A blog by Oleg Shilovitsky
Information & Comments about Engineering and Manufacturing Software

PLM buzzword detox?

PLM buzzword detox?
Oleg
Oleg
7 February, 2019 | 2 min for reading

How many times you stuck in PLM meeting by saying “What I actually mean is… “. PLM has one big problem of terminology. Earlier this week, I came across funny article on LinkedIn – Don’t make people feel stupid – drop jargon (Tomas Bay). I found also original Thomas Bay article here. These articles resonated with some of my earlier thoughts.

5 overused words in PLM marketing

Digital transformation – new PLM sales buzzword

How many people in the world can speak PLMish?

I had my “Thomas Bay moment” by starring at Jos Voskuil slide from PI PLMx London. The slide looks super fancy. But I looked at the slide multiple times and I wasn’t able to understand what does it mean.

I can see a new wave of buzzwords and terminology coming in PLM domain for the last few years – digital transformation, digital twin(s), digital thread, model-based everything, connected everything, close-loop, lifecycle ownership, end-to-end connectivity, end-to-end lifecycle, system of systems, lifecycle data, coordinated cross-value chain. There are many others…

I think PLM projects are overloaded with buzzwords as never before. New buzzword is pushing to the stratosphere with the level of complexity that makes it very hard to understand. Is it a time to take a deep breath and practice buzzword detox?

Here is my attempt to drop complex buzzwords and definitions:

1- Digital transformation –> Use data management, not only email, PDFs and Excels.

2- Digital twin –>  Information about product

3- Digital thread –> history of changes and dependencies

4- Model-based XYZ –> information about product and its behaviors

5- Close-loop –> Automatic, based on information

6- End-to-end connectivity –> Integrated applications

7- End-to-end lifecycle –> Information about product and its changes

8- Systems of Systems –> Information structure

9- Lifecycle data –> Information and changes

10- Coordinated cross value chain –> used by different department and organizations

Transformation is not simple. But I can see tremendous value of PLM simplification. It will help to create a better understanding of what industry is doing and to create much better relationships with customers. There is huge risk in not doing so. By pushing PLM system towards new buzzwords, we risk to lost it completely.

What is my conclusion? Don’t make people feel stupid and drop the jargon. How many times you stuck in PLM meeting by saying “What I actually mean is… “. PLM has one big problem of terminology. Simplicity is hard and another round of buzzwords is much easier. But by pushing PLM industry into a spiral of new buzzwords we can miss an opportunity for changes and improvements. 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

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
28 January, 2025

From time to time, I’m coming to discuss the intersections of engineering software and PLM. Here are some of my...

1 July, 2016

PLM has deep roots into process and workflows. You can find pieces of process implementation everywhere – starting from CAD...

30 October, 2009

This week was signed by a significant event – Dassault Systems announced intent to acquire IBM’s PLM Software distribution activities....

6 May, 2023

ChatGPT is generating a lot of buzz in different industries and I’m sure you’re asking yourself how ChatGPT can help...

24 July, 2013

Experience is a new modern hype. You can see it everywhere these days. User experience, selling experience, learning experience, total...

4 April, 2012

One of the unpublished rules of PLM Think Tank is not to talk about marketing. Marketing is a tough job....

19 September, 2016

Enterprise software vendors are in transition from perpetual licenses to software as a service (SaaS) models. The question of “use”...

19 August, 2009

I’m constantly looking for new technologies and perspectives of PLM improvement. For the last time, we discussed many products and...

9 January, 2021

Aras is one of the companies I’m continuously following for quite a while. Alongside interesting architecture, Aras is also innovative...

Blogroll

To the top