At the beginning of the year, I blogged about Business Intelligence and its potential connection to Product Development and PLM . Since then, thought about BI and its possible influence on product development and the manufacturing business. Let me explain why I think that there is good potential for this connection and how we can make it happen:
Connecting Business Intelligence (BI) and PLM would provide the following benefits:
– Cost calculation and prediction.
– Better impact analyzes
– Product configuration and optimization
What are challenges? In my view, the biggest challenge is to connect PLM to BI databases and backbones. Most system architectures in this space are incompatible. In this context, the experience of SAP and some other vendors in trying to integrated and acquire BI stacks is very interesting. It is similar to ideas of operational BI.
What are the potential technological routes? Companies loaded with Microsoft technologies have an easy option to try Microsoft BI and use some of the Excel-related applications. Another option is to invest in big backbones connected PLM and BI stacks. In context of all cloud discussions, an interesting option would be to use SaaS based BI options.
I am interested in hearing your feedback and learning more about your experience in this area.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySG64wdojwE]
