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

PLM Today and Tomorrow: Tighten Your Belts … and be open to new technologies

PLM Today and Tomorrow: Tighten Your Belts … and be open to new technologies
olegshilovitsky
olegshilovitsky
14 January, 2009 | 2 min for reading

The financial crisis possible can hit PLM companies… but remember, many successful and well-known companies were established during times of economic crises.

LexisNexis (1973 oil crisis), FedEx Corp. (1973), Microsoft Corp. (1975), CNN (was a very small company in 1980), MTV (1981), Wikipedia Foundation Inc. (post 2001 recession), HP (Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP, was established at the end of this recession) – this is only a short list of companies established during various crises.

In my view, a crisis always opens people’s minds in terms of delivering something new or innovative within their space, in order to be more attractive for existing and potentially new customers. In this post, I’m going to try and change my seat from the point of view of a PLM developer to the PLM user’s standpoint.

So, what would a PLM user find attractive?

1.     Popularize easily what engineers are doing. When the average game controller provides a better look-and-feel compared to the PLM systems, whatever companies will do to make My Content available will be beneficial. I’d like to be able to show my latest product on iPod, race new cars available for my games, try a new kitchen environment in my SIMs™ or animate my process nicely on Wii, xBOX or other devices.

2.     Communicate easier and faster with  relevant people. At the end of the day, I want to make my working environment more comfortable. When I need to search, I’ll go to Google. When I  need to speak with colleagues, I’ll chat or IM. , When I need fresh news or opinions, I’ll go to blogosphere. Now, when I want to design and/or create something new – where should I go?

3.      Reuse technologies… This is most efficient way to create something new. Experience, Reuse, Change, Improve. Today, we hardly can find anything on our laptops. What about questions like  “do you remember a similar problem”, “similar part”, “something that the customer wanted”;, “how can I reuse an existing design?” and “What did we decide last year when faced with a similar situation?”… all these “reuse topics” can be hit top ranks in user communities.

4.       Breaking silos… Today’s enterprise organizations are very siloed.: Openness, Interoperability, Connectivity, Intelligence – although none of these words are new, the issue of siloed enterprises is still unresolved. I think that a crisis will definitely help to climb steps in this direction. Innovating technologies and people will break silos and find technologies, business models, and products that will allow PLM users to move forward.

5.       Information explosion?… We have finally produced more information that we can consume. This doesn’t seem to be a passing trend. Although this subject might not be specific to PLM, it can this is not something specific for PLM, but can really help  people in enterprises organize their work more efficiently.

So, I’m really looking forward to your comments, ideas and the next innovative products in the PLM world. 

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
9 June, 2017

Onalytica blog – IoT 2017: Top 100 Influencers, Brands and Publications brings few very interesting data points about growing community of...

11 August, 2019

A few days ago I wrote an article discussing why the strategy of building PLM on top of PDM can...

12 August, 2018

You probably heard it many times for the last few years – cloud PLM is not for everyone. And when...

31 March, 2024

Earlier this week, I published the article Beyond Adoption: Rewiring Organizations to Dominate in the Digital Age speaking about how...

9 February, 2015

The race towards CAD in the cloud is getting more interesting every day. I’ve been watching SOLIDWORKS World 2015 live...

29 September, 2017

Last week I attended Autodesk Accelerate event in Boston. If you missed my notes, you can catchup here. One of...

20 May, 2009

Interesting thoughts by Stephen Arnold related to On-Premise vs. SaaS software based on SAP case.  Also link on Understanding SAP’s Business...

26 August, 2009

PLM as a combination of technologies, software, and methodology came long way from initial CAD systems, followed by CAE, Product...

15 December, 2015

Back in 1990s, I was developing applications for AutoCAD. It was before Windows became popular. I was working for a...

Blogroll

To the top