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

PLM Downstream – Sent from my iPad?

PLM Downstream – Sent from my iPad?
Oleg
Oleg
6 August, 2010 | 2 min for reading

I had a chance to read “Sent from my iPad”  on VEKTORRM last week. Dave Angelotti discussed an option to use iPad as a field device. It seems interesting. It made me think about lots of un-realized options for PLM innovation in downstream. Last year, I wrote – PLM content downstream usage, Googlenomic and Futuristic Search. Looking now on this post it seems to me much less futuristic. iPad experience helps… I decided to put few “downstream scenarios” and hope to get more ideas from you.

PLM Downstream Scenarios

(1) Sales. I can see many scenarios where sales-people will be able to have an access to configured catalog of products to facilitate sales. This is a dumb simple scenario. However, the complexity of the scenario is to have it well integrated with other systems.

(2) Manufacturing Shopfloor. In my view, there is an opportunity to use it to replace printed documents on the shopfloor. Do you think it may work? I talked to few people about this option last week. They told that iPad screen size is probably too small. Or maybe we need to wait for iBoard (you can take a look on the following joke about iPhone-iPad-iBoard-iMat)?

(3) Maintenance Operation. This is another similar to manufacturing shopfloor situation. The accessibility of the device may play a key role in getting an access to the right information during maintenance procedures.

The Missing Part of Puzzle?

Do you think device is important? My bet is yes. Sometime, innovative ideas have a very long path to people. To make them possible the unique combination of events needs to happen. It might be cost of components, environment or just device or available technology. The ultimate goal is to get rid of paper from downstream. This is a real innovative goal, in my view. It makes a lot of sense from various standpoints – information access, ecology, etc. Don’t you think iPad is the missing part of Puzzle to make it happen?

What is my conclusion? From my experience, the following three iPad characteristics ultimately help to iPad proliferation in downstream – (1) Lightweight; (2) Connectivity; (3) Power consumption. I think iPad creates a significant option for PLM (and BIM) innovation in the downstream applications- sales, manufacturing facilities, field operations, etc. What I like in iPad is an ability to create a platform for lots of powerful and focused applications. Not a big PLM show, focus matters!

Best, Oleg

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
7 March, 2013

After 20+ years of CAD and PDM development, the issue of versioning is not solved. How about that? I hope,...

12 August, 2012

If you follow news these days, you probably paid attention to Outlook.com – newcomers from Microsoft and “Gmail twin brother”....

3 July, 2019

Unless you’ve been under the rock for the last five years, you’ve heard about DevOps. Still confused about DevOps? Start...

7 May, 2022

Earlier this week I sat together (virtually) with Nina Dar whom I know for many years of meeting in PLM...

12 August, 2018

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

7 April, 2016

I’m excited to share news about openBoM. Thinking about modern manufacturing challenges brought me together with my partner, Vic Sanchez,...

7 July, 2009

I was reading Oracle Web Center announcement few days ago. Browsing top down on Oracle web site, I found it...

11 December, 2012

Scaling globally is one of the biggest challenges for manufacturing organizations. For many years, enterprise software used as a basic...

18 October, 2017

Yesterday, I attended PLM Roadmap, one day event organized by CIMdata and Eurostep. The event is co-located with PDTEurope 2017,...

Blogroll

To the top