Clarity on PLM

I had the chance to talk with … Tim Frost of Burner Systems International (BSI) about their adoption of Product Data Management (PDM) to improve engineering and new product development performance. Tim explained to me that one of the primary goals for their adoption of PLM was getting a handle on their product data. But BSI also wanted to expand collaboration outside of Engineering and improve their time to market. The case study, Tech-Clarity Business in Focus: Burner Systems International – Improving Collaboration with Product Data Management, describes BSI’s experience from recognizing the need for action due to increased complexity in their business all the way through today’s benefits and plans for the future.

What do they Do?

BSI is a supplier to the OEMs that manufacture gas appliances. Like most suppliers, they compete very aggressively with their competition. They compete based on innovation, but most importantly on agility. They need to be able to react quickly to customer needs and bring the right component to market. Due to increased competition, growth by acquisition, and globalization BSI faced a huge challenge. As Tim tells me “We ended up with plants all over the globe, and we had to integrate engineering functions and data.”

What did they Do?

Recognizing the increased complexity, BSI took action. “You can use folders and you might get away with it for a while, but with multiple revisions you can’t manage it,” Tim explains. The solution was to implement a Product Data Management (PDM) system.  Just as importantly, they wanted to improve collaboration across departments. Tim describes how they implemented a PLM system (which includes PDM) that can be used by engineers and non-engineers alike. We discussed how departments like Quality, Manufacturing, Purchasing, and Sales get involved in the product design and development process.

What are the Results?

The new PDM system has shrunk cycle times and helped them make fewer manufacturing errors. According to Tim, those errors can cost up to $100,000 each. BSI is pleased with the results. “We know that we are faster in developing new products, I would estimate 25% faster,” Tim says. “We know that we are better prepared for launching production due to better input and collaboration from Manufacturing, and we know that we are less likely to make bad parts due to out of date drawing revisions.” The project is a success, and BSI is looking to further their gains by continuing to go beyond PDM to a more full PLM solution, leveraging the infrastructure they have in place.

 Implications for Manufacturers

 Burner Systems is a great example of a smaller company that desperately needed to get product data under control. At the same time, they have managed to achieve even more strategic benefits through collaboration and improved time to market. PDM is often the first step in a broader PLM Program.

So that’s what I hear from BSI, I hope you found it useful. What do you think? What else should I have asked them? A summary of the report is available from the Tech-Clarity site, and the full report is available for free from Siemens PLM, the provider of the Teamcenter Express software that BSI uses (and the sponsor of the report). Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.

A quick peek into some research on … product compliance for formula-based companies in a report titled Issue in Focus: Product Compliance – The Hidden Tax on Innovation: Enhancing Innovation in Formula-Based Companies through Real-time, Automated Compliance Monitoring. One of the predictions that came true in Mythbusing Product Innovation and PLM 2010 Predictions was that PLM would expand to address product compliance. My past reports, such as the report on Making Product Compliance Sustainable, focused primarily on regulations like RoHS and REACH that impact product people that make discrete items like electronic or mechanical devices. But formula- and recipe-based product developers face their own set of compliance challenges. This report focused on their needs, and how PLM systems can help reduce the manual workload burden placed on them by product compliance. 

The Research Findings

The research included interviews with consumer goods companies including Revlon, Zotos International (a division of Shiseido Co,. Ltd.) and made a few key observations:

•  Early compliance checking helps avoid rework and speed time to market in product formulation and testing by ensuring product contents are acceptable early in the product development process
• Manual product compliance processes are slow, inneficient, and inhibits innovation by forcing key innovators to spend inordinate amounts of time looking up information and making it difficult for them to try new, innovative ideas quickly and with confidence

Given the need for early compliance checking and the potential for these checks to grind product innovation to a halt, companies appear to be between a rock and a hard place. The report goes on to discuss how real-time, automated compliance monitoring can help relieve the innovator of this compliance burden so they can focus on developing great products. This requires an infrastructure that:

• Provides knowledge of global compliance requirements
• Recognizes the full composition of their raw materials
• Understands the product formula as it is being designed
• Checks compliance real-time as the developer innovates
• Provides full, electronic documentation of compliance

There is more detail on each of these requirements in the report.

Implications for (Formula-Based) Manufacturers

For companies that develop and manufacture formula-based products, the compliance challenge will only grow. Government regulations and consumer sentiment will continue to push companies with greater scrutiny of their product contents, and restricted material lists will continue to grow. On the other hand, consumers will continue to reward innovate new products. In order to meet both demands, product developers must have the right tools to innovate rapidly, but with the comfort that there is a system behind them that will keep them out of compliance trouble.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on making product compliance more efficient for product developrs in formula-based industries, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective. Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.

A quick peek into some research on … the use of social computing and “Web 2.0″ techniques to enhance product collaboration. The report, Issue in Focus: Product Collaboration 2.0 - Using Social Computing Techniques to Create Corporate Social Networks not only discusses how social media and Internet-based technologies can improve product collaboration in corporate social networks, but also how manufacturers’ use of social computing allows them to capture and leverage the interactions as a new source of corporate product knowledge.

The Research Findings

One of the key messages of the report is that companies are starting to embrace social computing and “Web 2.0” capabilities to take advantage of social media for business purposes, creating “corporate social networks.” It is important for many companies to make a clear distinction between personal use of social media (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, etc.) and “real work” using social computing. While many large companies have shut down access to social media sites, these same concepts offer the ability for engineers, product developers, marketers, manufacturing resources, sourcing, and others in the product innovation process to share and contribute.

There are two primary threads to the research:

• Improving Collaboration – As reported in my previous post and research Going Social with Product Development, capabilities like presence detection and interactive file sharing help make existing collaborative processes better. This is particularly important to replace the day-to-day “water cooler” conversations that have disappeared in today’s globally dispersed, virtual organizations and support processes such as concurrent engineering. For example, manufacturers can create a virtual “community space” to give team members a central location for information. This collaboration extends beyond Engineering as well, and helps product developers include downstream considerations from Manufacturing, Purchasing, Quality, Service, and other departments early in the design process.
• Capturing Product Knowledge – Another key finding of the research is that as manufacturers adopt social computing in PLM, they are developing a digital record of the product development process. Decisions, discussions, false starts, brainstorms, and other interactions can now be captured and stored electronically. Using PLM, they can also be associated to the product and the project to form a permanent record of the process. By integrating this social interaction with search capabilities in PLM (see Unlock My Product Data! Business Intelligence in PLM), the potential to turn collaboration into a corporate asset is tremendous. Beyond capturing internal knowledge, corporate social networks can also be used to collaborate with suppliers and customers to gain better insights into the “voice of the customer,” capture requirements, and generate new product ideas - developing new knowledge and intellectual property (IP).

Implications for Manufacturers

There are significant business benefits to be unlocked by applying social computing techniques to product development. Manufacturers have an opportunity to improve collaboration inside and outside of the enterprise by leveraging these new techniques. After all, social computing is about sharing content within a community. Isn’t that what collaboration is all about? Sharing and getting feedback? And while the thought of using Facebook or Twitter to share your intellectual property may not sound that appealing (as we discussed in Flogging the Facebook for Product Development Horse), the same concepts are being applied to (and integrated with) PLM.  I believe that these capabilities will be a big part of product innovation moving forward, and that companies that get started sooner will have a big advantage over their peers. This is a new and exciting frontier, and we all need to explore and learn so we can tap the new potential ahead of the competition.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on social computing and collaboration, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? What are your plans? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective.

And as always, please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.

A quick peek into some research on … service management from Tech-Clarity Insight: Servicing Medical Devices: World Class Service Management for Medical Equipment. The research extends prior research on equipment service management including the prior report, Tech-Clarity Insight: Equipment Service
Management: Maximizing Profit and Customer Value over the Equipment
Lifecycle. Wow, that was a mouthful! Sorry. In a nutshell, this report is intended to help medical device companies leverage lessons learned from other service-oriented industries, but points out distinct differences in the healthcare industry.

The Research Findings

The research highlights the need for service organizations to master two disciplines in order to achieve world class service:

• Operational Control
• Equipment Intelligence

These two fundamentals of Equipment Service Management (ESM) help companies maintain customer satisfaction, but also allow allow them to profit from the business of service.

For medical device companies, of course, these two disciplines must also address patient safety and regulatory compliance. The medical device industry is highly regulated, including mandatory requirements for tracking product configurations and service history (such as maintaining a “device master record” and tracking what work has been done and by whom). The best practices of ESM are well suited to help medical device companies address both general service management best practices, as well as the unique needs of their industry.

Implications for (Medical Device) Manufacturers

Medical device manufacturers are facing increased pressure from global markets. During the best of times, most saw service only as a necessary function to enable sales. Good service is good business, and happy customers are repeat customers. They are now finding that they also have to be lean in service to maintain profit margins. This is particularly true as more customers ask for fixed-price or performance-based service contracts. Today, more medical device companies are starting to view service as a strategic profit center in addition to maintaining its role in keeping customers happy (and buying more products). Medical device companies should learn from other industries that have already made the transition to being service-led companies, but always keep their eyes on the unique challenges and responsibilities they face as a part of the healthcare industry.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on servicing medical equipment, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective.

Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about service management, PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.

A quick peek into some research on … the recovery of the software and hardware industry in this AP piece Analyst firm says tech sector to recover in 2010. The data has me thinking about what state the PLM market will be in this year. From all signs I can see, things are looking much better. I am looking forward to hearing from some of my peers in the analyst community that cover PLM directly, but for now here are some thoughts and – as always – my thoughts on how this will impact manufacturers.

The Research Findings

Here are some snipits from the AP release:

• Forrester Research Inc. … expects global spending on technology products and services to grow 8.1 percent in 2010, to more than $1.6 trillion
• Forrester also said U.S. spending is expected to rise 6.6 percent, to $568 billion
• Last fall Gartner Inc. forecast 3.3 percent growth in global technology spending
• IDC, said in December that worldwide tech spending would grow 3.2 percent in 2010

These are very good numbers. The fact that they don’t agree doesn’t bother me because it is not clear that the big gorillas in the analyst community have any standard definition of the market, they use different data sources, and as all manufacturers know a forecast by definition is wrong. But if you look at each of these, they are trending positive. With that in mind, we know several things:

• The software market is expected to recover
• PLM was growing rapidly (double digit growth) prior to the downturn
• The PLM value proposition is stronger than ever, and more companies have proven the value

I am not an economist, but I like the way this looks for 2010. I have also had the opportunity to talk to a number of manufacturers, and they are still very excited about PLM. I expect demand will be for core PLM, but also for other product innovation, product development, and engineering solutions as I mentioned in my post Mythbusting Product Innovation and PLM 2010 Predictions.

Implications for Manufacturers

Hopefully you and your vendor made it through the downturn. The past year saw many manufacturers take a survive and thrive approach to the market, leaning out to make it through the down market but innovating to be ready to capitalize on the recovery. This time was very though on software vendors as well. Although there were acquisitions, there was not a mass market consolidation as some might have predicted. If your vendor made it to see 2010, the chances are pretty good they will have a better year this year. Hopefully, all of us in the manufacturing and manufacturing software community will.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on Product Lifecycle Management in 2010, I hope you found it interesting. I am looking forward to COFES (Congress for the Future of Engineering Software) where Cyon Research will report on the buying intentions of manufacturing and engineering companies. I had the opportunity to join Brad Holtz in conducting and presenting part of last year’s research on the impact of the economy on the engineering software market, and plan to do the same in Scottsdale this year.

Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective. Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.

A quick peek into some research on … how companies are meeting environmental regulations for their products, and doing so in a way that is sustainable to the business from a cost and risk perspective. As manufacturers face increasing pressure from regulations such as REACH and evolving regulations like the many flavors of RoHS, it is becoming more important to develop a platform and a capability to address compliance systematically as opposed to viewing it as a series of one-off projects by regulation. This study, Tech-Clarity Perspective: Product Environmental Compliance, combines interviews with three leading manufacturers with survey results from over 300 companies to help manufacturers understand environmental product compliance challenges and how companies are addressing them.

The Research Findings

This study was unique for Tech-Clarity because it involved both survey data and interviews with compliance leaders in several manufacturing companies. The report provides two perspectives. The first is a broad perspective on the approaches that companies are taking to address their product compliance challenges. The second is a more detailed look at how three leading companies – Motorola, APC, and Seagate – are addressing these challenges.

The results are very interesting. There are some interesting figures on how regulations are impacting manufacturers and where they are focusing. One finding that I thought was interesting is that REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals ) is now impacting products in manufacturers as frequently as RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances). Both regulations were reported by 79% of respondents as impacting their products. As always, I suggest that you read the research for more information.

Beyond those results, however, the report also makes certain conclusions about how companies can address compliance challenges in a sustainable way. In summary, these recommendations are:

• Compiling a common set of product environmental performance requirements
• Gaining a better understanding of the substances that make up components
• Automating the analysis and monitoring of product structures and composition against requirements
• Documenting proof of compliance electronically

Implications for Manufacturers

Many manufacturers are struggling with choosing which regulations to address, how thoroughly to address them, and how to approach the problem. The study paints a clear picture of three manufacturers that have looked at the problem holistically, and developed a systematic approach to deal with the multitude of regulations. Manufacturers can’t afford the risk of stopped shipments, poor market perception of environmental stewardship, or losing access to markets. On the other hand, dealing with each regulation on a project basis will grind business to a halt and dramatically spike the cost of environmental compliance. The environmental product compliance challenge is here to stay, it will only get more difficult as customer requirements and regulations like REACH and RoHS expand and evolve, and will continue to drive unacceptable market risk and high compliance costs.

Manufacturers that develop a repeatable, systematic approach to address regulations will simultaneously reduce compliance risk and control total cost of compliance. As the examples in the report show, companies are leveraging enterprise software including PLM and specialized product compliance capabilities to meet these needs.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on developing environmentally sustainable products in a commercially sustainable way, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective. Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about compliance, PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.

Note: The link provides access to a free copy of a report summary or to the full report which is made available by PTC (registration required).

A quick peek into some research on … the adoption of Enterprise 2.0 technologies. The report, The State of Enterprise Adoption Q4 2009, is an interesting read from the “2.0 Adoption Council.” The analysis is brief, but the insights are strong and the authors promise more detail in the future. My first introduction to the research came from a blog post on ReadWrite Enterprise titled Enterprise 2.0: Study Shows Adoption is Real with a strong statement that “Manufacturing Has Surprising High Adoption.”

State of Enterprise 2.0 Adoption

I would suggest reading the underlying research, because (as you will see below) I have a different interpretation of the results. But with my high level of interest in Social Computing in Product Development and PLM I do see some positive signs from the study. Thanks to Oleg for his Enterprise 2.0 Adoption and Social PLM post which pointed me to a blog (and then subsequently to the underlying research). I have a slightly different take on the implications of the findings, but that may be because research is frequently left open for some level of interpretation. Regardless, we both agree that things are moving in a positive direction in regards to PLM and social computing.

The Research Findings

As always, I encourage you to read the study. The report clearly shows that participants are adopting “Enterprise 2.0.” The report itself does not provide a definition of Enterprise 2.0, but because the participants were pre-qualified I assume they have a good understanding. For the rest of us, here is a definition we can use that I took from Wikepedia:

Enterprise social software (also known as or regarded as a major component of Enterprise 2.0), comprises social software as used in “enterprise” (business/commercial) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to corporate intranets and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication.

The report shows that the majority of survey participants still see Enterprise 2.0 in the stages of early adoption. But in their own companies, there are typically multiple projects going on. This to me indicates that there will clearly be leaders and laggards in the adoption of social computing techniques in the enterprise. This is where companies will be able to differentiate themselves and gain advantage over their competition.

Manufacturing is well represented in the survey respondents, but I wouldn’t read too much into that. The industry chart just shows the participants in the research, and the fact that 15 companies out of 77 that took the survey describe themselves as “high tech” and 7 describe themselves as “manufacturing” doesn’t really point to a larger trend that manufacturing is leading in social computing. What I do find interesting is the anecdotal comments in the report that “It is heartening to see that a drive to improve collaboration has taken hold in an industry (manufacturing) which is notoriously difficult to change rapidly” and “… our manufacturing members express the most frustration with introducing change.” This clearly reflects the conversations I have been having with manufacturers.

Implications for Manufacturers

So what does this mean for manufacturers? As much as I would love to jump to the conclusion that social computing is booming, I interpret this differently. I see this as:

• Manufacturers are very interested in social computing
• The early adopters are hard at work figuring it out
• Progress has been cautious (for the most part)

My beliefs on how manufacturers will adopt social computing in product development has not changed:

• Most manufacturers will start with the low-hanging fruit of improving collaboration, and most will start internally
• Manufacturers will be more likely to adopt social computing techniques when they are incorporated into applications they trust such as PLM, which will protect their intellectual property (IP)
• There will be significant value gained by those manufacturers that adopt social computing to improve product innovation, product development, and engineering performance

This study offers some good validation that some thought-leading manufacturers are moving towards Enterprise 2.0. I wouldn’t read too much into it in regards to a general trend, but there is clearly something going on that manufacturers need to learn about and start experimenting with.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on the adoption of Enterprise 2.0, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective. Please feel free to review more free research and white papers from Tech-Clarity.

A quick peek into some research on … how manufacturers are taking advantage of social computing and “Web 2.0″ technologies to raise the bar on product development performance in my new report Tech-Clarity Insight: Going Social with Product Development: Improving Product Development Performance with Social Computing. The paper discusses the intersection of social computing and new product development (NPD) processes and tools. I have posted frequently about the intersection of social computing and PLM and product innovation, and this research provides some examples on how these strategies are starting to play out for manufacturers like Microsoft (think PC hardware and game consoles, not Windows) and Pitney Bowes.
The Research Findings

The paper discusses uses of social computing from the basics of collaboration to the adoption of more innovative business models. Most companies will start with more conservative extensions to existing processes like design collaboration. In these cases, incorporating tools like instant messaging into the product development workflow can help streamline interactions. Capabilities like presence detection and interactive file sharing help make existing collaborative processes better. For many companies, these capabilities are readily available and require little change to underlying business processes.

Other forms of communication, such as blogs and wikis, offer a combination of better communication and knowledge management. These online discussion tools change the product dialogue from a one-way push of information to a two-way, interactive, dynamic, electronic conversation to help people better share information and ideas. Beyond better communication, the simple fact that the conversations are happening centrally and in electronic format turns product-related discussions and decision-making into a searchable knowledge asset.

Social computing can also be used to extend collaboration and information sharing to broader communities. This allows product developers to collaborate with the people they know, but also extend their search to find others in the corporate network that have valuable knowledge and expertise that previously would have gone untapped. By connecting people around product and project context, companies enable “social discovery” which fundamentally changes the available talent and expertise available to a project.

Beyond the corporate community, companies can also develop new product intellectual property (IP) from social computing. By extending the online community to customers and the market, new opportunities to gather “voice of the customer” and test ideas emerge. While these concepts require more change to the business and the way it operates, they also offer an even greater potential return by leveraging larger communities.

Implications for Manufacturers
The implications break down into two categories. The first implications are about the applicability and importance of social computing in product development. You have probably heard me talk about this before, and this report helps confirm and expand my thoughts on the subject. There is clearly something of value happening with the intersection of this exciting and popular new way of communicating and the business of developing profitable products.

The second set of implications fall into the category of practical advice and lessons learned to take advantage of this new opportunity. The opportunities are available, but the most important thing is that manufacturers don’t discount the applicability of social computing concepts based on their personal experience with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, or any other social networking sites. Manufacturers have to see through the use of these communication techniques for “fun” and see the significant business potential. This potential will likely never come from the public social networking sites, but instead by incorporating these “Web 2.0″ concepts into existing infrastructure and product development solutions. This is the most practical method to both achieve the value, but also ensure that product data and intellectual property (IP) is protected and that the solutions are used in the right context – to improve products and projects that drive corporate profitability.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on social computing in product development, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective.

Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity

A quick peek into some research on … the importance of good supply chain information in A Risk-Based Approach to Component and Supplier Management: Mitigating Risk with Component and Compliance Intelligence. The research discusses how good intelligence on the supply chain can help mitigate risks such as counterfeits and fakes, obsolescence, and regulatory noncompliance. The report provides examples from a number of leading manufacturers including defense contractor BAE Systems, electronics industry service provider Jabil, and high tech company ON Semiconductor.

The Research Findings

There are a number of important observations based on interviews with the the three firms that agree to participate in the interviews. Please read the report for the full details. The main thing that stuck out for me was the need to build a framework that allows companies to leverage component and supply chain data to make good business decisions. This is critical to risk management, and helps companies avoid or reduce the impact of a number of common supply disruptions.  As the report finds, “The key is to arm the decision-maker with the right information in time to act strategically.” Like so many other aspects of product development and product lifecycle management (PLM) I have studied, supply risk is best addressed early, when there are still more options available.

The framework of information is not trivial, and requires an investment by the manufacturer to ensure complete, consistent, and accurate information. The elements of the framework include data from both the manufacturer and the supporting supply chain. For example, a good framework combines information from multiple sources, putting the supply data into the context of the company’s products and offering potential alternatives when issues do arise. This data can include:

• Bills of Material (BOMs)
• Approved Vendor Lists (AVLs)
• Approved Material Lists (AMLs)
• Component Specifications
• Supplier Data
• Obsolescence  Notifications
• Controlled Substance Lists
• Compliance Certifications
• Bills of Substance (material composition for purchased components)
• Notifications of Identified Counterfeits
• And more

Having a clean, trusted source of information helps companies identify risk, analyze the potential impact, and mitigate the risk effectively. I can’t imagine summing up the findings from the research any better than one of the company thought leaders I interviewed for the report who said “Knowledge is power, the more you know the better decisions you can make.” Well said, and quite true.

Implications for Manufacturers

I often write about the importance of good software to help manufacturers maintain product profitability. This research is a good reminder that having the right information is just as important. Sourcing product and supply chain knowledge is a frequently overlooked aspect of a solid PLM strategy, as I mentioned previously in my report on Making Engineering Efficient – with Electronic Reference Information. Having the right information – both internal and external – in a framework where it can be applied to make business decisions like risk management is an important tool in managing risk, but also to bringing profitable products to market in a broader sense.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on mitigating supply risk with good supply chain intelligence, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective.

Please feel free to review a summary of this and more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity. The full report is also available for free courtesy of IHS.

A quick peek into some research on … the use of business intelligence in PLM provides insight on taking advantage of the tremendous amount of product data  accumulating in today’s PLM systems. The research discusses how the maturation of manufacturers’ PLM implementations has created a tremendous volume of untapped information that can be leveraged to improve product innovation, product development, and engineering performance. As it has in previous enterprise applications (ERP, CRM, SCM, others), the time has come for manufacturers to tap into their growing information goldmines through the use of business intelligence (BI) tools.

The Research Findings

The research points out two parallel trends in PLM implementations today:

• Manufacturers have moved forward along the PLM implementation maturity curve – meaning they now have stable implementations and clean data
• PLM has evolved and expanded to incorporate more valuable, business-focused data in addition to technical information – meaning the data to be mined covers a broader spectrum of the product lifecycle, including cost, projects, sourcing, service, and more in addition to purely technical engineering data

The result of these two trends is that there is now a lot more usable business data in PLM. The report points out a number of areas of value that can be mined from the data, including savings on new product development timelines, closing the loop from service to engineering, improving product quality, analyzing sourcing, and reducing cost. In short, it shows that value can be extracted by improving pretty much any part of the product innovation, product development, and engineering processes. Please read the report for more details and examples.

Implications for Manufacturers

The message for manufacturers is that “there is gold in them hills” …. errrrrr, in those databases. The research also points out some special considerations for business intelligence in a PLM environment. For most manufacturers, applying a BI tool is not the difficult part. In fact, they probably have (at least) one tool available in their IT toolkit. But before diving in from a technical perspective, manufacturers need to be very careful to consider security, IP protection, and regulatory requirements that surround this very sensitive data. Manufacturers should also look for ways to leverage PLM vendor offerings or partnerships that give them a ready-made view into the PLM data and security model, to avoid spending time recreating the wheel and potentially making mistakes that provide misleading “facts” that people will trust. As the report says, “Developing an effective BI in PLM strategy also requires knowledge of the engineering and product development domains and the specific software applications being mined.”

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on the maturation of PLM implementations and the opportunity it provides for data mining in PLM, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective.

Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.