I’m heading up to Detroit to attend CIMdata PLM Roadmap for Global Automotive Industry and their Supply Chain Partners. Navigate here to get more information about the event, attendees and sessions.
Last year I had a chance to share my thoughts about supply chain and data networks in my COFES 2015 presentation. Check it out. There are some related information. The growing complexity of manufacturing environment and products creates the demand for new product lifecycle and supply chain architectures. These architectures will be able to support management of multidisciplinary product data (mechanical, electronic, software) and will operate as a global distributed data network.
I’m coming to CIMdata event to share information about openBoM and learn how cloud-based BOM application can help to improve data sharing and supply chain collaboration. One of the trends these days is establishment of cloud-based supply chain – I’m look forward to learn more and share with you.
As the manufacturing landscape becomes more interconnected and interdependent, requiring close cooperative links with multiple supply chain partners in multiple locations for materials, parts production and the support of new multi-channel services, companies will increasingly adopt cloud and more predictive web-based supply chain software to help manage and swiftly reconfigure their networks to gain real-time visibility, cut time-to-market, and respond faster to customer changes and potentially disruptive political and natural risks.
The event has no parallel sessions which means the decision about session selection will be easy. I skimmed through the agenda earlier this morning. There are two things that caught my attention – complexity and cost. Different aspects of geometry, product, embedded system and supply chain complexity were mentioned in the sessions by Marc Lind from Aras Corp, Doug Cheney from ITI, Doug Niccum from Delphi and Lou Pascarella from Geometric. Here are few snippets:
As product complexity continues to increase, highly collaborative cross-discipline engineering processes are essential to the successful development of next generation aircraft, vehicles, equipment, defense technologies, and other systems. To deal with the growing complexity and tie requirements through functional, logical, and physical product structure, organizations are moving to implement Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE)
…software is considered to be a part in the product assembly which is managed or controlled at release by the PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) system. Given the complexity of embedded systems and the need to align the correct software with the hardware, ALM/PLM integration becomes essential in delivering flawless products.
Product complexity is increasing day-by-day with increased electronics/embedded software content but traditional PLM is not able to keep up with the pace of change. Next generation PLM as a Product Innovation Platform enabled by digital thread, is the key for product successes in this digital era.
Few sessions related to product cost afternoon caught my attention as well. My favorite session abstract is related to change management and cost calculation by Reynaldo Reyes, Director, Engineering Tools and Processes, Lear Corporation
The cost calculation for a typical product change requires the involvement of several disciplines within a typical organization. In many organizations, the PLM system and workflow are kept very simple and tend to capture minimal information regarding cost, usually limited to cost summaries. Organizations can bring the calculation of cost and price into the PLM workflow by extending the data model to capture the elements necessary for such cost calculations, standardizing the way those calculations are performed and presented, and making the PLM system the master of such information.
Big Data is another trending buzzword. I found a session presented by Dana Nickerson, Managing Solution Architect, Capgemini about how big data technology can help to optimize cost of component sourcing.
What is my conclusion? I look forward to learn more and share with you later this week. The last session at CIMdata event is promising a view from Peter Bilello about the Future of PLM in the Automotive Industry. Complexity and cost. My hunch these are two biggest challenges in automotive supply chain. But the devil is in details. Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg
Want to learn more about PLM? Check out my new PLM Book website.
Disclaimer: I’m co-founder and CEO of openBoM developing cloud based bill of materials and inventory management tool for manufacturing companies, hardware startups and supply chain. My opinion can be unintentionally biased.
