PLM, Upgrades and Competition

Traditional PLM wisdom says to buy PLM system is a complex process. Once you decided for a specific platform or technology, it will be very hard to change or replace with something else. I’ve been skimming social network news this morning The following tweet from @jonathanpscott caught my attention – “More details on the #ENOVIA #SmarTeam User Group meeting in OH next week ht.ly/NzuwE #PLM“. I’ve been involved into SmarTeam development many years ago and I’m aware Dassault System is still supporting the system. However, the following message from the agenda – “ENOVIA SmarTeam – a safe place to be”, increased my curiosity up even more. Future in the agenda you can see topics related to SmarTeam migration and co-existence.

It made me think about lifecycle of PLM systems and implementation more. What is the average cycle time for PLM implementation? How often companies are replacing PLM systems and what does it mean for a company in terms of effort, planning, operation and support?

Earlier this month I came across Aras Corp. materials about “resilient PLM”. If you haven’t heard about this new PLM buzz, navigate to the following link to read more. The term was coined by Aras to explain how Aras Innovator’s technology can withstand multiple upgrades and changes. Peter Schroer, Aras CEO is explaining about resilient PLM in the following video. Pay attention to the following part of the video explaining how Aras customers successfully moved  between different versions of Aras on different databases – Postgress, Oracle, Microsoft SQL for the last 15 years.

Cloud  technologies is another way to solve the problem of upgrades. Jim Brown of Tech-Clarity and Brian Roepke of Autodesk are discussing the advantages of cloud PLM. Watch the following video from 6:05 when Brian speaks about upgrades and revision lock. The upgrade sometimes even more expensive than initial implementation. According to Brian Roepke, cloud PLM technologies are solving the problem of upgrades and migrations in traditional PLM implementations.

Migration of PLM solutions can be significant driver in fundamental strategic decisions manufacturing companies are taking. Earlier last week Siemens PLM announced about the successful completion of PLM2015 project and move from CATIA to NX. Daimler’s decision was heavily influenced by the preference not to move between two PLM systems (Teamcenter and ENOVIA). Read about it in Schnitgercorp blog Reaching that one customer in a PLMish landscape. Here is the passage, which explains the reason:

Daimler‘s decision to move from CATIA to NX, huge as it was, was ultimately made by a team that weighed the benefits and risks in a more limited context than the overall Siemens portfolio. As I understand it, in the end it was simple: Daimler had based many business processes on its Teamcenter implementation; CATIA V6 requires ENOVIA, so Daimler would have had to build links between ENOVIA and Teamcenter to move forward with Dassault Systemes. That was more complicated, to Daimler, than migrating 235,000 “CAD objects” and retraining 6,000 people.

What is my conclusion? PLM upgrade or migration is sensitive and complicated process. It requires a lot of resources and can be very costly. In the current state of manufacturing and PLM technology customers are looking how to insure many years of operation once they implemented the system. However, business is changing and the need to be flexible is striking back as a conflicting requirement. Combined together it brings a very interesting flavor into PLM competition. The ability to implement PLM system and upgrade an existing (often outdated) PLM implementation becomes a key feature in the future competitiveness of PLM system. It is equally important for cloud and non-cloud implementations. I think the PLM vendor and technology capable to do so can gain a lot of traction in the future. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image courtesy of iosphere at FreeDigitalPhotos.net