PDM Cartoons, Marketing and Unsolved Problems

I was watching cartoons over the long Columbus day weekend. Not Disney… I was watching PDM cartoons. You may tell me – who is making PDM cartoons these days? Apparently large companies do. Autodesk and SolidWorks both made cartoons that actually made me think about marketing and unsolved problems. However, let’s first have a look:

Managing Data with Autodesk Vault

Autodesk Vault is getting more and more interesting these days. This cartoon is trying to convince me – Vault can do everything (even coffee)…

SolidWorks Enterprise PDM

Enterprise PDM is not a new product. EPDM came to SolidWorks via acquisition. Since then SolidWorks made few enhancements such as Bill of Material and Items management. However, the video is not talking about complicated stuff – it is about data access, processes and time management.

What is my conclusion? Few weeks ago, I’ve been interviewed during Autodesk Forum in Moscow. The conversation was about social networks and the question I’ve been asked was – What is next after “Like”? For the sake of the story, my answer was “+”. However, let me shift gears a bit. Thinking about PDM Cartoons I came to the question – “What is next after PLM?”. I found many things marketed as “PLM” functionality presented in these PDM cartoons. Does it mean “PDM” will be the next step after “PLM”. Who knows… The only thing is clear to me – lots of problems in manufacturing organizations cannot be solved by application of yet another “power point deck”. It is time to think what software can do so. The complexity is not in favor these days. Companies are trying to find a different way to solve existing problems. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg