Manufacturers are going global these days. Nobody is surprised to have design, manufacturing and support are going across the globe. However, when it comes to collaboration of people working on multiple continents, it can get very complicated. I read an article – RSS Feed Translation for Bloggers and Social Networking firms. It made me think about a possible role of standards protocols like RSS and translation capabilities to provide a multilingual support in PLM and other enterprise systems.
Information Distribution
Product development system can separate information into multiple channels depending on the need. The major differentiation can be between systems that need to operate in a real time (i.e. designers are working together on the same issue) and asynchronous systems. In my view, the second group is much bigger than we are expecting. Most of the cross-continent communication is going asynchronously anyway because of natural time difference. Asynchronous information cane delivered with involvement of mechanisms similar to RSS that will make translation services easy to implement.
On-demand Translation Service
The first time I’ve been thinking about such a translation service was a year ago when I experimented with Google Wave translations. Take a look on the demo of translation work presented by Google Wave.
So, there is a potential of the translation robot that can do work on-demand. However, the idea of YYZ Translation is interesting since it assumes mixed translation models with partial people involvement.
What is my conclusion? Mutli-language is a big problem. In my view, global companies are spending money to make it work. It is probably a time to make translation more natural and allow to people to consume information in the language, they can do it the best. I’d be interested to learn more how your company working in a multilingual product development and manufacturing environment. Don’t tell me everybody speaks English, please .
Summer is finally over. This is a good reason to stop talking about fancy social software and cool Apple’s features. Let’s move back to the core of design, engineering and manufacturing. Yes, I’d like to talk about Bill of Materials. The following blog article drove my attention earlier this week – BOM: An ENOVIA V6 Perspective. Vik Paranjpe of Razorleaf is discussing details about V6 BOM specifics. I found his initial passage very interesting:
By now companies have accepted the reality that product creation is not a linear task going from Design department to manufacturing and beyond. All the departments (including Design, Development, Quality, and Manufacturing) provide input to the product development process, e.g. Quality might have an opinion on the types of components to be used which in turn will impact the design being produced. This increases the need for a centralized BOM management solution that provides a single source of truth for the bill of materials with different “views” of the BOM for each department.
What I specially like is a definition of product creation as “not linear task“. It fits my perspective on the need to consolidate Bill of Material management effort. My last take on this was about a year ago in my post – Seven Rules Towards Single Bill of Materials. Since then, I had a chance to discuss a concept of Bill of Material consolidation with customers and experts. I think, companies need to make an effort in consolidating their Bill of Materials related tasks. However, the software available today on the market contains multiple gaps that can make implementation very complicated.
Single BOM vs. Multiple BOMs This is one of the key questions people is asking when trying to analyze the capability of BOM Tools. In my view, this question is very misleading. The real question should be related to the ability of software to handle the complexity of tasks related to product structure modeling for all users in the organization. Designers, Engineers, Manufacturing planners and all other relevant people need to have an ability to access the product structure and BOM Information.
Automatic vs. Manual I can see a “not-linear” product creation as the ability of Bill of Material tools to handle multiple synchronization and change steps related to performing various tasks in design, engineering and manufacturing planning. BOM provides you with the ability to consolidate it. One of the usual mistakes is trying to provide a fully automated process of Bill Material synchronization rules. The appropriate balance of automatic and manual tasks is absolutely important to make BOM tool fit the needs.
BOM Tools – Devil in Details In order to perform BOM-related tasks successfully, BOM software needs to provide a diverse set of tools. The granularity of these tools is a key, in my view. You need to be able to perform a variety of BOM slice&dice, changes and reviews. The usability and availability of rich set of functions is the key.
What is my conclusion? Despite a long history, Bill of Material management is a still very challenging task. PDM/PLM vendors are working for decades to provide improved software modules to satisfy user demands. Each time, we see new modules and approaches in Bill of Material management. Lately, I can see a trend to provide better vertical integration in PLM tools. BOM management is a central part of this vertical integration. However, implementation of complex PLM suites is an expensive task. A good question could be what is the potential alternative of vertical integration?
There are few terms in enterprise software and specifically in engineering software that was completely overused. In my view, collaboration is one of them. Collaborative design, collaborative PDM, collaborative engineering… what else? Vuuch blog about collaboration made me think about some lessons related to the development of systems that aimed to help people to work together. In addition, I found some interesting patterns in the way term “social” used these days.
Collaboration
When I hear people talking about collaboration, I am always asking them to replace the word “collaboration” to “working together”. In my view, it helps them to understand the main reasons and needs. So, you decided to work together? You need to communicate (making phone call, emails, exchange instant messages), share data (documents, 3D models, Bill of materials) and keep track of all these activities (see history of your communications). I can definitely how multiple tools can be used to help me to collaborate… Oops – working together with my colleagues, people in other departments, business partners, etc.
Manufacturing and Collaboration
People in manufacturing organization need to work together… Oops – to collaborate. However, product data and everything related is not as simple as files. CAD, PDM and lately PLM vendors tried to get data under control and manage it in the way that can help people to work together. Engineering and Manufacturing systems never been simple and complication becomes one of the most critical topic in implementation of PDM, PLM and enterprise systems in general.
LotusNotes and SharePoint
I found some interesting parallels in the development of these tools. The focus of both tools is to share data between people and help them to communicate. With some extreme, I can see Lotus as a very good proof of concept used to develop latest versions of SharePoint. What is clear to me is that both products realized the basic need to share data. People need to share data in order to collaborate more efficiently. User interface (or how it now called UX – user experience) became much better in SharePoint 2007. Microsoft’s wizards learned something from Lotus’ past and earlier SharePoint baby steps. PLM companies are trying to repeat the success of SharePoint by adopting SharePoint practices. I can see some potential in this work. But world is moving faster. Web 2.0 is coming…
Drinking The Social Software Kool-Aid?
The next trend is coming – social software. It comes to us out of last 10 years of internet development. Also known as Web 2.0, social software is a cool combination of technologies, web sites and tools that helps people to communicate (they don’t need to work) together.
Blogs, wikis, social networks generated a significant interest of people in enterprise software – can we make PDM, PLM, PxM software as cool as Web 2.0 web sites?
What is my conclusion? Manufacturing enterprise companies are facing an urgent need to work more efficiently. How to work together (to collaborate) becomes one of the most important questions. This is a though one. Companies are run by emails, shared folders and lots of software pieces stitched together. It cost lots of money to companies to keep going. To crack-down a new way to work together by re-using internet technologies and web 2.0 website practices can be kinda cool. Is it possible? Web 2.0 is about pictures, videos, messages. How to make these techniques to work for 3D CAD, Products, Bill of Materials, Suppliers and still keep the same level of coolness? A very interesting question…
Microsoft announce SQL Server migration assistant for MySQL. It seems to me, Microsoft is thinking about how to expand their SQL tool’s market share. As a step towards this direction Microsoft is thinking how to provide an easy and smooth way to migrate from one data management system to another. I’m not an expert in [...]
I’m continuing discussions about PDM vs. PLM differences. I’d encourage you to take a look on my previous two posts related to this topic: PDM vs. PLM: A Data Perspective and PDM vs. PLM: A Process Perspective. My next PDM vs. PLM comparison perspective is related to integration of PDM or PLM systems with other [...]
I read the following article “Oracle v Google: Why?“. I found it as a very deep analysis of the latest Oracle’s bold move against Google. It is hard to predict how this clash will be resolved and who will be a winner and loser or may be both. Read this article and make your opinion. [...]
I had a chance to read an article by ebizQ related to Cordys BPM. For those who is not aware – Cordys is a relatively new outfit in the enterprise software market. The wizard name behind this company is Jan Baan. If you are a long-time citizen in the enterprise software domain, you need his [...]
I read one of the latest VEKTORRUM re-posts about Autodesk and PLM. Navigate your browser to the following link and read the original article from 2007. According to the article – ” There are “more pragmatic, more digestible approaches” to solving engineering data management issues than PLM, he [Carl Bass] said”. It made me think more about [...]
Cloud or SaaS application continue intriguing developers and vendors. In my view, during the last 2 years, talks around cloud and SaaS moved from the position “why?” to the position “when?”. Everybody understood, cloud is the future application delivery model and to put application stakes in a cloud space is very important. Two articles drove [...]
Have you had a chance to see any PLM strategic presentation? I’m sure you did. You can find easy few of them by Google “PLM Strategy“. How many times you’ve been looking on PLM strategic presentation and saying – hm, this is not exactly what I’m looking for. I was reading a USA Today article [...]
Manufacturers are going global these days. Nobody is surprised to have design, manufacturing and support are going across the globe. However, when it comes to collaboration of people working on multiple continents, it can get very complicated. I read an article – RSS Feed Translation for Bloggers and Social Networking firms. It made me think about a possible role of standards protocols like RSS and translation capabilities to provide a multilingual support in PLM and other enterprise systems.
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