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
27 July, 2017

There are different levels of PLM implementation complexity – long planning, budget overrun, customization delays. Tons of articles are written...

20 August, 2017

I took 3 weeks off blogging. We often take health for granted. And we should not… Health problems are stressful...

25 August, 2009

Yesterday, two separate article got my attention and brought me to think about Lifecycle. Alternatively, even more, about number of...

9 April, 2023

The world has shifted to a data-driven ecosystem where predictive analytics and AI automation are essential components for success in...

26 September, 2010

I’ve been running the working group “New Trends in PLM” on COFES Russia / isicad-2010. I had no idea how...

10 January, 2014

Management of product data was always a first and most important imperative for PLM solutions. Depends on vendor strategy and...

2 September, 2009

I want to start today with twitter quote “PLM vs ERP – ERP a transactional system, not suited to manage...

18 August, 2020

Cloud and SaaS are changing PLM software. The new technology makes SaaS PLM easily accessible and available instantly to customers....

3 May, 2012

It is hard to find a day without new announcement or breaking news related to the cloud these days. Companies...

Blogroll

To the top