Every year, as soon as Thanksgiving season begins, I know two things are coming: (1) way too much food, and (2) the annual “So… remind me again, what exactly do you do?” moment. Kids ask. Friends ask. Grandma definitely asks. Even the cousin who arrived late with a mysterious casserole asks.
And honestly, I can’t blame them. “Product Lifecycle Management” sounds like either magic, rocket science, or something involving spreadsheets that nobody wants to hear about at the dinner table.
But I’ve learned something important over the years: The easiest way to explain PLM is through food. In fact, Thanksgiving dinner might be the single best PLM metaphor ever invented.
So this year, instead of fighting the question, I decided to write the ultimate guide for all PLM professionals who need a simple, warm, funny way to explain what they do. Think of this as your secret weapon for surviving the family dinner interrogation—whether it’s Grandma, your niece, or your aunt who still believes your job involves “fixing computers.”
Pour a cup of coffee, loosen your belt (you’ll need the space later), and let’s talk about PLM for Thanksgiving Dinner.
Why Food Is the Best Way to Explain PLM
Manufacturing is complicated. Products have thousands of parts, dozens of people interacting, and more processes than any sane person wants to track manually.
But food? Everyone gets food. Everyone understands ingredients, recipes, cooking failures, and leftovers.
PLM is the digital backbone that helps companies go from an idea to a finished product, and nothing illustrates this better than preparing Thanksgiving dinner. Let’s break it down:
Design = drafting the menu idea for dinner each year
Just like engineers sketch new concepts, someone in the family decides whether we’re doing traditional turkey, deep-fried turkey, or “no turkey this year because someone started CrossFit.”
Reuse components = finding all the recipes
This is PLM gold. No one rewrites a recipe every year. You reuse Grandma’s stuffing recipe—maybe with a new Revision after the “burned stuffing incident” of 2021.
Ingredients = parts
Carrots, potatoes, butter, spices, turkey… All parts with their own attributes, suppliers, and constraints (e.g., “organic only” or “must be gluten-free for Cousin Mia”).
Recipes = BOM (Bill of Materials)
A list of everything needed to assemble the final product—down to the number of eggs and teaspoons of cinnamon. The EBOM is Grandma’s handwritten version; the MBOM is the real-world kitchen plan we improvise while shouting.
Preparation = planning
This is your production scheduling, procurement plan, and dependencies. Like, “If the turkey takes four hours to cook, we should start before halftime.”
Cooking = manufacturing
Real heat, real processes, real mistakes. This is the MES (Manufacturing Execution System) equivalent of your home kitchen.
Leftovers = product end-of-life
And sometimes recycling. Turkey sandwiches are basically “remanufacturing.”
Process = the entire journey
Planning → shopping → preheating → cooking → serving → cleaning. A full lifecycle with dozens of steps.
Customer feedback loop = checking what guests liked last year
A crucial part of PLM: gathering insights to improve next year’s “product.” If everyone avoided the cranberry sauce, maybe we archive it.
In other words, the Thanksgiving workflow is just a giant manufacturing system disguised as a holiday.
Every Thanksgiving Someone Asks What You Do
It never fails. We sit down. The turkey hits the table. Plates are passed. A fork clatters. Everyone takes a breath. And then someone—usually Grandma—asks the sacred question: “Honey, what is it again that you do with those computers?”
Now, this is dangerous territory.
If you answer: “I help companies manage product data across the lifecycle and coordinate engineering processes,” you’ve lost them.
If you say: “I work in PLM,” you’ve really lost them.
But if you say: “Think of Thanksgiving dinner. Now imagine someone has to organize every ingredient, recipe, tool, timeline, and job in the kitchen. That’s PLM. Suddenly, everyone understands. Even Grandpa—who hasn’t updated his phone since 2013—nods in approval.
Food is universal. Food is relatable. And Thanksgiving dinner? It’s the most chaotic, multi-stakeholder, multi-version, highly regulated production event in the American household.
The Thanksgiving PLM Vocabulary (Using All 25 Terms in Real Scenarios)
To make things even easier, I created a full Thanksgiving PLM Glossary, mapping real PLM terms to real Thanksgiving moments.
Get ready—this is the part Grandma will actually enjoy.
1. PLM (Product Lifecycle Management)
The master plan for Thanksgiving dinner—from idea to leftovers.
2. PDM (Product Data Management)
The kitchen drawer where all recipes, photos, and scribbled notes live.
3. BOM (Bill of Materials)
The ingredient list for each dish.
4. EBOM
The recipe as originally written by Grandma in 1978.
5. MBOM
How we actually prepare things in the kitchen when half the ingredients are missing.
6. Revision
Updating the stuffing recipe after the “too salty” disaster of 2020.
7. Version Control
Tracking which recipe we used last year so we don’t repeat mistakes.
8. ECO (Engineering Change Order)
The official announcement: “No marshmallows on sweet potatoes this year!”
9. Change Management
The family approval process before altering any dish on the sacred menu.
10. Workflow Automation
Reminders: “Preheat the oven at 2:30 PM.” “Start boiling potatoes now.”
11. Lifecycle Stages
Turkey: frozen → thawed → seasoned → roasted → carved → enjoyed → leftovers.
12. Document Management
Finding Grandma’s stuffing recipe without tearing apart the house.
13. Collaboration Tools
Coordinating between the kitchen crew, table-setters, and dessert team.
14. Configuration Management
Turkey variants: classic, spicy, vegan tofu.
15. Compliance Management
Keeping Uncle Bob away from the deep fryer after last year’s “incident.”
16. Supplier Management
Choosing grocery stores, but with strong opinions.
17. ERP / MES Integration
Budgeting + kitchen execution talking to each other. (“No, we can’t afford that fancy butter.”)
18. Digital Twin
A virtual version of the Thanksgiving dinner that never burns anything.
19. Digital Thread
Tracking each ingredient from store → fridge → oven → plate.
20. Data Visualization
Colorful charts proving which cousin ate all the pie.
21. QMS (Quality Management)
Taste-testing everything. Twice.
22. BOM Validation
Checking the grocery list before leaving the house.
23. Product Innovation
“We’re trying a new dessert this year.”
24. Change Impact Analysis
If one cousin becomes vegan, what in the menu breaks?
25. Extended Enterprise
The army of aunts, uncles, and neighbors bringing weird side dishes.
Thanksgiving Chaos, Explained as PLM
Thanksgiving dinner is a beautiful thing. It’s also a disaster waiting to happen. This is exactly what makes it a perfect PLM analogy.
Burned Rolls = Version Control Failure
Someone thought they set a timer. Someone didn’t. The result: charcoal croissants.
Last-minute guests = Change Impact Analysis. Now you need more plates, more chairs, more food, and probably more patience.
Forgotten ingredients = Broken Digital Thread. How did we end up with three cans of whipped cream but no potatoes?
Deep fryer compliance violation. There’s always one uncle who thinks “Oil isn’t that hot,” proving the importance of safety rules.
The official family ECO. Every family has its sacred moment: “No more green bean casserole,” or “We’re switching to sourdough stuffing.” This is an ECO in action.
Food brings humor. It brings family. It brings drama. And it brings a perfect, relatable way to explain PLM.
What is my conclusion? The Real PLM Message Behind the Turkey…
Once the jokes settle, there is a genuine, serious point here. Thanksgiving dinner is a multi-step, highly coordinated effort with:
- multiple people
- multiple ingredients
- timelines
- dependencies
- risks
- quality checks
- version control
- and plenty of change requests
Sound familiar? This is manufacturing. And PLM is the system that makes it all work. If families had real PLM systems, Thanksgiving would run smoother:
- No missing ingredients
- No burned dishes
- No last-minute chaos
- Clear roles
- Clear recipes
- Traceability for who bought what
- And digital twins to test recipes before the big day
PLM is simply the platform that makes complex things happen accurately, consistently, and with fewer disasters. Just like Thanksgiving dinner—if everything goes right.
Just my thoughts…
PS. For all my American friends getting ready for the annual Turkey ceremony, Happy Thanksgiving!
Best, Oleg
Disclaimer: I’m the co-founder and CEO of OpenBOM, a digital-thread platform providing cloud-native collaborative and integration services between engineering tools including PDM, PLM, and ERP capabilities. Interested in OpenBOM AI Beta? Check with me about what is the future of Agentic Engineering Workflows.
With extensive experience in federated CAD-PDM and PLM architecture, I advocate for agile, open product models and cloud technologies in manufacturing. My opinion can be unintentionally biased.
