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

Will PTC redefine PLM with IoT?

Will PTC redefine PLM with IoT?
Oleg
Oleg
24 May, 2017 | 2 min for reading

PLM definition is one of these questions that often come in the discussions between industry analysts, bloggers and PLM pundits. While users are usually very indifferent about what three letter acronym is used, industry marketing and press, business and financial analysts are sensitive to buzzwords, names and trends.

I was attending PTC industry event LiveWorx last 3 days. IoT is generating a tremendous amount of buzz and news. You probably heard about release of PTC ThingWorx 8. Read more in the press release here – PTC Expands Its Industrial IoT Technology Offering with the Launch of ThingWorx 8. Many users are getting excited about new features, applications and announcements. Just think about Integration of ThingWorx with Microsoft HoloLens. This is really cool. But at the same time, many companies are asking a question. What about PLM? What role PLM will play in the portfolio of PTC as it is switching fast to IoT segment.

It looks like PLM has an answer on this question. It sounds very simple – “IoT is PLM”. I captured the following video during Q&A session with Jim Hepplemann, PTC CEO and President. Mr. Hepplemann is elaborating why actually IoT is a real PLM. Watch the video.

According to PTC ‘s VP Marketing and Strategy Kathleen Midford, the message IoT is PLM is very much resonating with customers. She said it during Q&A session with analysts, press and media earlier today. To be successful, IoT goes back to basics – product data and PLM has the answer. Jim Hepplemenn says there is no PLM without IoT, which brings missing  elements to PDM and turns it into actual lifecycle solution. According to Mr. Hepplemann, ThingWorx is a realization of long time PLM dream to integrate data from diverse data sources PLM, ERP, CRM, variety of enterprise systems and physical products (thanks for IoT technologies. However, PTC is not ignoring CAD, PDM, BOM management. Those are important elements of IoT solution and essential for realization of successful IoT strategy.

What is my conclusion? PTC is innovating by mixing IoT and PLM stories together. I’m not sure customers will like the idea of replacing PLM three letter acronym with IoT one. But connecting PLM to physical products and developing solutions that can mix both virtual and physical product definition makes lot of sense to me. I also think that CAD, PDM, BOM, Lifecycle and other traditional domain will not stay the same and will be redefined during global virtual to physical convergence we live in now. Just my thoughts….

Best, Oleg

Want to learn more about PLM? Check out my new PLM Book website.

Disclaimer: I’m co-founder and CEO of openBoM developing cloud based bill of materials and inventory management tool for manufacturing companies, hardware startups and supply chain. My opinion can be unintentionally biased

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
22 January, 2019

Once upon a time, PLM and cloud things were not friends. PLM companies were telling that cloud is not secured...

31 October, 2013

The amount of data we produce is skyrocketing these days. Social web, mobile devices, internet of things – these are...

16 March, 2010

The question of industry specific solutions in PLM was always interesting for me. Time ago, I asked in one of...

29 June, 2009

I think that with all the hype about Product Lifecycle Management, we completely forgot about Product Data Management (PDM). Despite...

10 November, 2016

Large manufacturing companies have long love and hate relationships with enterprise software technologies and specifically CAD and PLM systems. These...

26 May, 2011

In the old days, the focus of manufacturing companies was mostly about how to produce stuff. Most of the products...

18 October, 2012

Open Source Software (OSS) is a wonderful thing. For the last decade, open source changed the world of software development....

14 November, 2016

I’m on my way to Las Vegas to attend Autodesk University 2016 – an annual Autodesk gathering usually brings around 10’000...

13 August, 2010

I was thinking about how PLM balance product lifecycle from the standpoint of producing and consuming product data. The product...

Blogroll

To the top