PLM: Tools, Bundles and Platforms

I like online debates. The opportunity to have good online debates is rare in our space. Therefore, I want to thank Chad Jackson for his openness to have one. I don’t think Chad Jackson needs any introduction – I’m sure you had a chance to watch one of his Tech4PD video debates with Jim Brown of TechClarity.

Here is my post that ignite the debates – CAD: Engineering bundles vs. Granular Applications. In a nutshell, I caught Chad by saying that his idea of bundling of MCAD and ECAD in a single application might go against another idea of granular integrated application he articulated before.

Here it starts! Chad twitted it a blog fight… whatever. I saw it as a good opportunity to debates what is the future engineering landscape might be. In a world where large CAD and PLM players are aggressively acquiring companies, products and technologies, the idea to combine MCAD and ECAD application can be quite disruptive.

However, my intention is not to discuss who is buying whom in CAD/PLM world. There is relatively limited number of MCAD and ECAD vendors. You can see them by navigating to the following links – 3D CAD, ECAD.

Chad’s main point – Granularity and Integration are not diametrically opposite. I agree with the statement. I also find examples of 3DEXPERIENCE, PTC and Transmagic very relevant. I found very important to clarify the differences between so called “granular apps” and “data integration”. Here is my favorite passage from Chad’s article:

Granular Apps offer a limited set of capabilities that are focused on a specific job. These apps are more accessible to different roles in the company because their limited set of functionality requires less training and retention in terms of how they work. They are valuable in the network of roles that participate because they are so accessible. Data Integration means that multiple software applications work against a single set of data in a coordinated fashion. There can be value in this in propagating change and enabling collaboration across the network of roles that participate in overall product development.

The way article presents the combination of integration and granularity made me think about some interesting trajectories in future development of engineering software. I’d like to classify things into 3 distinct categories – Tools, Bundles and Platforms.

1- Tools.

The history of engineering applications goes back into development of tools that helped engineering to be more productive – drafting tools and calculation tools. You can find many of these tools in the past – 2D CAD, 3D CAD, Simulation and analysis tools. If you look on current software landscape, you can find most of the tools are still here.

2- Bundles and/or Suites

One of the biggest challenge with tools is related to the fact how customers can use them together. The topics of data integration and interoperability are very often discussed in the context of ability to use multiple tools, especially when these tools are developed by different vendors. The problem of interoperability is well recognized by vendors. One of the answers is to provide so called “suites” or application bundles with special focus on how tools are integrated together.

3- Platforms.

Platform is a lovely word in a lexicon of software developers. For most of them, this is an end game in the maturity of software tools. How to become a platform that can be used by other developers? There are so many advantages you can unlock as a provider of a platform. Easy to say, but very hard to do. The critical characteristics of platforms are hard to achieve – openness, data integration, maturity of data standards, tools and APIs and many others.

What is my conclusion? My guess, Chad is speaking about the opportunity to provide a unified product development platform that combines MCAD and ECAD tools. His statement about data integration indicates that tools can be still granular but become part of an integrated platform. I don’t think everybody will see it in the same way. I want to see mechanical engineer is using ECAD type environment for his work. I hardly can imagine some ECAD related work done in 3D environment. 3D view can be potentially  cumbersome and confusing for most of electronic design. I believe IT and PLM architects might appreciate platform thing, but engineers can disagree. Where is the middle ground? It made me think more about what future engineering and manufacturing platforms will look like. I guess Chad Jackson might have some ideas about that and he would like to share them. I will work on my list to compare notes too. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg