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

New PLM: From Definition to Realization?

New PLM: From Definition to Realization?
Oleg
Oleg
12 May, 2011 | 3 min for reading

The definition of PLM is one of the topics I’m discussing on blog. I think, in the modern enterprise software, PLM buzzword created a biggest amount of collision, miss interpretation and disputes. I often ask myself what caused such a high level of disagreement? MRP, ERP, CRM… Even SCM – the agreement about these TLAs seems to me smooth. However, each time a discussion comes to PLM, I can hear multiple voices about what it supposed to be and how it supposed to behave.

I read a blog by Chad Jackson on engineering-matters.com called PLM Misnomer What we know it isn’t. Chad took a broad review of what PLM is based on Wikipedia’s definition of a product lifecycle. These are my two favorite passages from Chad’s blog:

(PLM…) definitions can vary quite dramatically. And personally, I don’t have any problem with that. However, in response to a tweet questioning the definition of PLM, I saw a tweet along the following lines: the definition of PLM is simple, it’s what manages the lifecycle of the product! And I have to say, I completely disagree. From my perspective, PLM systems don’t begin to address the entire lifecycle of the product.

PLM systems don’t really manage the product’s entire lifecycle. It is a front-end oriented system more related to concepts and detailed design.

Two Engineers – Three Opinions

Engineering and Manufacturing. Different opinions. If you had a chance to attend meetings in manufacturing companies, you can see how complicated to come to a single conclusion. You can do things this way, but you can also approach some alternatives. This is not about money – this is about engineering. When software engineering (vendors) crosses paths with manufacturing (customers), the results are unpredictable. This is what happened to the most of CAD/PLM vendors when they started to develop complex systems for large OEMs in automotive and aerospace industries. Most of today PLM systems are having roots in this development.

If I had more time, I’d write a shorter story…

This is one of my best quotes by Mark Twain. If I’d apply it to development of software I’d say – it is easy to develop something complicated. It is damn hard to develop something simple. I think, an attempt to provide a complicated and exhaustive definition of PLM (as well as complex product suites) is a core of the problem. The diverse set of functionality required by manufacturing companies pushed vendor to add more and more modules (and functions) to their products. So, they became big, complicated and expensive. The idea of business apps presented by Dion Hinchliffe is interesting in my view. Take a look on the following conceptual diagram of Business Apps.

What is my conclusion? PLM is complicated because it touches one of the most sensitive elements of a manufacturing company – the way this specific company runs their development and manufacturing. Every company developed their own processes. PLM companies passed the way from development of a toolkit to gigantic systems with lots of functions and features. Industry had enough time to think. In my view, now it is a time find how to create a “short story” about how to realize PLM ideas in a scalable, but not complicated way.

Just my thoughts…

Oleg

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
28 August, 2009

I was reading the following article “Why Excel is not Enterprise BI Solution Yet. What I liked is the way...

3 April, 2012

Disclosure: As a co-founder of Inforbix, I understand that my opinion about PLM Data and Search can be unintentionally biased....

15 October, 2010

What do you think about “Collaboration”? I think, it confusing a bit. We use it too often. Some people like...

16 November, 2011

ROI is an important topic, and many times I’ve seen customers are not focusing on ROI assessment before starting PDM/PLM...

30 December, 2024

In this fourth installment of the “Rethinking Change Management” series, we dive into the technical architecture and workflow underpinning a...

8 September, 2010

I can see a growing interest of PLM providers to explore the story of enterprise search. This morning I’ve seen...

10 December, 2010

I’d like to take my Beyond PLM conversation away from social and collaboration trend. Let’s think about bits and bytes...

31 August, 2016

Have you heard about “true cloud” debates? Things are heating up in ERP universe… I wrote about Oracle acquiring Netsuite...

16 May, 2009

Cool stuff – you can run SolidWorks eDrawings on iPhone via Citrix Receiver iPhone app.  http://www.pcworld.com/article/164885/new_iphone_app_makes_microsoft_office_mobile.html Actually you can do...

Blogroll

To the top