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

PLM and Bottom Up Option

PLM and Bottom Up Option
Oleg
Oleg
20 August, 2010 | 2 min for reading

The following publication in VEKTORRUM got me to review again a book “3D Manufacturing Innovation” by Dr. Hiroshi Toriya. I had a chance to read this book last year and it contains some very impressive examples every PLM software company need to learn. The book is pricey. As alternative, navigate your browser on Google Book link and you will have about 30% of this book for free. This book and Randal’s post – “3D Manufacturing Innovation- Explains the Japanese Quest for an Alternative to PLM” made me think about PLM strategies that were developed over the last decade and their potential improvements.

3D Master Top-Down
This is a dominant concept used today for Product Lifecycle Management. It supported by mindshare PLM leaders (Dassault, PTC, and Siemens PLM). Their strategies as well as portfolios are aligned straight from the CAD / 3D products, and they built infrastructure to manage and proliferate in 3D information downstream. Dassault is the dominant in their vision of 3D for all, PTC and Siemens PLM, in my view, provide more balanced between CAD/3D and Process orientation. As a consequence of competition with major ERP vendors, PLM mindshare companies are shifting towards better modeling of downstream data, engineering and manufacturing options as well as industry businesses.

Process is King
This model supported by PLM companies that have roots in ERP domain. 3D is definitely not the strongest side of their portfolio. So, building their product with “a process in mind” makes a lot of sense to them. These companies can be leverage a very strong enterprise architecture and infrastructure. By doing so, they can provide a support for development and manufacturing process. The advantage and disadvantage of this approach is a very weak connection to design and 3D data. Therefore, we had a chance to see investments of ERP companies in acquisition of 3D viewing technologies.

Bottom Up Approach
Both approaches – “3D Master” and “Process is King” are very focused on top down methodologies. This is, in my view, a significant weak point. What if we need to move from top down approach to bottom up? Dr. Hiroshi Toria mentioned in his  something that can be considered as an alternative bottom up when 3D data will be accumulated by company in a central database and access by everybody. Here is a quote from his book:

What is my conclusion? PLM is one of the strategies that introduced by software companies to improve design and manufacturers. It was adopted by manufacturing companies. However, it faces a significant criticism. There are two main criticisms – (1) need to make a reform in a company in one day and (2) complex implementation following this decision. I can see multiple alternatives on the table. One of them is a top down approach and decline in a massive 3D CAD top down dominance in PLM implementation. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
29 May, 2014

IoT (Internet of things) is trending these days. Connected houses, cars, sensors, thermostats, LED lamps, etc. On the recent COFES...

4 August, 2014

The speed of data creation is amazing these days. According to the last IBM research, 90% of the data in...

26 December, 2016

I take a look back at Beyond PLM articles that proved to be most popular among readers in 2016 and...

27 April, 2010

Last week I wrote a post about how I can see twitter and other social tools can be used to...

9 July, 2014

Navigate back into histories of CAD and PLM companies. You can find significant involvement of large aerospace, automotive and industrial...

4 May, 2025

Back in 1992, Bill Clinton’s campaign faced a tough political climate. His team needed a simple, focused message to cut...

25 March, 2015

I’m in Warwick today getting prepared for Develop3D Live conference, which will be tomorrow. The full conference agenda is here....

1 November, 2018

PLM was never an easy domain to explain. For the last 10-15 years, marketing tried multiple approaches positioning PLM in...

7 October, 2009

Two published stories drove my attention and got me to think again about various dimensions of social PLM development. Dion...

Blogroll

To the top