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

PLM Data Tagging Is Getting Some Traction

PLM Data Tagging Is Getting Some Traction
Oleg
Oleg
7 October, 2013 | 3 min for reading

tagging-plm-data

Tagging is one of the most popular ways to classify information. Tagging became a mainstream way to classify information in almost every web application these days. Initially introduced on photo sharing websites, tagging expanded almost everywhere. Tagging is an important feature of every “Web 2.0” solution. You can read more on wikipedia here. Here is snippet of definition.

Labeling and tagging are carried out to perform functions such as aiding in classification, marking ownership, noting boundaries, and indicating online identity. They may take the form of words, images, or other identifying marks. An analogous example of tags in the physical world is museum object tagging. In the organization of information and objects, the use of textual keywords as part of identification and classification long predates computers. However, computer based searching made the use of keywords a rapid way of exploring records.

I can divide tagging solution into two separate groups – automatic (machine) tagging and user-driven or collaborative tagging. The second one became popular on the web and called “folksonomy“. Opposite of predefined classification (taxonomy), folksonomy is a collaborative way to classify information mostly in social and web applications.

A folksonomy is a system of classification derived from the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content;[1][2] this practice is also known ascollaborative tagging,[3] social classification, social indexing, and social tagging…. [S]ome of the characteristics of folksonomies by identifying two types: broad and narrow. A broad folksonomy is one in which multiple users tag particular content with a variety of terms from a variety of vocabularies, thus creating a greater amount of metadata for that content. A narrow folksonomy, on the other hand, occurs when a few users, primarily the content creator, tag an object with a limited number of terms.

Classification is an important element of every data management and information solution. PLM/PDM systems are (obviously) included. In my view, tagging can reduce the complexity of information search and discovery. I’ve been pitching “Tagging” as an innovative way to simplify data access in PLM systems. Navigate to my historical blog from 2009 – How Tagging can prevent PLM from a Compulsive Obsessive Disorder Problem?

Until now, I haven’t heard about any implementation of tagging in PLM systems. Earlier today, I was reading CIMdata update about Dassault Enovia products – ENOVIA Product Update: A CIMdata Highlight. One of the snippet of this publication referenced to a new solution produced by Dassault – IFWE Compass. Here is a passage speaking about “automatic tagging solution”:

The IFWE Compass user interface—This new face of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform was shown briefly at the June Industry Analyst event, but this daylong session allowed us to see it support many more use cases. The automatic tagging and indexing of all managed information (called 6W) should provide significant benefits downstream. This tagging approach is not seen in offerings from other PLM solution providers.

What is my conclusion? Despite visible simplicity, tagging is hard task to accomplish. It required significant amount of data processing, computational power and sophisticated algorithms. It is hard to get it done automatically and it requires specific “collaborative” effort to apply it in a “folksonmical” way. My hunch Dassault acquired tagging technology from the acquisition of search vendor Exalead few years ago. The precision of tagging (especially when it done automatically) is a key. So, it would be very interesting to see implementation of this solution in a specific customer data corpus. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
24 December, 2015

Written by Mike Thomas & Oleg Shilovitsky  Holidays is coming and this is a good moment to experiment and bring...

20 July, 2010

Almost a year ago, I posted PLM and BIM – Common Roots Or Common Future. I think these two domains will...

19 October, 2011

From time to time, I’m experimenting with Google Trends. These results, obviously, cannot be counted as a serious research. At...

16 February, 2010

Social is hot. Social networks, social applications, social enterprise, social CRM… social PLM (?). I put a question mark, since...

15 January, 2023

Is cloud PLM becoming mainstream for enterprise applications? The year 2022 was an interesting year in the cloud and SaaS...

6 January, 2021

Each time any major PLM vendor makes a big step onto the acquisition path, the questions about how the technologies...

16 November, 2015

More than 10 years ago, I had a conversation with one of telecom manufacturing companies in Europe. I asked –...

1 April, 2014

04/01/2014. Newton, MA via @afjplmnews. ENOVIA – the collaborative innovation application brand of Dassault Systemès enables your innovators to benefit from...

27 May, 2009

Web 2.0 and following 2.0 technologies came to us a few years ago (around 2003 and 2004) and changed the...

Blogroll

To the top