How to Extract More Business Value from PLM

I’m attending PI PLMx Chicago these days. The event is organized by MarketKey, a UK based company with a mission to help CIOs of manufacturing and industrial companies to get more information in a modern business world.

Our mission is to provide the CIO, their executive team, as well as future talent, with the network and peer-led knowledge to respond to opportunities and threats in an information-centric World.

My presentation at PI PLMx was about one of the topics that usually drives lot of discussion and controversy – PLM value proposition. How to sell PLM? What value manufacturing company can get from PLM in a short and long term. My earlier blog – Can we still sell “PLM” acronym? can give you some idea about setting up a stage for my presentation and discussion.

The problem many manufacturing companies are facing after embarking into PLM journey is a big gap between PLM vision and reality. You can see a conflict – instead of full product lifecycle, you have a good chance to get fat and grumpy PDM dinosaur in your IT department.

As industry is looking into future of digital transformation, it is a good time to think how development a new digital assets and new PLM value. I’d like to share my slides:

The final thoughts is what I call digital value chain. This is how I see future PLM value will be developed to go beyond traditional PLM Into future digital world.

What is my conclusion? Manufacturing world is going through the process of digital transformation. It is very important for PLM industry to find a new identity in a future manufacturing world. The old “single source of truth” (SSOT) mantra will be replaced with a new concept of digital value chain. It is a message for PLM architects from software vendors and customers to explore how to match future PLM digital technology with new PLM identity and values. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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