A blog by Oleg Shilovitsky
Information & Comments about Engineering and Manufacturing Software

PLM Philosophies Collide?

PLM Philosophies Collide?
Oleg
Oleg
28 September, 2010 | 2 min for reading

Somebody asked me last week about how I see th future of PLM… Does it look like-BOM or like-Workflow? I found this question very interesting. Bill of Materials and Workflow (or process management) are fundamentally two most important pieces of PDM and PLM systems for many years. So, we have them already in place. However, thinking about the future – what will be a dominant solution? Do we need re-invent the wheel? Is there any conflict here? I want to elaborate about both to see what future PLM looks like.

Bill of Material World

BOM is considered as a foundation of design, engineering and manufacturing. You can see it everywhere – design BOM in CAD system, Engineering BOM, Manufacturing BOM, Support and Service BOM. You can follow a product lifecycle by discovering different bill of materials. You can find lots of methodologies and systems that help you to handle your Bill of Material world. These things are really complicated. Bill of Materials represents many issues related to product development and in the end of the day you can think about a virtual Bill of Material representing everything.

Workflow World

Processes (or how we can simply call them Workflows) are very important for an organization too. They are a life blood of every manufacturing organization. Organization is running business processes and making overall execution of the business. We can classify them as local and global cross-department. Local are mostly focusing on departmental processes. The more interesting and challenging thing are cross-departmental processes. These processes are connected people working in different departments. Cross-departmental processes are very important if you think about the overall product lifecycle.

PLM Philosophies Difference

So, why I put BOM world against Workflow world? You can draw your organization in terms of Bill of Material and, at the same time, in terms of organizational processes. Is it about philosophy or about real development practices? In the early days of PDM and PLM, the main focus was absolutely on files, data management, revisions, Bill of Materials. Later, PLM system discovered “process world”. This “discovery” was part of the competition between PLM and ERP world. PLM systems made an upscale to compete in the high society. The “process approach” presented organic change to fit product development processes in organizations.

What is my conclusion?

I think, this question represents one of the biggest philosophical collide in engineering and manufacturing software. What will be the winning behavior in the future? It is hard to say. In my view, the end-game solution will need to provide answers to both sides of the problem. BOM and Worklow need to be equaly included into PLM solutions. Only together they can keep an organization to manage efficiently product lifecycle. Just my thoughts. What is your take?

Best, Oleg

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
28 May, 2022

Data is a very fascinating word. A few weeks ago, I was invited by Nina Dar to her Change Troubleshooter...

15 December, 2018

Fundamentally new technologies don’t become productive until a generation after their introduction. The time it takes people to learn how...

14 April, 2014

Let’s talk about PLM technologies. Err.. PLM is not a technology. Even more, PLM is even not a product. So,...

30 April, 2021

Yesterday’s SaaS PLM comparison article triggered great sparring with my long-time PLM industry colleague, Marc Lind, SVP of Strategy at...

18 December, 2010

Last three days I spent my time with COFES Israel. Navigate your browser to the following link to see agenda...

15 December, 2011

Let’s talk about emails today. How many of them are you reading or writing daily? A lot? Emails are with...

30 October, 2020

Cloud is not a new thing in the technology and software world. Cloud and Saas technology allowed to build remarkable...

14 June, 2010

I was reading HBR Blog post by Andrew McAfee “IT’s Three Key Organizational Transformations“. The issue of IT spending made...

8 December, 2010

I read CIMData article Windchill Evolving Lineage. Navigate your browser on the following link. I found this read interesting. CIMData...

Blogroll

To the top