Clarity on PLM

I had the chance to talk with … PTC and their customers at last week’s PTCuser user conference. PTC has been busy, making a number of significant announcements. I will clearly not do justice to such a big event in one short blog, but I hope to hit the highlights for you and share my thoughts on the implications.

Note: Just to be clear, this is the last PTCuser because the conference is changing and will be renamed PlanetPTC.

What I Learned

PTC is still serious about mechanical CAD. They believe that there is still innovation happening in that space, and that it will be an interesting market in the future. Good news for mechanical engineers and those that are fans of PTC CAD solutions including Pro/Engineer and CoCreate. They announced Project Lightening which is a multi-year strategy to reinvent mechanical CAD, but promised deliverables in the near term. Not much information here yet, but from conversations with PTC product managers this is a big focus area. Expect some significant focus on making MCAD much easier to use.

PTC is pushing the PLM boundaries. PTC furthered InSight product analytics by announcing product cost analytics and expanded Arbortext into service documentation and instructions. By going into areas like product analytics (particularly in areas like cost), PTC continues to push the envelope. PTC has a broad vision for PLM, and has already stretched the scope of PLM to include product documentation and engineering calculations in the past, and they don’t appear to be done yet.

PTC is making good on their Social Product Development initiative. The new SocialLink product is a great example of this. They added a new product, but also demonstrated how these new social computing capabilities will work across the entire PTC product portfolio. That is the right way to do it (in my opinion). The capabilities are generalized and part of the infrastructure (in large part thanks to Microsoft), but the application of the capabilities is happening in the solutions themselves. This allows product managers from each product line to decide how their users can benefit. Expect more here over time.

PTC has refocused on a Small to Midsize Business (SMB) PDM system – ProductPoint is no longer trying to be both a simpler PDM offering for the SMB and PTC’s answer to Social Product Development. With the introduction of SocialLink and other social computing capabilities, ProductPoint is now free to be a SharePoint-based PDM system. Good news for the SMB who doesn’t need (or can’t attain) a full PLM system.

PTC enters PPM market – PTC is launching a product portfolio management solution based on Microsoft technology. The early indications are that PTC’s solution is more focused on project roll ups and programs than decision support in product portfolios and R&D investment. Stay tuned for more on this in the future as I learn more.

PlanetPTC replaces PTCuser – PTC users have asked PTC to take a broader role and responsibility in the user event. PlanetPTC also includes a community site and virtual events like webcasts, showing that PTC really believes in the power of social media.

So that’s what I hear from PTC, I am sure I missed something. I hope you found it useful. What do you think? What else should I have asked them? What else would you like them to do?

What I learned this week …came from an article in The New York Times by Alex Wright. The article, Mining the Web for Feelings not Facts, was a great look into a concept that is new to me, an emerging field called “sentiment analysis.” The article defines sentiment analysis as “translating the vagaries of human emotion into hard data.” The examples show companies using data analysis techniques to gain insight into what social media (such as social networks and blogs) are saying about their company. My thoughts immediately turned to the value this information would have to product developers to understand how customers feel about their products, and what a great tool this could be in the social computing toolkit for PLM.

Sentiment Analysis

I won’t repeat all of the fascinating things the article says, and instead recommend you take a few minutes to read it. It is very interesting, and an exciting new concept. Here are some of the key points from my perspective:

• Sentiment analysis opens a “window into the collective consciousness of Internet users”
• Opinions are a kind of “virtual currency“
• Social media offers a “rich vein of market intelligence“

The article points out that this is a new, imperfect science and mentions some interesting pioneers of the concept. It also introduces a new book which is on my “to read” list titled Opinion Mining and Sentiment Analysis by Bo Pang and Lillian Lee.

My Thoughts  – Sentiment Analysis in PLM

So how can this social computing approach be used to develop more profitable products? If we can gather feedback on products, product ideas and competitive offerings rapidly it gives us the opportunity to react early to – or ahead of -  a trend. Many manufacturers are starting to monitor social networking sites like Twitter to see what people are saying, but for the most part it is manual except for filtering on keywords. Currently, the review and analysis depends on people. This is not a sustainable approach for product managers and product marketers to sift through mountains of comments, at least in my opinion. But if social computing techniques can detect and alert them to potential changes in market opinion that they should pay attention to, that could provide the input needed to help steer product development (or at least product marketing, if changing the product quickly is not an option).

Product managers are already overwhelmed with input, and the Internet is creating even more every day. The information is valuable, but takes time to review and interpret. If computing algorithms can help decipher and summarize, then product developers can focus on the important trends as opposed to sifting through the haystack to find them.

Implications for Manufacturers

This is just one more example of how companies are trying to leverage social computing to improve their product innovation, product development, and engineering performance. There is clearly something going on here, something that offers significant advantages to the manufacturers that can figure it out and use social computing to their benefit. This example is part of what I call “social discovery,” which is a more advanced concept than more straight-forward uses of social computing in PLM such as enhancing collaboration. For more thoughts on social computing in PLM, you can click on the “social computing” tag on the ClarityonPLM site, or start with these thoughts on social product development and social computing in PLM.

So can we mine the web for emotions and use that market intelligence to drive product development? I think there is some real potential, among other opportunities that social computing and social networking are opening up. I hope you found it interesting. Who knew? I didn’t, if you did let us know about it.

Note: No, the picture has absolutely nothing to do with mining social networks, but I Googled “mind reading machines” and this is what came up. It made me smile, so I thought I would share it with you.

What I learned this week … was sparked by a small article by Jennifer LeClaire at newsfactor.com. The article was short and sweet, and announced that Verizon Adds Social Networking To FiOS TV Service. So other than the fact that I like FIOS and this points to further consolidation between TV and multi-media computing (which I think is both cool and invetible), why did I care? It reminded me that social computing is a capability, and that how you apply it – and in what context – can turn it into something very unique. That is what Verizon is starting to do with their TV service, and exactly what the PLM community needs to do with social computing in product development.

What FIOS is Doing (Conceptually)

In brief, what FIOS is doing is trying to understand how the trend towards social networking can make their television offering more interesting to the consumer. Interactive TV has been talked about for a while, and although I am not expert on the subject I now recognize that my little cable convertor box is turning into a pretty powerful (and very programmable) media serving computer. But why does Verizon want to get involved in our social networking? And why would we let them? It is simple – CONTEXT. What Verizon is doing (from what I can gather) is allowing us to network about their programs. But not just network about them in a standalone fashion (would we really need Verizon to do that?), but social network in a real-time, embedded, integrated way with the programming. To me, that is what is important about this announcement from a conceptual basis.

Importance to Social Computing PLM

Let’s take the conceptual nugget – that Verizon thinks that their programming is more compelling and valuable if we can share, interact, and communite about it in context - and apply it to product innovation, product development, and engineering. Isn’t this exactly what we are talking about with social computing in PLM? Anybody could try to use Facebook, Twitter, or a host of other technologies and use them in a standalone fashion. But the real value will come from social computing that is tightly integrated into the context of products and product development. That is why I believe it will be the PLM vendors like PTC, Dassault Systemes, or Siemens that will bring these capabilities to PLM. Or, perhaps specialty providers like vuuch that know the PLM systems and how to integrate with them. It will take domain expertise in the business of designing and developing products to understand and incorporate social computing into the fabric of PLM. For more on social computing in PLM, see What I Learned: Is Social Product Development Viable without PLM?and What I Learned: We are not Going to Build an Airplane on Facebook.

Implications for Manufacturers?

Social compting is here and growing. Social computing in PLM is coming. I believe that Verizon is experimenting more than anything. They are trying to take a leading position to see what will work and what will not. They are a first-mover in social networking in TV. They will make mistakes and learn from them. They are being proactive and taking a leadership position. Likewise, now is the time for manufacturers to start the process of learning about social computing in PLM, and get their feet wet. There will be some stops and starts, potentially, but there will also be rewards for those that get it right.

So that is what I learned this week, I hope you found it interesting. Let me know what you think. And I look forward to Tweeting with you about the Flyers hockey games once I get myself back over to FIOS!

A quick peek into some research on… how active engineers are with social networks. While attending the PROuser conference, I heard Robin Saitz of PTC talk about a study that they commissioned Forrester Research to develop. The goal of the study was to better understand how active PTC’s customers are in social networks. The results surprised me and they didn’t, it turns out that engineers and product developers are very active with social computing!

The Research

Forrester, from what I can see, has taken a significant lead in researching social computing. I hear and read frequently about their research and their books. Robin discusses some of this background and provides links in her blog on this research, “Think Engineers and Web 2.0 Don’t Mix? Think Again.”Forrester has developed some interesting frameworks on social computing, including their “Social Technographics Profile.” I won’t attempt to explain it because it is their framework and they are the experts. What interests me is turning this lens on engineers to see how they interact with social media. That is what the study did. To be honest, I have only seen a few publicly released pieces of the report, so I can’t go into detail about methodology or specifics. But the results I have seen are pretty amazing.

About nine out of ten (specifically 89%) of those surveyed use social media and Web 2.0.

There is clearly more to the research about how they use it, whether they use it personally or professionally, and other factors. Robin did make it clear that they are using social computing for work as well as personal reasons. I am hopeful that PTC will share more of this over time. But this is enough for me. The clear takeaway is that the industry is on the right track with social computing in PLM, or “Social Product Development.”

My Thoughts

Let me keep this short. My biggest concern about the move towards social computing in product development and engineering was whether people would be comfortable participating. I believe the use of social computing is inevitable (see more of my thoughts on social computing in PLM in this post, and related links). But what this tells me is that the adoption of social computing techniques will not be slowed by engineers’ discomfort with the concepts. In fact, the opposite is true. As Robin said in her blog, they are ready.

Why am I surprised? We like to be online. We sit behind our “glowing rectangles” all day – some of us with several monitors going at once. Engineers are comfortable being online and communicating electronically. Maybe some of us like it more than interacting personally, but this is not a psychology blog so I won’t head down that path. After thinking about the results, I can’t remember why I was surprised. What better community to adopt social computing?

Implications for Manufacturers

Developing products is an inherently “social” activity. Collaboration is a best practice. We know these things. Now add that fact that engineers and product developers are comfortable with online communities, social networking, and general “Web 2.o” activities. Social computing is going to be fundamental to the way we go about the business of product development in the not-too-distant future.

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

What I learned this week… came from conversations with manufacturers and SaaS vendors over the past year. I believe the market is ripe for a SaaS approach to PLM. When it comes to product development, every organization strives for efficiency, flexibility, better collaboration (internally and externally), and easier upgrades. Yet, business models that could enable such benefits, such as Software-as-a-service (SaaS) have not been widely adopted to support product lifecycle management. The ongoing economic malaise, however, is driving manufacturers to rethink how they deploy PLM, and other enterprise software systems.

One consistent point of feedback I have heard is that green-field opportunities (where there is no incumbent PLM solution) are the low hanging fruit for SaaS – no surprise there. This is why for the most part, deployments are mostly at small to medium size businesses, or in a division within a large company, where easy deployment, management and upgrade are of paramount importance. Typically, it’s difficult for the division champion of a SaaS approach to sell the concept to executives of putting a company’s product crown jewels online. And the concern isn’t just security; in many cases it’s performance: does the system have the ability to scale and handle large CAD models, and enable real time collaboration across the globe?

Social Product Development can Drive SaaS
One reason why I think 2009 (and following years) will be the year of the SaaS PLM model are the pervasive trends of social networking and open innovation. Companies in markets as diverse as complex discrete and fast moving consumer goods recognize the power of collaborating quickly with each other, suppliers, and customers during the new product development and launch process. And social networking and open innovation – “social product development,” if you combine the two – is the perfect venue in which to do this; the ideal foundation for this open approach is SaaS.

Implications for Manufacturers?
I don’t believe that SaaS will replace “traditional” PLM; a hybrid approach will persist. There will still be the need for local CAD data management so small engineering and design workgroups can quickly iterate on an idea or design, and secure certain information behind the firewall, not in the cloud. Hybrid models, at least at large companies, will persist for the near future – for example local data, CAD design, and manufacturing process management within the four walls, and the “business layer” of PLM such as customer needs management, product portfolio management (PPM), direct materials sourcing, and collaborative design (assuming a strong authorization system is in place) in a web based, service oriented system. Regarding PPM, however, I think many manufacturers will likely want to maintain much of the information about their product portfolio locally, and make only appropriate segments of the information available via their web interface.

A hybrid approach can be beneficial because SaaS PLM vendors have strengths that can complement an existing PLM implementation. For example Arena Solutions excels at BOM management and offers portfolio and supplier management capabilities, brightidea.com and Arc90 (with their Kindling app) focus on CNM, Accept Software provides CNM and PPM in a SaaS model. In the apparel & footwear world, Zweave and World Fashion Exchange provide line planning, calendar management, and supplier collaboration in a modular, SaaS format.  A flexible, open approach such as this could help accelerate enterprise-wide adoption of PLM, particularly in fast moving markets that are newer to PLM, such as apparel and CPG.

So that is what I learned (or have been thinking about) this week. Let me know what you think: is it finally time for SaaS to make its mark in PLM?

What I learned this week … came from a presentation given by Jim Heppelmann and Brian Shepherd of PTC and this week’s PTCUser conference. The presentation gave a view into some of the interesting things that PTC is working on in their solution set, and a peek into their vision for the future of PLM systems. More accurately, what Jim and Brian said the future for their Product Development System as opposed to “PLM,” which is an important differentiation for them.

Overview

User conferences are a great place to let software customers know about all of the great new solutions they should be considering. This conference is no different, PTC has been busy and they have a lot to show off. Of particular interest to me was getting an update on their views on the use of social computing techniques in PLM. I have posted before on PTC’s social product development strategy, and I was looking forward to the update. The most interesting part of the conversation wasn’t directly about social computing, but about how these “community” applications fit in with the rest of PLM…err, I mean PDS.

Enter the “Triad”
I will not do this justice here, so I will introduce it quickly and we can drive some conversation around it in the comments. The core message is that there have been two primary sets of applications for product development and engineering, and now there is a third category. The concept is PTC’s, but I am putting it in my own words below. The three legs of the stool, then, are:

User – This are the individual productivity tools. This is what makes the engineer more efficient in their work. These tools include CAD, CAE, and others. They are the “Microsoft Excel” types of tools, those that help one person at a time do their job.

Corporate – The are enterprise applications. These solutions provide control and coordination across a business. They are typically more complicated, and sometimes require a trade-off between personal productivity and corporate value (such as capturing and managing IP). Many times, users feel these solutions are an extra part of their job as opposed to an enabler, and that they have to “feed the system.”

Community -  These are social computing applications. These help companies collaborate and share information in a lighter weight, looser environment. This is the new area of solutions that promise to drive better team performance.

I have some additional thoughts and questions, but I will hold them for now. The one piece I will share is that these areas are not entirely distinct, and that they get more value when they are together. The value gained from one does not exclude potential value from the others. A quick example is that by logging the collaborative comments in the “community” applications, you are creating new corporate knowledge and IP – but without feeling like you are “feeding the system.” So maybe in the long run the “community” category helps provide some of the control but with a lower level of effort from the user? OK, enough on that from me right now.

Implications for Manufacturers?

In the short-term, this is a new way to look at social computing applications and how they fit with your individual productivity tools and your enterprise applications. It is a way to think about how to complement your current solutions with new capabilities. It is also a good metric to use when evaluating the vision of your PLM solution provider. Are they looking out for all three legs of your triad? They should be.

So that is what I learned this week, I hope you found it interesting. Let me know what you think.

What I learned this week … came from a post on PLM Think Tank (aka PLM Twine) titled 5 reasons why Wiki fails for PLM collaboration which I think points to an interesting set of questions:

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• Is social computing software enough on its own to support product innovation, product development, and engineering?
• Will social computing software evolve to handle more full PLM-related requirements as it matures?
• Will PLM leverage social computing platforms to extend their capabilities?
• Will PLM embed social computing capabilities of their own?

This post caught my eye a while ago, but I didn’t have time to respond (lots of excuses, including moving the office, I got the flu, kids got the flu, the dog ate my blog, etc.). As it turns out, time passing works out well because I have had the opportunity to read some really interesting comments on Oleg’s post. Here is my take on an interesting conversation, and some of my thoughts on the direction that social computing in PLM might take.

Note: In the title of this post I purposely not using my normal name for this concept, which is “social computing in PLM” because I think that begs the question. So I am using what I believe will be the term adopted across the industry, which is “Social Product Development.”

Relevant Past Discussion and Perspective
I have posted a number of times recently on the use of social computing techniques to improve product innovation, product development, and engineering performance. For some background, please see my post on takeaways from COFES on social networking in PLM.

Next Level Down Thinking – Technical Approach
What I have been focused on has been the business value of integrating social computing capabilities into PLM solutions. Although I have a long technical background (anybody else out there that has programmed in Fortran let me hear from you) that is not my current role in our industry. I am convinced of the business value that the mix of capabilities will bring, but I am not close enough to the technologies to know how they will be brought to life in individual companies or in the mass market. So it was nice to see some next-level-down, technical analysis of the topic. Oleg’s post drives the question about wikis relatively deep, pointing out the five reasons he sees them falling short (read the post, but in short they are information access, content maintenance, updates, integration, and structural information). At the risk of trivializing something I haven’t explored in detail, I take away two main things from Oleg’s comments:

• A wiki isn’t PLM grade because it falls short on advanced data management needs (including version control, associativity, or managing structured content like a bill of material)
• A wiki isn’t PLM grade because it lacks the ability to integrate (beyond a static URL)

The conversation that follows is enlightening, I was very impressed with the quality of the respondents. I take two main points away from the conversation (again, I suggest you spend the time reading it yourself, my goal is to expand a bit and point you to some good content that I learned from):

• Don’t count wikis short, there is work being done to make them enterprise class
• Don’t try to replace your PLM system with a wiki, they are not meant to replicate what PLM has evolved into over the last decade or so

Implications for Manufacturers?
Of the two things I am taking away from the post and the comments, I want to focus on the last one – don’t try to replace you PLM system with a wiki. My focus on using social computing techniques in PLM isn’t to slap on existing tools and expect them to do the full job. That would be like handing somebody a relational database and an object-oriented programming language and saying “here is your PLM system, it just needs a bit of work.” OK, too extreme, but you get my point. What we should be focusing on as an industry is how to leverage the concepts of social computing to improve the things that PLM already supports, but make them even better. Perhaps we employ wikis to manage engineering rules/knowledge (PLM doesn’t do a great job there from my experience), or maybe the value will come from using social communities and reputation scoring to feed the front end of innovation? Whatever it may be, I believe that there are things that PLM alone doesn’t address, and there are certainly PLM needs that social computing platforms fall very short on.

So that brings back my original question. Who will make this happen? Will it be natural the evolution of social networking platforms? Will it be custom development by manufacturers that use both technologies? Will PLM integrate social computing platforms? Or will PLM vendors build their own social computing capabilities? The answer lies in the “next level down” thinking that prompted this post, and similar thinking that is going on in the software vendor community. In my opinion, domain expertise always overrides technology expertise. When new technologies have come along, it has been people that understand the intersection of technology with the business processes (in this case, the processes of product innovation, product development, and engineering) that lead the way. They are also the ones that are willing to focus on a specific solution as opposed to a generalized technology that could be applied to a broader market. To me, it will be PLM-knowledgeable people leading the way. The bigger question is where they will be working. Will they work for a forward-thinking PLM vendor that builds these capabilities in? A social computing giant that hires in experienced PLM talent? Or some upstart with a PLM background that rethinks the whole thing from the ground up? If I had the answer I would be a (retired, wealthy) investor instead of an analyst, sorry. What I am confident in is that the business value is real, and that if I was in the shoes of any of those categories of vendors that is where I would be putting my investment. But I am only an analyst, so I will sit by and examine how it plays out. It’s tough to be on the sidelines (or is the press box?) for this one.

So that is what I learned this week, I hope you found it interesting. Let me know what you think. I apologize if I tried to make up for the tardiness of replying to the post by writing a very long post, I probably had to much time to think about it.

A quick peek into some research on … social computing in PLM that I am currently working on. I had the opportunity to lead a discussion at COFES (Congress for the Future of Engineering Software) this morning on the use of social networking in design and engineering. I am just starting my research project for a paper, so the timing was very good to start the discussion. I will share my key takeaways from the conversation with you now, and of course post a link to the paper when it is ready.

The Research
Instead of going into detail on what I am looking into, I will point to a number of my recent blog posts on the topic. They should give you a good idea about my views on the topic:

How Does Social Computing in PLM Help Collaboration?
Why Social Networking in PLM is More than Just Collaboration
What I Learned: Why Social Networking in PLM is a (Really) Bad Idea 
(hint) You might want to read the last one and not just take the title for face value.

My Takeaways from Today
The primary surprise take away from my session was the level of interest in the topic. Manufacturers, vendors, consultants, and other analysts all attended and contributed to the discussion. I believe we are early in the maturity curve in our use of these technologies, and that the high level of interest shows that people are getting a glimpse that something very important is happening here. They are starting to see what I have believed for some time – that the use of these technologies is coming and that it is inevitable. Our youngest participant said what I think we all know, “this is just how we communicate these days.” Using these tools is as common to those his age as using the telephone was to me (land line, living through the “new technology” of push buttons vs. rotary dialing in my case).

The interest came from believers and from those that don’t see it, or perhaps don’t want it. It was great to hear both sides. It is clear that there are concerns about security, and that there are (legitimate) concerns that these technologies will just add more information and communication to an already cluttered landscape. Those that had been using the technology longest, though, believed that the use of the technology would settle in to a workable level over time, and that the solutions would find their place along with other forms of communication technology.

What does this mean? When there is a packed room full of a combination of supporters, detractors, and those that just want to be educated – that is the smoke that says there is a fire burning. There is something new happening that is exciting and promising. It will mean change. Some will embrace it and others will fight it. Some might want to adopt it while the corporate antibodies try to fight it. There is still a lot to learn as we find out where this will provide value and how, but the interest level is very high.

Implications for Manufacturers
I will keep this brief, because there are other sessions I want to attend to learn from others in the great network of individuals that are physically here at COFES:

• Social computing in PLM is a real and compelling
• The intersection of social computing and engineering is happening – although slowly
• There is a lot of potential value
• There are a lot of potential barriers
• Social computing is not just for the younger generation (although they are more likely to just expect it)
• As an industry, we are very early in the maturity of our vision to use these technologies, we have a lot of experimentation left before there is an accepted “best practice” approach

My favorite takeaway comes in the form of a quote from one of the participants. He correctly pointed out that “the network that you build is an asset.” I couldn’t agree more.

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