Clarity on PLM

What I learned this week … is that manufacturers (and others) are as passionate and focused on new product development and innovation as ever. I had the opportunity to act as master of ceremonies (emcee JB in the house!) for Aberdeen Group‘s Leadership in Product Development Summit. We had a great lineup of speakers from some great companies that shared their experience in developing new products.

The Discussion

The topic ranged from how to generate new product ideas to how companies can use simulation to validate designs in the digital stages before product development and engineering decisions are locked in. Cindy Jutras, perhaps the most senior analyst at Aberdeen being one of only two research fellows, kicked it off. Cindy gave great insight from Aberdeen’s research that helped companies understand the urgency and priority of improving product development. The research showed that developing new products is a top-of-mind concern for companies across industries.

I followed Cindy’s talk by explaining that in addition to innovative products, early findings from my new upcoming research on NPD (I am publishing the report as an adjunct research fellow of Aberdeen) indicate that companies are aiming to improve the timeliness of product launch and addressing increased price competition. The research I presented turned the corner from the challenges to the actions companies are taking to address them. The early findings from my upcoming Aberdeen benchmark indicate that Best-in-Class companies are targeting improvements to product development across the product development cycle. Leading companies are planning to improve processes starting from generating new ideas, through detailed design and regulatory compliance, all the way to releasing products to manufacturing. The presentations from manufacturers such as Ingersoll Rand, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, iRobot and service companies including Nielson and Wachovia (on product development focus, interestingly enough) reinforced the breadth of product development areas that can be improved, and gave practical examples of how to improve them.

The Group – Diverse and Engaged

One of the things that I enjoyed most was that although the conference was focused primarily on manufacturing companies (who develop physical products), we had speakers and attendees from software and service companies as well. It was great to see the ideas crossing back and forth between industries! The conference was kicked off by Doug Williams of zipcar. For those that don’t know, zipcar is an innovative company that provides cars on demand for their members. Just like Apple, zipcar’s business includes a service component (the cars), a software component (the website and reservation systems), and hardware (the devices in the car). Doug is the executive responsible for engineering for the company, and discussed how they had transitioned from traditional “waterfall” development processes to an agile product development process. What I found fascinating is that even manufacturers that don’t have software in their products (those are getting fewer by the day, it seems with the level of “smart” products with embedded software) could relate to the concept of agile. In fact, the concepts are similar and can help promote a lean product development process. In the same way, Doug Post (it was also the conference of the “three Dougs”) from the DoD talk about validating products early in the lifecycle using simulation technology had the attention of many that had much simpler products than jet fighters or naval vessels.

Implications for Manufacturers

What are my takeaways for manufacturers? First, focus on improving product development across all phases of the lifecycle. Second, take the time to learn from others. It was great to see people getting new ideas and insights from their peers across industries. Thank you to Aberdeen Group for including me in your event! And thank you to sponsors Accept, Ansys, Brightidea, Microsoft, PTC, Adobe, Cognistreamer, and Kalypso for your support of the event (and your participation, too).

So those are some of my thoughts from the conference, I hope you found them interesting. It is clearly not a summary of the whole conference, but instead a couple of my key takeaways. There will be a more comprehensive webcast to wrap things up, keep an eye on the Tech-Clarity events page for new product development, innovation, and PLM-related topics.

What I learned this week … came from watching the Did You Know 3.0 Video and asking myself what it means to the world of manufacturing and product lifecycle management (PLM). The answer? Quite a lot. If you haven’t seen the video, it is worth 5 minutes of your time to give you an entertaining and informative look into the times we live in. The part that really caught me was that we live in “exponential times.” Things are changing rapidly in our personal and professional lives, and manufacturers need to consider the ways the world is changing in order to be relevant with the right products (and the right processes) to capitalize on the future.

Note: Thanks to Randall Newton at CADCAMNet for posting the link. I have seen this before, but his post was what made me really think about it.

Did You Know?

The video, if you haven’t seen it before, tries to put the world in perspective through facts and pictograms. I have seen these before, and they are always thought-provoking.  According to the source, this was put together by Karl Fisch and modified by Scott McLeod. Some of the key takeaways for me are:

• MySpace has 200 million subscribers, if it were a country it would be 5th largest in the world
• A week’s worth of the New York Times holds as much information as an average person would come across in a lifetime in the 18th century
• The amount of technical information doubles every two years
• The number of text messages sent/received in a day exceeds the population of the planet
• The time it took for a product/technology to reach a market audience of 50 million:
  • Radio – 38 years
  • Television – 13 years
  • iPod – 3 years
  • FaceBook – 2 years

Further, there are some fascinating facts about the increased capabilities of computing technologies.

What Does it All Mean (for Manufacturing and PLM)?

The video ends with a question – “What Does it All Mean?” – without providing an answer. The answer, of course, depends on who you are and how the changes impact your world.  When I watched this, I tried to take the perspective of what impacts this will have on product innovation, product development, engineering, and manufacturing. Further, I tried to consider how this will impact the software solutions that help support product lifecycle management. There are challenges and opportunities on the way. Here are my thoughts:

• Social networking is exploding – this offers a tremendous benefit for manufacturers that want to use social computing in PLM to improve collaboration and dramatically change the way they interact with their markets and customers.
• Knowledge is exploding – manufacturers have a tremendous challenge to manage their own information and intellectual property, let alone be able to access and leverage the information available across the globe. Search, Knowledge Management (KM), and Business Intelligence (BI) will become bigger requirements inside PLM and to drive product innovation by tapping into global knowledge sources. Social computing will also play a role here, as manufacturers try to discover the people with the right knowledge in addition to knowledge.
• Time to market is evaporating – the time lag between a technical advance and the commercialization is disappearing. This makes new product development (NPD) critical, but also further supports the need to rapidly discover and take advantage of knowledge anywhere in the world. It also means that manufacturers will have to get their products right the first time, or someone else will take the market away from them.
• Computing power is exploding – the exponential growth of computing power will play a large role in what PLM vendors are able to do with their software, opening up new opportunities including continued expansion of 3D, animation, and simulation in the way we interact with products.

So that is some insight on the times we live in and my thoughts on the implications for manufacturing and PLM, I hope you found it interesting. Who knew? I didn’t. And I am sure I missed something, feel free to add. And for those that watched the video, please pass along any ideas on how to get that music out of my head!

Please feel free to review related perspectives, 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 digital prototyping techniques and technologies to design (and redesign) efficient manufacturing plants. Most of the times I discuss “digital prototyping” it regards products. But the same concepts apply when using digital prototyping in the plant – namely using digital models to increase design efficiency and get designs right the first time. Today I am happy to share my new report with you, Digital Prototyping in the Plant: Improving Manufacturing Agility with the Digital Factory.

Why Digital Prototyping Now?

Clearly, the economy has been tough on manufacturers across the globe. Today, manufacturers are facing a series of demands to survive today and thrive during the economic recovery. I researched engineering’s role in a survive and thrive strategy from a product perspective earlier this year, noting that Engineering can make short-term impacts on both the top and bottom lines in the near term while innovating to prepare for the future. But what impact does the economic downturn have on manufacturing and plant engineers? In the plant right now, you are probably facing:

• The need to cut cost
• The demand to improve efficiency
• The requirement to adjust to plant or line consolidations, volume/mix changes, and potentially new products
• Lean resources to accomplish all of the above

What Did the Research Reveal?

Tech-Clarity interviewed leading manufacturers including Android, Robert Bosch, and General Motors on their use of digital prototyping. By leveraging 3D models in their plants, these manufacturers are improving their ability to design and reuse optimal tooling at a detail level as well as optimizing workstations, lines, and plants at a macro level. They are leveraging the tools to validate and optimize changes in a virtual environment before commiting to physical changes. In return, they are able to “find hundreds of issues … early in the process” and ensure smooth production in the plant when modifications are brought online.

One interesting finding was the use of 3D laser scanning to create 3D models of older plants that were likely designed using 2D drawings. In these scenarios, 3D for prototypes is created “using 3D laser scanning (LIDAR) to capture 3D point clouds of existing brownfield sites and pulling those into our CAD models.” This helps to reduce the barrier to entry for digital prototyping in existing plants.

Another interesting finding was the use of digital prototypes to collaborate with tooling suppliers, who are frequently geographically dispersed. With lower travel budgets and short time frames, electronic collaboration can bridge the gap. As one participant said, “This enables engineers collaborating deeply with external design suppliers to see the changes much faster and with less errors than in the 2D world.” Of course digital prototypes also help enable collaboration with design engineers in a concurrent engineering approach to get new products ramped up quickly.

Implications for Manufacturers

Cost saving opportunities are available, and change is inevitable. Manufacturers today have the opportunity to increase their agility and improve efficiency through digital prototyping technology. Please read the report for more recommendations. You may also be interested in a prior report, Leveraging the Digital Factory: Enhancing Productivity from Operator to Enterprise on the use of digital prototyping and Manufacturing Process Management (MPM) and Digital Manufacturing solutions to reduce cost, speed time to market, and improve product quality.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on digital prototyping in the plant, 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.

What I learned this week … came from an article on Yahoo! Tech News titled Technology in starring role at NY Fashion Week. The article really made me think about how virtual worlds, social computing, and PLM could transform fashion shows.

Note: The video grab is from a site called “vimeo” posted by “Four H” and the link to their great Lego fashion show video is here. Pretty great job of animation, I think.

What the Article Says

Given the recent focus on PLM for the footwear and apparel industry, I was not surprised by the headline. In fact, I probably read more into it than I should have. Perhaps I am a bit overly optimistic about how technology can transform an industry like fashion. But companies have greatly improved product development and supplier management in these softer industries by using PLM. That was not the focus of the article, however. The article spoke about:

• The use of the Internet to put on a virtual fashion show (more remote than virtual, I think)
• The use of the Internet to sell clothing and fashion (including a new application for the iPhone)

Interesting, but not what I had hoped to see.

What the Article Doesn’t Say (but Might Eventually)

I really didn’t expect the article to cover using PLM to improve product development. But I did expect to hear more about the use of virtualization, visualization, and mockup technologies to display fashion. The article started out talking about “creating collections that are less expensive to show.” To me, that sounds like an opportunity to reduce physical prototypes like the automotive and other mechanically-oriented industries have. The ability to create realistic human models, simulate the way a fabric will drape over it, and realistically render what the finished garment will look like has come a long way. Does that compete with a live model wearing the clothes walking down the runway? Of course not. But on the other hand, instead of seeing what a professional model looks like in the clothes, maybe we could see what the clothes would look like on a body like the one we actually have.

My expectations were clearly too high regarding a PLM-based fashion show, but I think there is potential there that has yet to be tapped. In the meantime, PLM will have to continue to reduce time to market and improve supplier collaboration and responsiveness instead. Of course, there is a lot of value in that – perhaps more than in a virtual fashion show.

So those are my thoughts on PLM and fashion, I hope you found them interesting. Who knew? I didn’t, if you did let us know about it.