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

PLM Simplification. First drop PLM word…

PLM Simplification. First drop PLM word…
Oleg
Oleg
17 January, 2012 | 2 min for reading

Simplification is a significant trend. I’ve been watching it a lot in consumer space. People got really obsessed by simplification after Apple. And these are all good things. However, I want to come back to something I call “simple PLM”. Well, you can tell me it is a joke… maybe. First time I put a word about simplification was in 2008 (Simple PLM Technology). It was more like a question rather than post how to simplify data representation. My second take on “Simple PLM” was last year (Post COFES, Dropbox and PLM Made Simple) – I was talking about how to simplify data sharing. Not sure whether Dropbox will provide a concept for a future PLM, but two keywords out of that conversation were – “usability and simplicity”.

First simplify, then automate

I remember one of the conversations that happened to me during the sales meeting with customers. It was about 7-8 years ago. I will not mention names, of course. I was “impressed” by a try of a sales person to convince a potential buyer by saying “Don’t underestimate the complexity of things we can manage”. I found it very remarkable, and it took me long time to drive my conclusion about PLM sales. The predominant assumption of PLM sales is that manufacturing world is very complicated. So, we need a really complex system to manage this manufacturing world. Nowadays, I think, this is a mistake.

I found a very interesting quote from the following book: Product lifecycle management: 21st century paradigm for product realisation – First simplify, then automate. In my view, we need to think more how to simplify organizational processes. It will help us a lot to simplify PLM too.

Back to basics – back to BOM?

Here is another interesting observation. It came from Arena Solution. There are two things I like about Arena these days. First – Arena’s blog became one of my favorites. The second is about how Arena is trying to simplify what they do. Historical record – Arena started about a decade ago as a company called bom.com. You can still navigate to Arena vai this url. However, what I wanted to mention is how Arena Solutions changed the definition of what they do. Arena came from “PLM” back to “BOM”. Can I call it “back to basics”. I think, it will be a valid statement.

What is my conclusion? Few days ago, I wrote about process simplification. We will see more signs of simplification in the world of software for product lifecycle management, manufacturing and engineering. It all starts from the interest of people to simplify the world around them. Drop complicated acronyms and go beyond PLM with simple words – BOM, Change, Part, etc. When this goal is achieved, we will more a clearer picture of what new PLM software need to do. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

* freebie. nobody paid me to write this post.

** picture is courtesy of Arena Solutions blog

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
1 July, 2020

I’m learning more about Teamcenter X. If you missed my previous article, please check it out here – What did...

1 July, 2009

Short prompt on interesting Oracle partners push to more specialized veriticals. PLM is one of them. It confirms Product Lifecycle...

17 February, 2012

Kenesto just did the first appearance at SolidWorks World 2012 in San Diego. It was a good opportunity, to see...

17 October, 2016

Manufacturing is changing. I can hear it from hardware startups, large manufacturing companies and software vendors. Future of manufacturing, next...

15 April, 2011

The first day at COFES 2011 over. I hope, you had a chance to follow COFES 2011 via twitter (COFES2011). If...

30 May, 2012

Time is flying. My monthly top 5 posts are coming too fast. Which made me think about so many changes...

10 April, 2012

If you think about PDM and PLM, you will discover a lot of “controlling” functions. Examples are easy. You need...

21 May, 2017

PLM mega event is coming this week to Boston. PTC is hosting LiveWorx 2017 in Boston Exhibition and Convention Center...

22 April, 2016

Distributed environment is a new reality in manufacturing and it creates many new challenges. You can argue that manufacturing companies...

Blogroll

To the top