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

PLM Life-like Search Injection

PLM Life-like Search Injection
olegshilovitsky
olegshilovitsky
10 June, 2010 | 3 min for reading

An interesting turn in PLM trajectory of Dassault Systems – the acquisition of French based Exalead. With this acquisition, we can expect new life-like energy injected into PLM life-blood. In some announcements, Exalead was mentioned as French Google. Exalead indeed shares some Google DNA coming from early days Alta Vista and DEC search experiments. DS-Exalead deal made me think again about an enterprise search trajectory in Product Lifecycle Management. Actually, I already touched this topic at least two times in my blog before: PLM and Enterprise Search: Can We Leverage It In Downstream Applications and What Is The Role Of Search In Enterprise Systems and PLM?

So, PLM+Search=? What can be hidden behind this question mark? First of all, I wanted to put some historical perspectives in the relationships of PLM and search vendors. This is actually not the first time, PLM is catching a search wave. In 2006, Autonomy and Agile Software PLM created a partnership to provide a solution together . In 2007, Dassault made the announcement about a future use of Autonomy as a technology for search in DS and ENOVIA solutions. Endecca, another enterprise search vendor signed an agreement with Kalypso PLM solution provider. The same Edecca signed an agreement with PTC, one of the major DS completitiors. The same PTC by their significant move to SharePoint over the past 2 years, have an access to Microsoft SharePoint search solution. The same Autonomy, one of the leaders in Enterprise Search solutions is providing full stack of connectors that allow them to handle PLM related information too by their IDOL platform.

So, I wanted to put some thoughts towards possible mix of PLM and Search solutions. What can be advantages of PLM and Search merger and what need to be done to analyze previous solutions?

Usability
This is the first thing, in my view. PLM will try to fix the usability problem with application of some search techniques. All PLM applications today are surviving from user adoption rate in the organization due to the complexity in user experience. To have a search solution in this space is an interesting approach. However, what is good for web search not always can work in the same way inside of the organization. This will be an interesting to challenge for search solutions .

Content Processing
Search solutions have a different perspective on how to work with data. It is really not the same as to do it for enterprise application and business process management. How it will fit? What web search is doing by manage data is not really the same as enterprise data processing. Lots of interesting questions are coming here. I assume, we’ll have chance to see soon in the  in DS-Exalead story.

Integration
Crawling data from multiple sources, enterprise search has a potential to become a federated access point for PLM apps. This is the most interesting turn, in my view. However, to execute this route, a significant shift in PLM openness needs to be done.

What is my conclusion today? DS acquisition proved again, that PLM space is alive and will continuously provide innovative solutions for enterprises. As one of the leaders in PLM and 3D, Dassault just confirmed it yesterday. The next important step will be technological convergence and new solutions coming from Dassault.

Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
21 May, 2009

Yesterday, I had the chance to see two deliveries from Jim Brown related to PLM for mid-size companies. ENOVIA SmarTeam...

22 March, 2011

It is seems to me PLM definition is a trending topic these days :). Few hours ago, I posted my...

12 July, 2024

PLM and ERP are two topics that always can trigger an interest from industrial companies and software vendors. The ubiquitous...

8 February, 2025

Saturday is the time to relax, think, and read. It is also a day to plan. Changes are hard and...

2 April, 2015

The thing you can often hear about PLM implementations – it is about change. PLM will change the way you...

8 July, 2009

One of the things I see very important is user adoption. We can develop brilliant technologies, but if nobody  uses...

13 March, 2022

My recent few months were turbulent, so I’m apologizing in front of my readers for my somewhat infrequent contribution to...

1 March, 2012

BAM…BAM…BAM… Finally, it happened. Autodesk PLM 360 is here. It was a long run for Autodesk to converge from the...

31 March, 2010

I was reading Arcweb SAP Insider 2010 related to the manufacturing, sustainability and product lifecycle management domains. The tag line...

Blogroll

To the top