PI PLMx 2018 – Collaboration, Financial Impact and Status Quo

Last two days I attended PI PLMx conference in Hamburg. It was a honor for me to become a chairman of the conference this year (Thanks MarketKey for inviting me). While I’m still digesting information from the event to share my thoughts and comments, here are top 3 topics I shared in my final chairman notes during event closing. I didn’t selected these topics in a scientific way – it was my impression after 2 days of the event and many sessions I attend.

1- Collaboration and integration. There is need in better collaboration and integration of information between engineering, manufacturing and other organizational silos. It was mentioned by almost ever presenter during the event. Here is my favorite slide:

2- Financial impact of PLM. There is strong need to connect PLM activity with business and financial outcome of organizations. By itself it is one of the top priorities. However, the shocking information was that even if it is done, it is not so simple to share this information with management, because they are not always interested to share the truth about bad organizations are performing.

3- PLM is still the same. The industry aware that it is doing more or less the same for a long time. All participants of the panel of the first day led by Nick Leeder were in agreement about that. However, we are still expecting a better results. We should do something differently and there I didn’t hear enough about possible changes. I didn’t hear enought ideas about what should be that thing such as a paradigm change or different approach.

What is my conclusion? Industry is changing and there is a strong need for PLM to change. It was too focused on engineering, not connected to business activity, too complex and hard to explain and understand. You can find these comments in my blog from the events 5-10 years ago as well. So, the time to make a change. Otherwise, the industry  has a chance to stay in a previous era of engineering and manufacturing software while companies will be moving forward. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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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.