PLM and changes in manufacturing eco-system

In my previous post, I summarized changes in enterprise software that are going to influence a future of PLM. But enterprise software is not only thing that impacting PLM. A lot of new things are happening in manufacturing itself. You probably heard about “new industrial revolution”, “Manufacturing 4.0”, “makers movement”, etc. It is hard to put right tags on every new thing and classify them. I also think it is too early. However, there is one thing clear to me – changes are coming. These changes will impact the overall manufacturing eco-system and status-quo. What will be a manufacturing environment of the future and how it will impact product lifecycle management?

I’ve been trying to capture 3 most important trends I’m observing related to fundamental changes in manufacturing:

1- Global. Manufacturing business is going global in many ways. It is impossible to imagine manufacturing company these days that is completely disconnected from rest of the world. Small manufacturing firms are multi-located, using rich supply network and manufacturing facilities. Even more interesting, the smaller size you go, the dependencies is getting more interesting. Individual makers, mini-factories are getting even more power and distribution efficiency.

2- Agile network. In many places, hierarchical structures are displaced with  the power of network. It is a very interesting, since size won’t matter in the future. Network is more powerful compared to single hierarchical manufacturing structure. The power of communities for manufacturing is yet to be discovered.

3- IP paradigm changes. Manufacturing is going to challenge one of the most fundamental thing – IP ownership. Traditionally companies are owners of IP on manufactured things. Patents, trade secrets, design and manufacturing techniques protection. These are things we are familiar with. What is coming? Manufacturing companies such as Tesla are opening patent portfolios. Open Source Hardware is new trend that you can find similar to Open Source Software. The last one changed the landscape of software as we knew before. How OSHW will change manufacturing?

What is my conclusion? The new manufacturing eco-system is building up in front of us. It comes in many ways as combination of new possibilities of digital manufacturing, 3D printing, scaling, etc.  It brings fundamental changes in the process of manufacturing, product development and innovation. Small is a new big. Digital technologies are going to amplify manufacturing potential similar how back 18th century first industrial revolution replaced human power with machine power. The new manufacturing will be built on top of new principles of globalization, networks and open IP. The shift towards networks from centralized databases, open communities with open source hardware and others can influence existing PLM paradigms. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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