Accelerate 2014: PLM360 and the state of manufacturing industry

I’m attending Accelerate 2014 PLM360 event these days in Boston. This is the first ever live gathering of Autodesk PLM360 community. According to Ron Locking who kicked the event yesterday, it comes to a total number of about 200 attendees combined of customers, partners and industry analysts.

So, why Boston? The welcome joke triggered by analysts Chad Jackson, Jim Brown and Stan Przybylinski speculated – it was all about “beer innovation” that inspired Autodesk people to have this even in Boston. However, in my view, we have more reasons for that – high concentration of PLM companies around PLM highway, vibrant community of  manufacturing companies and startups as well as cross-road location between Europe and U.S. Event is taking place in Boston District Hall in the middle of Seaport district. The place brought my memories back to Smart Summit (first SmarTeam customer event in 2000). Back that days, the only building in Boston Seaport district was Seaport Hotel. Now, Seaport district looks completely different.

Getting back to “beer innovation”, I found an interesting association between U.S. beer craftsmanship and state of PLM and manufacturing industry these days. It comes to empowering of small companies to innovate. It happened to small breweries in U.S. back in 1978. It is a good lesson to learn. Here is a passage about brewery innovation:

On October 14, 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed H.R. 1337 into law, which legalized the home production of a small amount of beer or wine for personal consumption.Since then, the United States has witnessed a resurgence of brewing culture and the widespread proliferation of small breweries. By March 1986, five brewpubs had opened in the United States. The total number of breweries rose from 42 in 1978 to over 2,750 in 2012, reaching or exceeding the number of breweries estimated to have existed during the colonial period. Virtually all of this growth is attributable to small, independent breweries.Today, the U.S. craft beer industry employs over 100,000 individuals brewing 15.6 million barrels of beer per year, generating roughly $14.3 billion in retail sales.

Back to the event itself. Who attended? I found a very interesting mixture of companies attended the event. First and most important is to see a diverse set of manufacturing companies using PLM360 and sharing their stories. Second – a very interesting bunch of partners and service providers representing new “cloud” ecosystem. The last, but probably the most interesting are companies that related to so called “new manufacturing companies”. These days small manufacturing are starting to make difference. And actually, you can see it very well by looking on the list Accelerate 2014 attendee list – Quirky, Dragon Innovation and few others. These companies represents a complete new story in manufacturing industry. Enabled by internet and modern technologies, new manufacturing companies are representing a complete new way to develop products. And, their demand is to have new design and engineering tools.

Specifically I wanted to focus on how PLM can help to new manufacturing startups. Manufacturing is hard. To get from zero to one in manufacturing is not simple. However, to come from one to many is probably even more challenging. It requires a complete new approach and new tools.

Agility, speed and flexibility. This is probably a word that explains in a best way how manufacturing companies are using PLM360. It is interesting to see that these definitions are common between both group of customers – larger established manufacturers and new growing startups. Large companies are learning how to solve specific product development business problems using tools like PLM360. At the same time, small companies are learning how to bring some order in their ad-hoc product development environment. So, both groups have something to learn from each other and it looks like PLM360 can give them some common grounds to innovate as a community.

Innovation was one of the most frequently discussed topics during these two days. The product innovation panel discussion gathered a diverse set of attendees – analysts, customers, vendors.

PLM360 is one of the tools coming as an answer on “manufacturing challenge”. However, it doesn’t come alone. PLM360 comes as part of new cloud eco-system Autodesk develops these days  – Autodesk A360, Autodesk Fusion360 and some others.

What is my conclusion? The modern manufacturing world is a complex combination of new challenges and old problems. New manufacturing companies, communities, new type of products, unprecedented level of product complexity even for small manufacturing – all together representing a new state of manufacturing industry. It requires new approach in design and product collaboration tool. PLM360 gives some good examples and lesson learned in that space. Just my thoughts..

Best, Oleg

Disclaimer: I’m Autodesk employee. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are my own only and in no way represent the views, positions or opinions – expressed or implied – of my employer.