow the absence of metrics to paralize us.
* The CXO’s who are investing in PLM KNOW it is NOT optional and they KNOW that business survival depends upon their execution of PLM.
* Multicultural teams and virual teams pose new challenges to business. Isolated groups of people are not equal to globalized teams where literally everyone is working on the same development work around the world. Dealing with the time zones for globalized team communication is a problem we haven’t even begun to address.
* The vendors have been focused on PROCESS - yet innovation does not conform to processes. By definition process stifles innovation. PLM needs to enable PRACTICE - the creative side of product development. Innovation does not come from workflows and process maps.

I enjoyed meeting the folks at Purdue and the participants of their PLM Advisory Board. Keep your eyes open for good things in PLM from Purdue.

Copyright 2007, LHirr, All rights reserved.

Many apologies to the readers of PLM Savvy for such a lengthy silence. I have been at various customer sites providing deployment and consulting services for the past few months. I’ll be starting to get more updates going again - I have many more case studies to share with you as I am also launching into new levels of PLM consulting and services.

Stay tuned…

Yesterday I got my weekly email from CIMDATA with their PLM Industry Summary - I regularly peruse it for updated information and particularly tend to find thier weekly polls informative. This week’s poll however concerned me and it surprised me when I read the analysis.

This week’s article is not yet posted on their website - however it should be located at http://www.cimdata.com/newsletter/archive.html in the next few days.

The bottom line was that CIMDATA concluded that the following:

should be viewed as positive evidence that PLM is coming into the forefront of corporate understanding. They conclude that 60% of the respondants place PLM in the “strategic” bucket. I disagree with the analysis. CIMDATA polls are fed by consumers of CIMDATA’s weekly updates on PLM - therefore their predominant respondants ARE knowledgeable regarding PLM regardless of what department is responding. What the poll does NOT do is have evidence that companies that are not engaged in leverage PLM actually would answer the question the same way. My concern about the poll results and the analysis is that it could lead people to be complacent regarding the need to educate senior management regarding the business impact and benefits of PLM.

So many companies I see still regard PLM as not well understood, as an engineering issue, or lacking value - not because of the consumers but because of the need to show clear evidentiary proof that PLM is a financially necessary business investment for the executive buyers. As I have mentioned before - too often I see the PLM decision being driven by the CAD decision, and when that happens the PLM system will rarely shine as a productivity and process enabler.

So be careful what you read into poll results such as these.

Copyright 2007, LHirr, All Rights Reserved.

I was reading a book authored by my friend Steve Bell today. In his book

Lean Enterprise Systems

he raised an issue that resonates with me. He cited a study in the International Journal of Logistics from which he concludes “in many organizations 99% of the information processing activity is wasteful…” as a result of the “improper use of IT.” His comments resonated with me due to the fact that PLM systems can be viewed as product information “meta” data vaults or “file” vaults or a combination thereof.

The question of what information belongs where plagues corporations and the enterprise systems that they use. Which system is the master and what system is the master of what data. Some simple rules to live by are related to how the “change” of that information impacts the resulting product. Some examples are:

Changing warehouse and bin locations - does not change the actual product so should not be controlled with PLM workflows

Changing suppliers - “may” change the output product depending upon whether the supplier is a distributor of standard stock items or whether the supplier is actually a contract manufacturer who uses production methods that rely on a “recipe” to produce the output - so the vendor must be qualified and the recipe would need validating.

Changing coatings - qualifies as a form, fit, function change and must be treated as revision controled - yet may be managed at a metadata level not in vaulted files, thus is a change control issue for PLM workflows.

Changing lifecycle status - crosses a boundary zone - defines purchasing decisions, yet some companies will treat this as revision controlled (board changes from prototype revision to production revision. But it changes the design change rules followed by a company.

Changing buyer designations - again this is procurement information that is not to be controlled by the PLM system - yet impacts product change decision processes in terms of when changes occur - who should be reviewing the changes.

So the challenge is to define what data is “owned” by which systems, and what data is “consumed” by which systems. The resulting systems integration requirements can be very significant - and need to be thought out very carefully. And perhaps even ask the question is it integration that is truly needed or is it that the data is needed to be merged for specific repeatable processes - but let each system own its own data and use the right tools to access and view the right data. The tools exist…

Copyright 2007 - LHirr, All rights reserved

All PLM systems are not created equal. When we work with our customers to select a PLM system we evaluate the entire business situation not just the engineering department. Too often PLM is viewed as an engineering system only and yet in every case we’ve seen it put in place successfully, PLM rapidly outgrows the engineering department and becomes an enterprise wide, process changing, paradigm shifting, productivity enhancing system. Manufacturing users of PLM often exceed the engineering users, and Field Service also rapidly jumps on board to get proper information on the products they service.

The irony is that all too often, PLM selections are made in the shadow of a CAD selection, being viewed only as a means to handle CAD vaulting. This is a waste and will result in less than optimal use of the PLM system. In addition, it means that the system selection for PLM is driven by CAD and not by a systematic business benefits, enterprise wide justification, and then executives percieve that they have a “qualified” system and ignore the fact that key process needs are not met by the system.

In my opinion - these types of selections are as poorly advised as selecting your PLM solution based upon your ERP system. In both cases the PLM solution has not been selected to meet your full business needs but has been selected as a “default” decision.

Copyright 2007 - All rights reserved LHirr

Okay - I’ve been biting my tongue long enough regarding the shifting sands of the PLM space. The past year has seen massive movement among the players and the question is not really how do these deals impact shareholders but how does it affect the longer term delivery by the vendors to the customers.

Here are my personal views of the changes…

Agile-Oracle
I have been up close and personal with Agile customers for years. I service systems that range from Agile 6 to Agile 9 and see the same trends over and over again - users tend to use Agile well - out of the box functionality is great BUT Agile has had ongoing issues regardless of version with system stability and with the responsiveness of the support desk. Every version of Agile has had some sort of workaround for stability that involves “restarting services” 3-5 times per week to keep the systems stable - that has always concerned me. In addition, Agile helpdesk has been notorious for assigning issues to “marketing” or “engineering” which customer after customer has described as a “black hole” from which the issue never gets resolved. The overall product is good - but for these components (stability and support) to remain issues for 6+ years as the most common complaint I encounter is surprising. So my biggest question on behalf of the customers would be - will Oracle do better? I would expect so. Oracle actually can make the connectivity between Agile and Oracle databases work - but will MS SQL be abandoned yet again? I also can’t imagine that Oracle helpdesk can be worse than Agile’s was - so I hold hope but it will take time for everything to shake out.

Siemens - UGS
UGS has been on the auction block many many times over the last 5 years - First the SDRC and UGS pull into EDS, then EDS spin off back to UGS (held by investment companies) and now being bought by Siemens. Like Agile - I’ve been up close and personal there too - but I see a big difference. UGS has maintained a rock solid product consolidation roadmap thru all the changes. Any one who talks to the management at Seimens/UGS will be getting a consistent message that has fundamentally not changed for the past 5 years - a commitment to making the customers succeed and to bringing about the synergy and merging of products. The main problem has been the distractions of change - no matter what - that much change means that cultures have to blend, work things out, settle - and it can’t help but slow things down. It is commendable that the roadmap has been carefully adhered to and that the customers have as a result remained highly loyal.

Dessault - MatrixOne - Connesio - … and what else
MatrixOne had all but disappeared from the PLM market space here in the Pacific Northwest. I maintain relationships with many of the vendors and their folks had vanished - next thing I knew Dessault had picked them up and also not long after picked up Connesio. That was on top of the already mixed up combination of Enovia, SmarTeam and PDMWorks. I honestly haven’t figured out the strategy. Now PDMWorks “Enterprise” is a repacked renamed form of Connesio. The analysts are confused, the customers are confused - which system will become the mainstay? How is scalability intended to be addressed? What is the flavor today? Dessault maintains presence thru it’s offering of Solidworks to the mid-market and leverages that presence to catch the unwary and most needy businesses into PLM solutions that are still partially complete.

What of the others…PTC, Arena, SAP - these haven’t had the acquisitions to deal with so I’ll talk about them next time.

Copyright 2007, All rights reserved - LHirr

I saw a chart the other day being used to describe usability and it was one of the most concise images on the importance of usability I have ever seen, yet the presenter did not really explain the chart which was unfortunate. I did not notice a reference source on his presentation yet I know it came from other sources (which is why I am not citing the presenter directly). So in the spirit of research (being information from many sources) I’ll attempt to review the points the chart was making.

The definition of Usability is a time based definition. Initially DISCOVERABILITY and CONSISTANCY are most important. How easy is it for an application user to discover functionality without resorting to manuals and training materials. When moving from area to area of an application how consistant is the presentation of the user interface so that relearning leverages that consistancy. Microsoft is a classic example and more an more non-Microsoft applications boast of the “Outlook” interface. But that interface is not best for all systems - so when looking at Usability - look for discoverability and consistancy initially.

The problem however, is that the definition of usability often stops there - and later when the honeymoon is over, the other components of usability become more evident. After the initial learning - how much is EFFICIENCY and CAPABILITY expanded. After discovery - do efficiency improvements continue or go flat? Can you expand your use of the tools thru leveraging the additional capabilities of the tool beyond the initial need? These aspects of usability are not readily addressed in product demos and are not realized until the user has completed the honeymoon or nightmare of the first side of the usability question.

In the best of both worlds you would want to look at solutions that have the near term and longer term definitions of usability being satisfied. In reality it may be a compromise - The paradoxical definition of usability explains why difficult to learn systems are adopted and have productivity gains dispite the lack of discoverability and it also explains why highly discoverable systems become flat for efficiency gains downstream yet may be widely adopted by the masses.

So when you go into your system selection process with Usability criteria - be sure to include all 4 components of usability - not just how easy is it to use initially. Again look for DISCOVERABILITY, CONSISTANCY, EFFICIENCY and CAPABILITY. When you have all 4 you have a system that will serve you as a longer term solution.

Copyright 2007, LR Hirr, All Rights Reserved

One business practice we get asked about frequently by our customers is what to do about part numbering and how PLM systems work with various part numbering schemes.

I won’t hide the fact that I am very biased about part numbering methodology. There are two primary forms of part numbers - “intellegent” and “sequential”.

Intellegent numbers have meaningful significance within the number - and in that they serve as a quick means for visual recognition of part type, product class, supplier, operation process, production phase, or other similar breakdowns. There is often some “sequential” component within the part number. The intellegent part number is a favorite in the small -mid sized businesses that have had to operate predominantly manual engineering practices and have a mid-ranged ERP system that is not particularly restrictive about part numbering. So the part number itself acts as a “database” of the part information. The problem that frequently arises is that a part may change “classification” but not really change form fit or function - such as switching from manufactured to procured so the company faces a process decision - change the part number just to keep the data “correct” or leave the number as is and live with the incorrect meaning behind the number.

Many years ago Hewlett Packard conducted a study on the role of intellegent part numbers in maturing businesses. The conclusion of the study was that as a business matures and grows - the viability of maintaining intellegent part numbers as a business practice became increasingly costly and in the end the companies with sequential numbers were able to more easily adapt and evolve as business entities. Businesses that have grown by merger and acquisition find the intellegent part numbers mire the business down as each entity brings a different “decoder” to the numbering scheme - making things more and more complex.

The benefit PLM brings is that part numbers are a unique identifier - the availabilty and access to all of the classifications that were being manipulated within the part number are actually captured as their own data fields. Changes to those data sets that are not changing form fit or function are not forced to remain faulty nor does a new part number have to be generated. Thus the sequential number is easy to leverage. Most PLM vendors will allow the enablement of using intellegent part numbers (in part because the customers demand it) but they will all acknowledge that intellegent part numbers are not a recommended business practice. In fact to implement automated generation of “intellegent” part number schemes in PLM systems often requires custom rule sets or even custom SDK code to deploy within some PLM systems.

The challenge exists for companies “converting” from intellegent numbering systems to sequential numbering systems. Some companies have hard coded integrations that parse the numbers for other systems - and that means to go to a sequential system some integrations may have to be reworked. But for many companies - it is not a requirement to renumber legacy parts - but rather to pick a time and move sequential from that time forward. For cultural acceptance it is often easiest to mark that “time” as being when the company deploys PLM for the first time - setting a best business practice in place along with the tools rather than forcing the tool to perpetuate a bad practice.

Copyright 2007, LR Hirr, All Rights Reserved

Sorry for the confusion on changing the setup of this site, but the layout I had was not conducive to having tables and images. This new layout allows my content onto the site much more cleanly. Now that this is working better I will be updating some of the older postings to make the images more legible.