Term social networking comes to us from Web. Web sites like MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn, I think, well known. I’d like to differentiate between two big groups – private and public networks. Public network can be divided into working network and organizational network. Private network is network of your friends and knowledge networks.
My question is – do you see something special in social networks for PLM and how possible to get there? My proposal is to use annotation in PLM tools that will connect product data (assemblies, parts, line in BOM etc) to people in social networks. Most of these social platforms today provide API. This API can be used to get content of your social communication such as – topics, contacts etc. On the other side, in PLM systems, annotations can be used to mark relevant CAD/CAM/CAE/PLM topics and objects for your social contacts. Usage of lightweight formats and web access can allow you to collaborate on particular content with your colleagues, suppliers and knowledge experts. Emerging usage of global IDs will simplify your identification in the system.
Bellow you can see some nice videos showing futuristic examples of social network visualization.
And in order to make this discussion a little bit practical please see global supply chain social network visualization.
Now, let’s stop Saturday evening dreams and talk to your IT department about social networks on Monday :):):). Have a good weekend!
