Siemens PLM connection 2015 is taking place in Dallas this week. Thanks for Siemens PLM inviting me, I had a chance to attend the conference this week. More posts and thoughts will come, but today, I want to give you some of my notes from the opening day of the conference with keynote from Chuck Grindstaff and several other presentations made by Siemens PLM folks and customers.
First, about the community of PLM connection. Combined from customer and managed by separate board, it represents multiple industries. However, as you can see it from the picture below, the dominant 70% is covered by three main industries – aerospace & defense, automotive and industrial machinery. No surprise here…. if you think about established PLM customer community – these are industries are mostly engaged in PLM use and implementations. The interesting news is to see reps from other industries too.
The main message I captured from Chuck Grindstaff’s keynote is about smart products and how it will impact the manufacturing. In my view, the main point is that we are not separating products into large and small anymore. What we called in the past small and simple products are not simple. Any product today is a combination of multi-disciplinary technologies: advanced materials, electronic and software.
Separate note about cloud. Siemens PLM was long time silent about cloud technologies. Not anymore. Cloud messages were sent during keynote and other sessions. Initial Siemens PLM cloud strategy was IaaS and Amazon. I covered it in my earlier posts. The thing I captured yesterday is the work Microsoft and Siemens PLM is doing to certify Teamcenter and other products to be used on Azure cloud. I guess more to watch here in the coming months.
Another interesting topic I picked up was about cloud services and big data. These days product data is getting more in focus. I lives everywhere – in design, manufacturing records, sensors and many other places. To bring data together, connect it semantically and make available via search-like interface is an opportunity many companies are pursuing these days.
Siemens PLM new cloud services organization is up to the goal. I’ve been listening to Steve Bashada’s presentation speaking about the work they do following the acquisition of Omneo, which come to Siemens PLM as part of Camstar acquisition. The following pictures can give you an idea of what Siemens is planning and I’m sure will follow this up in my future posts. They are currently working with Dell and few other companies on the solution covering engineering and manufacturing product data intelligence cases.
I was super excited to listen to Jay Rogers, CEO and co-founder of Local Motors. Not aware about Local Motors? You should close your knowledge gap asap. Why? Because Local Motors is on the mission towards next industrial revolution. Imagine you have an idea for product, push a button and…. yes, you engage in the community of people designing, engineering and manufacturing it. It comes as a smart network of people involved into design, manufacturing and distribution of the product. New materials, new manufacturing processes- agile, collaborative and what is most important – quick and efficient. Local Motors can deliver products with 5x less time and 100x less cost.
Siemens PLM discussion about Manufacturing Operation Management gave me an addition perspective on how to make more efficient production. It is about connecting engineering and manufacturing together. In a nutshell, unified manufacturing backbone connects production, quality, logistic and maintenance. It is all impossible without tight connection with PLM backbone and integrating product views – multiple bill of materials, bill of process, electronic and software related information.
The final presentation I was watching was by Craig Brown, leading PLM at General Motors. The main topic is how to deliver connected, contextual experience among all products involved into design, productions and maintenance of GM cars.
My special attention was caught by the work GM is doing integrating multiple tools including TeamCenter using LinkedData technologies. The most resonating message – use web technology for data management and integration into enterprise.
What is my conclusion? We are getting in the era of smart products, which will create even more data management challenges for manufacturing companies and PLM vendors. It will come from diverse sides – community based design and collaboration, agile engineering to manufacturing processes, smart manufacturing and production. Existing tools will not be replaced overnight, therefore an ability to co-exist will be demanded by PLM vendors and their customers. Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg
