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TeamCenter

PLM and Integrated Project and Process Tools

by Oleg on June 1, 2012 · 1 comment

Let me start today from asking you a question. How do you run your company? Regardless on size, scale and nature, the answer is simple in my view – processes and projects. It won’t surprise you if I say sometimes projects go out of schedule, and processes are stuck. Every company requires a solution to manage processes and projects these days. Do you think you can solve these problems by emails and spreadsheets? The project or process management solution are needed. I was reading Steve Bedder post – Is that a bottleneck in my process? Steve brings an example of how process and project management capabilities are integrated in PLM 360 – new cloud PLM product from Autodesk. Here is an interesting passage:

The Project Management app provides you with a live view of where all the individual tasks\items within the project are up to, as they are moved along their process by the people managing that part of the project, the top level project automatically updates accordingly. You can also quickly and easily link through to view any of the data that is being tracked and managed within each of the project tasks (assuming you have the permissions to do so).

The key aspect in this functionality to me is the ability to integrate process and project tasks with relevant “data”. FPLM project management integration tradeoffs. There are many independent process and project tools that can be used in the company. How important to have integrated project and processes tools?

Frankly, Autodesk PLM 360 is not a unique tool introduces integrated project and processes with PDM/PLM. Almost all major PLM providers have “project management” module – TeamCenter Project Portfolio Management, Enovia Program Central, Windchill Project link, Aras Program Management.

At the same time, I can see many innovative and independent tools primarily focusing on project, process and task management – starting from traditional well known Microsoft Project and going to cloud-based Basecamp, Zoho, Clarizen and many others. While project management is not a new discipline, I can see many companies are trying to come with interesting user experience, available on many devices working in a different way. One of my favorites for the last time was do.com claiming so-called “social project management”

What is my conclusion? Integrated vs. best in class. The dilemma isn’t new. I have an integrated GPS in my car. At the same I found myself many times using my iPhone to find a place and then enter the address into GPS system. To get right information to drive project management tool is an important function. At the same time, interaction with people usability and experience will matter as well. The car with Google’s maps in dash is probably a right solution. Integrated best-in-class class solutions – sounds like a good idea :) . Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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From PDM to PLM: Unify or Integrate?

by Oleg on October 31, 2011 · 14 comments

Earlier, this year, I post a blog called – Integrated PDM and PLM: Wrong Question? In the beginning, this blog post was inspired by Jonathan Scott’s presentation on SolidWorks World 2011. Aras EPLM announcement last week, made me think a bit more about PDM / PLM trends. The idea of integrating PDM with PLM isn’t new and already had a chance to discuss it before. In some of my previous blogs, I discussed that PDM overall maturity was growing for the last 10 years as well as facts that confirming CAD /PDM software vendors will be searching how to boost their future activities based on existing PDM products. Navigate to the following blog – CAD, PDM and PLM diversity, CAD Data and PLM, Autodesk Vault: Enterprise PDM or PLM? A growing amount of conversations around PDM vs. PLM topics made me think about to possible trends in a future PDM to PLM conversation:

Unify PDM and PLM

This is a path that was taken by large CAD/PLM vendors. You can hear “unification talks” from all mindshare PLM companies – TeamCenter, Enovia V6,Windchill. The arguments used by these vendors are quite simple – let’s reduce the amount of systems, unify and centralize information and “life will be good”. These messages are certainly convincing. In the following video, you can listen to how TeamCenter chief – Steve Baschada is talking about PDM to PLM transition.

Keep PDM and Integrate PLM

This is an opposite approach. For many companies, PDM is a successful project. SolidWorks Enterprise PDM, Autodesk Vault, SolidEdge /TeamCenter Velocity. These are examples of successful PDM systems with proven records of deployments. What if we can take PDM “as is” and integrate PLM products on top of them. Aras presented a case with Aras EPLM. I believe Agile PLM, SAP PLM and some other vendors can think about such an approach. I can see “cloud products” can be proposed on top of existing “on premise” offerings. I remember, Arena Solution tried in the past to have such a type of “integrated offering”.

What is my conclusion? I think, these two trends are going to compete in a very near future. Unification as an old school of PLM will be mostly in a defense mode. Their expansion is limited by a significant cost of transition from existing (PDM) systems to unified new platforms. An alternative can be interesting, in my view. Aras is a first example. More to come. The opportunity here is to keep TCO lower. However, the danger of complex integration between PDM and PLM can make this “trick-or-treating” dangerous. Will Aras and followers are going to get more Halloween candies? I don’t know. Just my thougths… Next time I’m going to talk about PDM to PLM integration challenges.

Best, Oleg

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PDM in 2010s: Commodity or Competitive Advantage?

by Oleg on September 5, 2011 · 18 comments

Product Data Management is not a new term. The first appearance of PDM software goes back in early 1990s (I believe veterans of the industry will come with some even earlier examples). Nevertheless, 20+ years should be enough to put all dots on “i” in PDM applications, systems, etc. I was thinking almost the same. However, I’m thinking about to withdraw my previous conclusion. You can ask me why? During this long Labor Day weekend, I was screening feeds and links on multiple sources of information marked “for review”. Some of them were related to PDM. It made me think “PDM story” is not written in full… yet.

Commodity Function and Unique CAD Integration

For the last 3-5 years, I can clearly see the trend of converting PDM into CAD system add-in. Many CAD vendors strategically focusing on how to convert their own PDM development into the best-integrated-component to their CAD products. It happens with different PDM systems: ENOVIA V6 (CATIA), Enterprise PDM (SolidWorks), TeamCenter Express (SolidEdge), Autodesk Vault (AutoCAD, Inventor, etc.), Windchill PDM Link (Creo-Parametric).

Take a look on the following two video fragments presenting PDM functionality for TeamCenter Express and SolidWorks Enterprise PDM. Both systems represent two popular PDM products widely used on the market.

SolidWorks Enterprise PDM

TeamCenter Express

PDM today provides a quite standard set of data-management functions. However, one of the key points is related to the ability of PDM to work efficiently with a specific CAD system. The last one is definitely creates an advantage of every CAD-PDM bundle coming from each CAD vendor.

PDM Competitive Advantage

I was reading Gain Competitive Advantage with Product Data Management white paper from Autodesk during this weekend. Navigate your browser to the following link to download it (note – you need to register to download). The article looks like “Product Data Management 101″ courses for high school. The advantages presented in this white paper – speed up development cycle, improved collaboration and higher quality. For every manager in any manufacturing organization, these things are obvious. The question of PDM cost is presented in this paper as something that can be easy calculated. I specially liked the following passage:

As a rule, taking the first steps into design data management today is a simple process that is possible at quite a low cost. PDM solutions are practical and cost effective. The barriers to adopting them are lower than ever, making the investmentworthwhile even for small-scale engineering offices. The costs involved in the acquisition of hardware and software and foroperation can usually be calculated relatively simply. It is significantly more difficult to assess the benefits of a PDM systemquantitative terms. There are no formulae, factors or tables from which the increase to a company’s ROI (return on investment) can be easily calculated.

Autodesk defines 5 key questions to answer when selecting PDM system. Here is the list.

• Will the PDM solution work with my CAD applications?
• Will the PDM solution work with my existing data and drawings?
• Will the PDM solution work with my ERP system?
• Is the PDM solution easy to implement and use?
• Who is the right partner?

I found something interesting analyzing these questions. There is no question in this list directly related to PDM core functionality. The questions are completely focusing on aspects related to CAD (or data) and ERP connectivity. Easy implementation and usage are very subjective as well as the ability to choose a right partner. Any CAD+PDM bundle coming from a specific vendor will have a definite advantage. On the other side, the white paper coming from Autodesk doesn’t contain any information that present advantages of Autodesk Vault vs. Product Data Management solution coming from other vendors.

PDM-less CAD users

CAD vendors are constantly reporting about growing amounts of PDM sales. Earlier last week, during SolidWorks 2011 media event, SolidWorks stated that 20% of their sales are non-CAD. Some of these 20% are definitely related to PDM. Autodesk stated about incredible good adoption of Autodesk Vault promising to surprise everybody with the Autodesk Vault results. Here is the quote from Carl Bass interview few months ago:

…I would suspect right now, we’re getting close to as many people using Vault as any other PLM system in the world,” retorted Bass. “The standard Vault, we don’t charge for it, it’s included but there are tens and tens of thousands, of implementations involved…

At the same time, Carl Bass admitted that even Vault is not solving some of the existing problems related to product data management:

I think there are two things we have to do more. One is we have to do something that’s even simpler than Vault, for all the other CAD users. I mean there’s still too much design data and you can’t find stuff easily… I think many, many small offices, industrial designers and architects have gotten past the point where they need something more than just to help organise and search their data. They’re not ready for full Vault implementation.

What is my conclusion? PDM systems came to the certain level of maturity and customer adoption. At the same time, it is still expensive and complicated work. That’s why, in my view, the number of “PDM-less-users” is still significant. White-papers about PDM are clearly focusing on PDM value proposition and referencing successful PDM implementation. However, it doesn’t provide any information about how to decrease PDM TCO and take PDM to the next customer adoption level. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM and New Openness

July 21, 2011

The topic of openness in PLM software isn’t new. In the past decade, I’ve been hearing lots of good and bad things about PLM and openness. Last year, I shared my thoughts with regards to PLM and openness in my post - Closed Thoughts About PLM Openness. Few days ago, I had a chance to read [...]

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PLM and SharePoint Scalability

March 14, 2011

Since Microsoft first released MOSS 2007, I can see an increased amount of manufacturing companies are investigating a potential move to SharePoint. Microsoft used brilliant freemium strategy and decided to give away a basic version of SharePoint (WSS – Windows SharePoint Services) bundled to Windows Server license. It created a significant flow of SharePoint viral [...]

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PLM Platforms and PLM Automotive Future

March 7, 2011

A couple of weeks ago, I posted PLM Platform Wars: Who is Right or Who is Left? The following short article in Dasssault 3D Perspective struck me to think more about the future PLM technologies and innovation. Watch the video and make your opinion. Kate is asking: “Can the automotive industry build cars of the [...]

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CAD, PLM and Pragmatic Cloud: Do Less

December 15, 2010

The conversations about future CAD and PLM solutions is not a new thing these days. I decided to re-read some of my previous writing about cloud and find it interesting in today’s context: Where is PLM shortcut to the cloud? You can read one more blog post – Putting your design on the cloud. Earlier [...]

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iPad: PLM and non-PLM User Experience

July 16, 2010

I think, we are going to see more iPad applications in coming year. Will PLM and other enterprise software vendors adopt new Apple tablet? This is a very good question. On the surface, I can see multiple trials to introduce various iPad applications. Below you can see few examples of iPad application from PLM (Siemens PLM), [...]

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