PLM implementation requires the change. I’m sure you had a chance to hear about it more than one times. The idea behind that is somewhat simple – PLM implementation eventually going to change the way you are doing business, your product development processes, intercommunication between people, systems and, of course, the way you are making decisions. The theme of “change” during PLM implementation is reflected online quite well in PLM blogosphere. Jos Voksuil, my long time blogging buddy, is probably one of the most prominent supporters of “change” during PLM implementation. Navigate to the following blog – The state of PLM – after 4 years of blogging to read more about how Jos sees PLM technologies and implementations these days. Here is my favorite passage about PLM implementation and change.
I believe PLM requires a change in an organization not only from the IT perspective but more important from the way people will work in an organization and the new processes they require. The change is in sharing information, making it visible and useful for others in order to be more efficient and better informed to make the right decisions much faster.
During my long flight from Boston to Europe yesterday, I read “Ending the Cults of Personality in Free Software.” This write up resonated well with my thoughts about PLM implementation and change, because personality reflected significantly in everything related in design, engineering and product development. If you are long enough in CAD business, you probably remember that very often the decision about what CAD system to use was almost religious among some engineers and designers. You can see lots of similarity these days related to the decision about Integrated vs. best of breed PLMs. Another place where discussion is heating up is related to the conversation about open vs. close PLM platforms. It takes literally years for some large organizations to decide about what PLM platform to use. One of the best way to observe it is to attend customer presentations during PLM vendor forums. You can learn many stories about organization, history of product development decisions and endless PLM roadmaps.
What is my conclusion? I found PLM implementation discussion very similar to some technological disputes. The potential danger is the ego factor. When it comes, ego factor is going one way – up! Sometimes ego may lead to a something very positive and sometimes ego can be a significant destructive factor. Time is a good validation for many egocentric decisions. This is why ERP and PLM implementations are often cyclic with 5-7 years of people’s lifecycle in an organization. When PLM implementation fails, ego might provide a bad guidance. My recommendation to PLM people is to develop “ego-detectors” 
. Another piece of technology to decide about on a long transatlantic flight. Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg
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