Can a “dot-release” of SaaS software deliver even more value to the industry? If it expands the footprint, yes. The Apprentice press release announcing Tempo Manufacturing Cloud Version 7.2 appeared November 8, and quotes Tech-Clarity’s Julie Fraser. This SaaS product aimed at biotech and pharmaceutical manufacturers includes MES, but is much more. Per the quote…
- How can automotive companies leverage digital manufacturing best practices to launch and scale EV programs faster?
- How can they set the stage for greater agility to drive innovation and improvements of all kinds into production?
Table of Contents
- The EV Revolution Demands Change
- Adopt Best Practices in Production Planning
- Digitally Transformation Manufacturing Planning
- Increase use of 3D Modeling
- Simulate, Validate, and Optimize Production
- Conclusions and Next Steps
- Acknowledgments
EVs are a Disruptive Force
Electrification is Disrupting the Transportation Industry Our data shows that risk and disruption increased for about two-thirds of automotive and transportation companies over the last five years, and for roughly one-third, it "significantly" increased.1 The electric vehicles (EV) transition is causing upheaval and is undoubtedly a big contributor to the problem. The impact is significant on both pure EV manufacturers and traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) driven vehicle producers combatting new entrants. Today's rapid pace of innovation has disrupted the status quo, resulting in the need for speed, innovation, and agility. Leading automotive companies are taking the opportunity to turn disruption to their advantage, creating a chance to innovate and differentiate themselves. Driving Change through Better Manufacturing Planning The EV-driven disruption demands digital transformation across the business. One area that can make a strategic difference is manufacturing engineering. Companies need to improve production planning to drive faster, more agile introduction of innovation in EV and ICE programs alike. And they have to do this despite increased complexity and without disrupting quality. Fortunately, the automotive industry is accustomed to change, and best practices already exist. Our research shows that top-performing automotive companies are more likely to leverage proven practices for manufacturing engineering, specifically 3D modeling, simulation, and collaboration. This eBook explores:- How can automotive companies leverage digital manufacturing best practices to launch and scale EV programs faster?
- How can they set the stage for greater agility to drive innovation and improvements of all kinds into production?

The EV Revolution Demands Change
Transformation is Mandatory The move toward electric vehicles is picking up pace. New entrants paved the way and created a market that demands alternative fuel source transportation. In many cases, these companies have innovated in manufacturing processes in addition to vehicle designs. Some changes have been necessary because of new processes like battery assembly and fundamental powertrain differences. But these companies have also pushed the limits on new materials and new production processes like additive manufacturing and Tesla's Giga Press. Don’t Forget Lessons Learned Some manufacturing methods have to be revised, reinvented, or invented in the first place to bring EVs to full-scale production effectively. However, traditional manufacturers have decades of experience and knowhow on effectively planning and launching vehicle programs at scale. Many of the basics still apply, and manufacturers shouldn't discount decades of learning. That knowledge must continue to be captured, reused, and continuously improved. At the same time, new materials and methods from EV programs can be evaluated for ICE production. Of course, it's important to remember that even "traditional" vehicle production needs to transform to accommodate increasingly software- and systems-oriented vehicles, shorter vehicle lifecycles, and greater vehicle personalization. [post_title] => Transforming Manufacturing Planning in the EV Era [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => electric-vehicles-ebook [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-12-15 13:28:54 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-12-15 18:28:54 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://tech-clarity.com/?p=19037 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [3] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 19025 [post_author] => 2574 [post_date] => 2023-11-14 10:00:44 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-11-14 15:00:44 [post_content] => Might international standards for data exchange and interoperability between trading partners worldwide finally take hold? Could multi-enterprise manufacturing networks get cost-effective data flows in an open, vendor-agnostic network? That’s the intention of International Manufacturing-X Council (IM-X). Michelle Boucher and I had an opportunity to learn about this new consortium of 10 nations from CESMII (The US’ Smart Manufacturing Institute) CEO John Dyck. This is an urgent need. Our research shows that over two-thirds of manufacturers spend a lot of time, effort, and expertise to integrate and maintain integration between MES, quality, maintenance, scheduling, IoT, and machine or equipment data. From 2020 to 2023, this did not improve. And that’s just in the operations. Extending integration so data flows across the enterprise and supply chain compounds that challenge. CESMII has been advocating for the best interoperability standards in manufacturing enterprises and plants. The goal is to democratize digitalization by commoditizing (or turning open-source) aspects that are not proprietary. This new consortium takes work CESMII has been doing – and some it has done jointly with Germany’s Platform Industrie 4.0 – more global and into the supply chain. IM-X’s vision “is to enable open, global and cross-industry operation of cost-effective data networks. This will be realized through three sets of strategic initiatives:- Connect value chains and manufacturing data networks across supply chains, industries, and countries
- Implement global foundations for data-driven resilient, sovereign and climate-neutral production covering the full life cycle of production and products
- Enable innovative value creation in an interoperable and sovereign data ecosystem.”
- the USA (CESMII)
- Germany (Plattform Industrie 4.0)
- Austria (Plattform Industrie 4.0 Österreich)
- France (Alliance Industrie du Futur)
- Australia
- Canada (Offensive de Transformation Numérique)
- South Korea (KOSMO)
- Japan (RRI)
- Italy (Confindustria)
- the Netherlands (Smart Industry)
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What is missing in transforming into a model-based enterprise (MBE)? For one thing, continuity from engineering to shopfloor and back.
Gaining MBE continuity is a many-faceted challenge. There are people, process, and technology issues to transform.
In this on-demand webinar we explored those issues. It will get you thinking about how details of the digital model flow impact your business success. We also pointed out ways to start the MBE journey, even if continuity is not 100% in place.
Julie Fraser hosts a discussion of the issues that arise and how to get on the journey. Panelists Jonathan Scott of Razorleaf has deep PLM and product design engineering expertise, and Michel Gadbois of iBase-t is an expert in A&D manufacturing and operations. Each of them sees many customer challenges and will share some of what they see and the problems that a lack of continuity from engineering to shopfloor creates.
In this wide-ranging interactive discussion, we will touch on these questions:
- Where are the common breaks in the digital thread?
- What are some practical things companies can do to improve continuity?
- How can the comprehensive product models envisioned in MBE generate more value?
- Why do the UUID or CAD ID and instance identification matter so much?
Plans for the Future
Duro also plans to provide customers with the option to use Box, Google Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive to give customers the choice to use what best fits their business, and likely the one they are already using. They’ve implemented PDM One in a file-centric way that mimics folder structures that many smaller companies and startups already use to manage their files and lifecycle states.
Today, PDM One is what we would call design data management or basic product data management (PDM) and it offers a more comprehensive offering in combination with their product lifecycle management (PLM) solution. It will be interesting to watch how the solution evolves and how it is adopted by customers. It’s a clever approach that leverages a robust cloud data platform and extends it for simple data management. Duro has work to do to build integrations with CAD solutions and will likely extend the capabilities, but their initial offering will probably prove to be enough for many companies moving from an unmanaged or ad hoc environment. Duro is definitely a vendor that high tech companies should keep on their radar screen.
Thank You
Thank you James White and Aphrodite Brinsmead for bringing this to my attention and to Mike Prom for your time explaining the product and future strategy.
For related research, read the commentary from our December, 2022 briefing with Duro about their goal to deliver agile PLM for hardware manufacturers.
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Visibility and collaboration are crucial to supply chain success and resilience, but even getting that internally can be a challenge. Join as Julie Fraser facilitates a discussion in MESA’s Smart Manufacturing Community Smart Connected Supply Chain Group on November 29.
- What are manufacturers doing to see and work both within and beyond the supply chain discipline?
- Who most needs to contribute to and collaborate in the supply chain planning process for it to be effective in the face of constant change?
- What data and types of systems are you integrating as top priority?
- Is internal visibility and collaboration more or less important than with suppliers and customers? Where are the interdependencies?
- What role do digital twins play in supply chain visibility and collaboration?
- What are the keys to success in people, processes, and technology?
- Are you treating this a major transformation or ongoing adjustments?
How much do disconnected tools cost your business?
Historically, most companies have relied on multiple disconnected tools to get the job done, particularly in product development and manufacturing. IT then invests significant effort to integrate them. Interestingly, Top Performing companies say that reducing manual efforts and non-value-added work is most important for successful product development and manufacturing software. To achieve this, they point to solutions that easily integrate. This leads to the question, should companies invest in best-of-breed solutions they must integrate or adopt an integrated platform? Do the benefits of adopting best-of-breed point solutions outweigh the cost of working with disconnected tools?
Based on a survey of 187 IT, product development, and manufacturing professionals, this research study examines these questions. It looks at what IT needs to be successful in their job and how they can provide the most value to their company, including product development and manufacturing teams. It reveals best practices for overcoming the costs of disconnected tools and how to empower IT to focus more energy on the tasks that offer the most corporate benefit and make them even more successful.
Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full research, please visit our sponsor SOLIDWORKS (registration required).
Table of Contents
- Executive Summary
- IT is Critical to Business Strategy Execution
- Address IT Bottlenecks to Ensure Success
- Identifying Top Performers
- Product Development and Manufacturing Software
- Product Development & Manufacturing Requirements
- Is Best-of-Breed Still the Best Approach?
- Best-of-Breed Impact on Users
- Overcoming Best-of-Breed Challenges
- An Integrated Platform Solves Many Challenges
- IT Advantages of an Integrated Platform
- What It Takes to Keep Product Data Secure
- Recommendations
- About the Research
- Acknowledgments
Executive Summary
IT’s Role in Competitiveness Companies must be as efficient as possible in today's competitive global environment. Many are turning to digital transformation to achieve greater efficiencies, leading them to rely on IT to execute. Yet, IT must deal with many issues that hold them back. They rate the time and effort required to integrate software applications as the top issue consuming their time, taking them away from enabling business strategies. Product Development & Manufacturing The right software solutions empower engineering and manufacturing and are critical to a digital transformation strategy. To be successful, product development and manufacturing need their software to reduce manual efforts and non-value-added work to help them meet time to market goals, improve quality, and lower costs. This requires integrated solutions, yet IT rates integrating software solutions as the top challenge of implementing product development and manufacturing solutions. Does Best-of-Breed Still Work? The challenges associated with disconnected tools lead to the question, what's better, a best-of-breed or integrated platform approach? Historically, best-of-breed solutions were preferred. While individual tasks benefit, to achieve the efficiencies promised with digital transformation, manage product complexity, and respond to competitive pressures, the entire product lifecycle, from design to production, should be considered. The lack of integration across tools creates bottlenecks and breaks the digital thread, negating potential time savings when improving a single task. Further, IT rates the efforts required to integrate solutions as the top challenge associated with a best-of-breed approach. To overcome this, most of those using best-of-breed solutions believe adopting a platform of integrated tools will help. Integrated Platforms Those who use an integrated platform, validate this idea as 99% of those using an integrated platform report advantages over other approaches. These advantages lead to improved product quality, greater efficiency, greater ability to scale the business, lower product cost, and better business agility. With a platform, IT can avoid wasting time managing complex compatibility matrixes and integrating software. Instead, they can focus on activities that increase their visibility as a corporate strategic asset.
IT Is Critical to Business Strategy Execution
Top IT Strategies
The role of IT has evolved from a tactical “order-taker” delivering on requirements provided by business leaders to a more strategic one. Now IT is more likely to collaborate with business leaders to help identify and define business problems.1 The top IT strategies reflect this more strategic focus.
Digital Transformation
Digital Transformation has enabled many companies to achieve efficiencies that are hard for competitors to match.2 As such, Tech-Clarity's research finds that 41% of executives attribute digital transformation as a top business factor driving long-term success.3 Consequently, many executives place high importance on digital transformation, making it a priority for IT.
Successful digital transformation relies heavily on implementing the right technology. However, it is a considerable undertaking as true digital transformation impacts all business processes and requires a deep understanding of company processes, bottlenecks, and optimization opportunities. Implementation requires a significant IT investment. It is also a journey, requiring continuous improvement to realize the highest levels of efficiency.
Enable the Business
IT must ensure its strategies align with business goals. They must meet today's business needs and consider future needs to ensure that whatever they implement doesn't limit the business and will scale as it grows. They also need to ensure that what they implement provides value so the company realizes the expected return on the investment (ROI). Finally, they need to ensure that they can support a variety of environments across all company locations, including those working from home or on the road.
Recommendations
Recommendations and Next Steps Based on industry experience and research for this report, Tech-Clarity offers the following recommendations for IT staff:- Ensure the success of product development and manufacturing software by focusing on automation to reduce manual efforts.
- Keep in mind the significant time pressures faced by product development and manufacturing teams. Connecting time savings to any new software solution will encourage their adoption.
- Consider the benefits of an integrated platform over a best-of-breed approach. Technology advancements over the last several years have led to powerfully capable integrated platforms that will not have the drawbacks of disconnected tools.
- Recognize that digital transformation is not just a technology solution. An integrated platform can help, but implementation is critical. It should increase data reuse across the product lifecycle, eliminate data silos, automate processes and workflows, extend access to product data beyond engineering, and create a sign source of truth.
- Do not underestimate the efforts required to successfully implement digital transformation. It may require rethinking processes and significant effort to understand processes, bottlenecks, and opportunities for improvement. This will be an ongoing continuous improvement journey. By offloading more tedious tactical tasks, IT can focus more energy on the more strategic work that will enable digital transformation.
- Recognize the significant efforts required to keep data secure to determine if those resources would be better spent supporting the company's core business.
The other key takeaway is that now, 18 months after the merger, Selerant will be known as Trace One. This is important as they take advantage of synergies across the DevEx PLM system, which will retain its branding, and Trace One solutions. The combination gives Trace One the capability to help retail, CPG, and supply chain customers develop and promote compliant products faster, while maintaining full traceability. Trace One describes the solutions as Manufacturing PLM (DevEx) and Retail PLM (Trace One), as the image shows. We believe that expanding the scope of PLM beyond the product and manufacturer to better plan and manage the product in the context of the CPG / retail relationship is a valuable proposition.
Outlook
Selerant appears to be doing quite well as a part of Trace One. I met and heard from quite a few new customers at the conference, in addition to some that are in their selection process. It was good to see the success of a company that has long focused on a core, best of breed offering and has developed significant solution breadth. I also find it a good sign when vendors are confident enough to invite their prospective customers to meet and interact with existing customers at their user conference.
We look forward to learning more about Trace One and watching progress as they bring the combined offerings to market. Thank you Hollie Farrahi, Sunil Thomas, Marianna Fowles, and Saida Ait for including me in your conference. It was also nice to see (and meet) a number of key Trace One and Selerant leaders including Christophe Vanackère, Jacapo Colombo, Carlo Colombo, Claire Bui, Jobi Varghese, Antoine Daviet, Mike Frankel, and others.
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[post_content] => Jim Brown and I are intrigued by what consumer products companies and retailers can do to design products and trade more effectively and sustainably after our briefing with TradeBeyond. Their multi-enterprise PLM and supply chain collaboration platform is expanding. By acquiring Pivot88, they strengthened existing industry-specific capabilities, deepened their presence in apparel, and added quality, compliance, traceability, auditing, materials management, and AI/ML capabilities.
While the company is decades old (formerly CBX Software), new capabilities continue expanding the business value for retailers and their multi-tiered supply chain partner community. The combination of product design and supply chain sourcing, ordering, and logistics is powerful, particularly with many consumer products' short lifespans and seasonal nature. Having these functions in an end-to-end platform designed for multiple trading partners supports the contract manufacturing models common in consumer industries such as CPG, general merchandise, and retail footwear and apparel.
Sustainability has also become crucial for these industries, and TradeBeyond helps with compliance. Elements include partner onboarding, documents, and more. They are also building a network of sustainability-focused partners, including BSCI amfori for a common code of conduct, Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) in apparel, The Higg Index from the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, as well as Reset Carbon, with which TradeBeyond has developed CBX Impact that helps companies assess and improve their scope 3 emissions.
Moving from product ideation to delivery on a single multi-enterprise collaborative platform is rare, and creates a digital thread from ideation through shipping. Most solutions are robust either in the product development and PLM or the supply chain and sourcing areas, but this has both. Pivot88 adds crucial production and operations capabilities in traceability, quality, and compliance. It also brings critical applied AI capabilities that TradeBeyond is already looking at expanding across their entire platform. TradeBeyond’s differentiation and footprint for delivering value is growing.
We look forward to following the company as it continues expanding its product footprint and presence in private-label and branded consumer goods supply chains. Thanks, Eric Linxwiller, and Lilian Bories, for explaining the latest to us. And thanks, Dan Demaree, for setting up the meeting.
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How can you help engineers manage complexity to make more informed design decisions?
As the role of product development teams becomes increasingly critical to product differentiation, growing complexity continues to make the job harder. However, with the right technologies, and by connecting simulation and test, you can empower development teams to engineer products that will win market share and boost profitability.
This survey-based research study examines engineering practices and the use of simulation and test. It identifies four best practices to get even more value from simulation and test. It also shares advice to support adoption.
Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Siemens (registration required).
Table of Contents
- Executive Summary
- What It Takes for Product Success
- What Does Complexity Come From?
- Addressing Complexity
- What Holds Companies Back?
- Identifying Top Performers
- 1. Explore Design Ideas Using Simulation
- 2. Validate Simulation Accuracy with Test Results
- 3. Reduce Test Time with Collaboration
- 4. Accelerate Time to Results
- Recommendations
- About the Research
- Acknowledgments
Executive Summary
Getting a Competitive Advantage To be competitive in today’s global market, product engineering teams must balance quality, cost, and innovation requirements and still get to market as quickly as possible. However, these competing requirements make it challenging. Plus, ever-increasing complexity adds further complication. Managing Complexity Engineering teams must deal with numerous sources of complexity, ranging from more requirements and new disruptive technologies, to more software and electronics. Companies report that they deal with this complexity by investing in more technology. This can help to predict and characterize product performance. Four Practices The research looks at four ways companies can become even more competitive as they deal with increasing complexity:
- Use simulation to explore design ideas to innovate and optimize designs in less time. An overwhelming 99% find benefit in this powerful practice.
- Validate simulation models using test results to improve model accuracy. The vast majority of Top Performing companies, 79%, enable collaboration between simulation analysts and test engineers, allowing them to execute this highly effective practice.
- Reduce test time with collaboration. The findings reveal many ways leveraging simulation results during test saves time. Consequently, 100% of companies who enable collaboration between simulation and test report they experience benefits
- Accelerate the time to results with the right solution. The research uncovers several ways Top Performers save time, including that Top Performers are 2.3 times more likely than All Others to indicate that using cloud tools is a way to get results faster
Addressing Complexity
Engineering Impact
Every one of the sources of complexity has a direct impact on engineering. Engineers must figure out how to meet more requirements, incorporate new technologies, and integrate their work with additional engineering disciplines, while dealing with increasing demands for new skills. In addition, they must
be confident they've satisfied requirements while avoiding the cost of overengineering and still have the flexibility to innovate. All of this makes their job that much harder. It's such a challenge; companies take many actions to help them deal with complexity (see graph).
Addressing Complexity
Many companies turn to technology to help. In particular, simulation can be a valuable tool to improve engineering decisions. Empowering engineers to make better decisions reduces risk and increases the likelihood of products achieving market success.
*This summary is an abbreviated version of the research and does not contain the full content. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Siemens (registration required).
If you have difficulty obtaining a copy of the report, please contact us.
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How can CPG companies cut through the noise to get value from a manufacturing digital twin of their production process? How does it differ in design, commissioning, and operational phases?
The market is filled with a combination of marketing hype and real case studies about how digital twins help companies digitally transform and drive new value. This interactive panel cuts through the buzzwords by discussing the real value of applying modeling, simulation, emulation, and virtual commissioning to help manufacturers, including consumer packaged goods companies, get products to market faster with greater throughput and quality. Digital twin experts Stephen Birtsas and Leo Moran of Kalypso join me in an interactive discussion and then share valuable case studies where Kalypso helped customers transform and tangibly improve performance.
Watch the Kalypso on-demand webinar for real-world insights and case studies about the manufacturing digital twin (no registration required).
For related research, please read Tech-Clarity's The State of PLM in CPG to find out if PLM is living up to its potential in consumer packaged goods.
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[post_content] => I had the opportunity to visit Graphisoft’s Budapest headquarters for their recent Building Together | Connect event. I left the event with several key takeaways:
- They showed significant progress and alignment around their strategic vision to integrate AEC design processes across disciplines
- They delivered on a variety of enhancement requests for their existing customer base
- They demonstrated a product roadmap process that provides transparency and advanced insights while balancing strategic and tactical enhancements
Graphisoft shared its strategy and pointed to significant progress that will help integrate the work of its traditional architect customer base with others. At the event, they shared the release of the MEP Modeler in Archicad and new capabilities in DDScad. They plan to continue to add MEP / structural capabilities with every release. They also demonstrated enhancements to BIMcloud and BIMx that help support collaboration and interoperability to support industry initiatives and standards, including open BIM.
As a reflection of their integrated approach, they merged their product release announcements into one instead of individual announcements for Archicad, DDScad, BIMcloud, and BIMx. That might seem subtle, but it’s a meaningful statement about the importance of integration and evidence of a more integral product planning process and mindset.
Delivering on Customer Requests
The launch event was open to customers and Graphisoft paid clear attention to enhancements that make life better for existing customers. Graphisoft confirmed that “architects will always be at the center of our thinking,” even as they extend capabilities for multidisciplinary teams. These announcements are not the type that excite the market, but they are the tactical improvements that customers love. Some examples included integrated design option management to prevent the need to make numerous copies of a model, improved attribute management, smart distance guides, streamlined manufacturing library import, advanced model compare, and enhanced search. Graphisoft experts explained each of these in detail, and although the customer audience was remote, I could imagine their pleased responses. Graphisoft also added improved documentation for single-line drawings, which will likely make certain customers happy and also make Archicad more attractive in North America. It appears Graphisoft delivered some real value to existing customers with this release.
New Roadmapping Process
As mentioned, the announcement shared enhancements to help Graphisoft deliver on its vision but also showed strong evidence that they are listening to their customers. I met with the head of product management, Sylwester Pawluk, and Ghaleb Khadra from professional services to understand their product planning approach for the release. The plan included a mix of strategic additions like one-click LCA and tactical customer enhancements. What’s new, I’m told, is that Graphisoft has adopted a transparent roadmap so customers know what to expect. They also implemented a new technology preview process to share the enhancements with customers in advance and gained a very positive reaction to the release from their pre-release preview process.
Graphisoft now offers a live roadmap on its website, and this release shows that they delivered on their promises. In addition to solid roadmap items, Graphisoft shared research initiatives they’re focused on, including AI assistance, parametrics, and augmented / virtual reality. We expect to see results from these added to their roadmap over time. Again, Graphisoft is showing transparency and gaining credibility by announcing what they’re working on and adding it to the roadmap as they become confident of when and how they’ll upgrade their capabilities.
Final Thoughts
It’s great to see progress on both vision and customer-oriented enhancements. We’re excited about Graphisoft’s vision to offer a more integrated AEC solution while supporting existing architect customers. To do this, we expect to see continued investment in their existing solutions. We also believe we will see Graphisoft leverage more capabilities from across parent company, Nemetschek, to fulfill their vision and bring more value to their customers. AEC software is a dynamic market with significant opportunities for vendors and the industry. We look forward to seeing what Graphisoft delivers next.
Thank you to CEO Huw Roberts, Ron Close, Julianna Gulden, and the Graphisoft events team for inviting me to join such a well-organized, informative event. Further thanks to Sylwester Pawluk and Ghaleb Khadra for sharing product strategy and progress.
For more information about integrating design processes, see the survey results from our The State of Collaborative Design in AEC study.
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How do you manage a semiconductor production facility? Most people in the chip industry would say: with semiconductor MES. With its complex processes and products that cannot be clearly seen with the naked human eye, the semiconductor industry began broadly adopting MES in the 1980s and 1990s.
And therein lies the problem. The systems that many semiconductor professionals know - and some still use - are completely outdated. This guest blog post by Julie Fraser points out that just as the semiconductor industry has changed radically, so has the software available to support it. She argues it is time for redefining semiconductor MES.
The new definition encompasses many new changes in four categories:
- Functionality
- Integration and data availability
- Configuration and scalability
- Solution partner experience
What is the most important way a company can help supply chain resilience so it has a positive impact on the business? What are Top-Performing companies doing differently than others? How important are autonomous systems and artificial intelligence (AI)? What does the transformation of supply chain planning entail?
Read this new survey-based eBook to find out more about what really matters most to resilience. Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Dassault Systèmes DELMIA (registration required).
Table of Contents
- Executive Summary
- Supply Chain Challenges Persist
- Supply Chain Resilience
- Resilience: Improving Business Results
- Factors in Positive Supply Chain Impact
- Visibility into Production
- Visibility into Product Changes
- People in the Planning Process
- Technology Hurdles
- Integrating Software Applications
- Technologies for Planning
- AI and Autonomous Support
- Plan Cadence and Structure
- Investing in Resilience
- Drivers for Resilience
- Benefits from Investing
- Redefining Planning Scope
- Recommendations
- About the Research
- Acknowledgments
Executive Summary
Transforming to Succeed
Every manufacturer has suffered supply chain challenges in the past few years. Thus, supply chain resilience is top of mind but takes work to achieve. What needs to change is typically the scope and focus of planning.
This research shows that transforming and expanding the thinking, team, and processes to achieve resilience in planning can have significant business benefits.
Top Performers’ View
In this survey of 229 manufacturers, Top Performers show the way. These Top Performers are defined by superior performance on business metrics around new products, revenue, profit, and time to market.
Best Practices
Top Performers’ planning is far more likely to involve the entire organization and its data. Not just sourcing, planning, scheduling, and logistics from the supply chain discipline but also product design, process engineering, and manufacturing. The involvement of these disciplines in planning is the #1 factor for Top Performers’ supply chains positively impacting the business. Top Performers are significantly more likely to cite this factor, so it’s a differentiator in what they do. (See chart)
Resilience is an Attainable Initiative
The good news is that internal collaboration and visibility to data from internal manufacturing and engineering groups is a resilience initiative any company can undertake. To succeed with such a program, manufacturers need software that supports a broad-based planning process transformation. Capabilities such as a common data platform and multi-discipline collaboration are crucial to success.
Investing Delivers Benefits
Companies that invest in transformation for resilience are seeing the benefits. This research shows that the longer you invest, the more likely you are to see benefits. Top Performers provide a blueprint for where to focus investment, who to involve, and what to expect from this transformation
Visibility into Production
Capabilities Change
After collaboration, visibility is the next most important factor in achieving positive supply chain impacts on the business. Manufacturers typically have continuous improvement programs that regularly boost production capabilities. Every time there is such a change, the basis of the supply chain plans should shift.
Hole in the Center
While manufacturing or “make” sits at the center of the supply chain, many companies do not have good visibility into production. The plant floor has often been described as a “black hole” for information flow: it goes in but does not come out readily.
Challenges Seeing Manufacturing Clearly
- People: Plant floor people have wanted their systems separate to ensure maximum uptime to support ongoing production.
- Process: Production can change minute-to-minute, so understanding what’s relevant and creating a pipeline appropriate to each planning cadence is dynamic.
- Technology: Separate systems with incompatible data formats and levels of granularity or detail abound in plants. Adding appropriate context for production data to be useful in supply chain planning is a common challenge, along with the need for a uniform data platform.
Redefining Planning Scope
Breadth of Operations For resilience, supply chain planning must transform and expand to ALL operations. Aligning within supply chain based on every aspect, from product specs to production capabilities, is crucial. That means integration of this data must be complete and as seamless as possible. Processes also need to involve all of these disciplines fully. Collaboration What appears to make the most difference in supply chain resilience is involving the right people. Collaboration between supply chain, manufacturing engineering, production operations, and product design is a top priority for resilience. Planning processes must be inclusive; ideally, technology will support this effort. Technology Support Scope Many companies will need to make technology investments to plan based on this scope. Based on these survey results, manufacturers need visibility, data access and normalization, and an enterprise collaboration platform. Digital twins of the supply chain, products, and production processes that enable the virtual and real to stay in sync even through extreme volatility could play a significant role *This summary is an abbreviated version of the research and does not contain the full content. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Dassault Systèmes DELMIA (registration required). If you have difficulty obtaining a copy of the report, please contact us. [post_title] => Transformation for Supply Chain Resilience [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => supply-chain-resilience [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-12-19 16:58:16 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-12-19 21:58:16 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://tech-clarity.com/?p=18749 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [15] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 18729 [post_author] => 2 [post_date] => 2023-10-05 14:09:32 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-10-05 18:09:32 [post_content] => Julie Fraser and I are enthusiastic about the potential for manufacturers to get more from their data following a briefing with enterprise search company Sinequa. Sinequa is tailoring their search applications to directly support manufacturers who want more holistic, integrated intelligence about their products and their business. Being able to find and connect data across disparate systems is always a challenge, but even more important is what you do with it once you find it. Sinequa can integrate with a variety of systems to ingest, enrich, index, and present valuable manufacturing data in the proper context. For example, a Sinequa application could collect and display the various elements of a product digital thread from data spread across underlying systems like PLM, QMS, and ERP. Sinequa also leverages AI to help users “converse” with the content. For example, they leverage large language models to surface and contextualize both structured and unstructured information about products that a typical employee would not have access to, or perhaps know existed, from related systems. It’s important to note here that Sinequa has developed a mature security model so users will not be presented with information they do not have permission to access. These capabilities have the potential to provide a much richer, more holistic view of manufacturing data. This view can help manufacturers better understand their products and business and ultimately make better decisions. They’ve developed applications for a very compelling set of customers, including Alstom, Airbus, Northrop Grumman, and NASA, that they’ve helped with information-intensive processes like maintenance and support, among others. We’re excited to see their progress and how the manufacturing community receives the application templates they’re developing. It will also be interesting to see how they partner with PLM vendors and potentially expand to operational data like MES. We’re excited to learn more. Thank you, Xavier Pornain, Laurent Fanichet, Michael Finocchiaro, and John Lenker, for explaining your vision and progress.
[post_title] => Sinequa Brings Enterprise Search to Product and Manufacturing Data [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => enterprise-search-sinequa-insight [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-10-05 14:10:40 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-10-05 18:10:40 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://tech-clarity.com/?p=18729 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [16] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 18722 [post_author] => 2 [post_date] => 2023-10-03 09:18:58 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-10-03 13:18:58 [post_content] => We had an interesting update from Viamedici, a company we’ve been following that digitalizes product management and product marketing for manufacturers. They offer a multi-domain MDM platform that started in the manufacturing industry and has now expanded to multichannel distributors and retailers. Viamedici quickly achieved a strong footprint in this vertical by acquiring another PIM vendor and upgrading all clients to their platform. Their customers use their platform to collect, cleanse, and share digital data from product design, development, marketing, and supplier data. Many of their customers also use their DAM solution, although others integrate with a complementary or existing solution. They also offer an interesting, model-based CPQ system to handle configured / personalized products or support a guided selling and guided buying model. We’re intrigued by their offering and the potential it has to provide an integrated, cloud platform for MDM, PIM, DAM, and CPQ. Thank you for the update Juergen Mueller and Sven Litke, and it was nice to meet some of the rest of the team.

[post_title] => Viamedici Integrates MDM, PIM, DAM, and CPQ on the Cloud [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => viamedici-insight [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-10-03 09:19:45 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-10-03 13:19:45 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://tech-clarity.com/?p=18722 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [17] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 18707 [post_author] => 2574 [post_date] => 2023-10-03 09:00:17 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-10-03 13:00:17 [post_content] => Many companies are talking about environmental sustainability – and GE Digital is aiming to embed it in customers’ operations. Jim Brown and I recently got an update from Ben Whiteman on their progress toward that end. The problems they want to solve are:
- operationalizing environmental sustainability goals
- breaking siloes between operations and sustainability
- providing process context to optimize resources more fully
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[post_content] => What’s the right amount of PLM for small to midsized manufacturers? We had a briefing with Office PLM to understand their offering. I spoke with Philip Thurman and he explained that Office PLM has all of the features a PLM system needs, but is affordable and installs in a couple of hours. I’m sure we could all have a long discussion about what features PLM “should” have, but what I saw meets what we call “Extended PLM” that goes beyond managing CAD to cover core revision, BOM, configuration, and engineering change functionality with a configurable workflow. They have a goal to simplify PLM and I suspect that their scope hits the sweet spot for a lot of manufacturers that don’t have time to implement a more complex application. Their integration with SOLIDWORKS and should also appeal to many smaller manufacturers. They offer a lot of educational information about PLM as well to help get their customers up to speed. Smaller manufacturers and suppliers should include Office PLM in their research if they’re looking for a lightweight PLM system. Thank you Philip for taking the time to get me up to speed on Office PLM. I look forward to learning more.
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Michelle Boucher and I joined a group of industry analysts for an annual visit to Dassault Systèmes headquarters for an update on their business performance, product progress, and corporate strategy. This year did not disappoint. We had a lot of great conversations with company leadership and heard some really interesting updates. I’m going to try to condense our experience down to a number of key areas and follow that with a list of interesting things you may want to learn more about.
In summary, my observations are that:
- The Dassault Systèmes business is strong and well positioned for the future
- They are making significant investment, and progress, on their cloud transition
- They are invested in sustainability, focusing on both direct and indirect impacts
- They are exploring an interesting new line of services called XaaS, or Experience as a Service, that have the potential to change the way capabilities like the digital twin are delivered
Some final thoughts. I won’t do them all justice here, but follow our research for more.
Business Process Management Dassault Systèmes is moving beyond features and experiences to business processes. Highlights here are a new BPM offering and the plan to offer business experiences that customers can purchased from a marketplace. Director of Strategy & Transformation Vincent Merlino shared that the use of no-code, low-code platform for business experiences will add flexibility to allow the platform to support a broader array of industries and user types. Industrial Metaverse I’ll keep this short, but I will say that the augmented reality experience 3DS shared with us in a local museum was one of the first AR experiences I’ve seen that looks like it will provide significant value while still being within reach of smaller manufacturers. The example shared a virtual twin of a factory and examined placing new equipment. Whether you call it the metaverse or something else, there is something important happening here as technologies converge. PLM Updates 3DS is clearly continuing to invest in ENOVIA. Some examples shared by ENVIA CEO Stéphane Declee and VP Philippe Bartissol include the new BPM solution, a supplier portal PartSupply, and quite a few interesting integrated / distributed collaboration examples. Analytics NETVIBES-EXALEAD CEO Morgan Zimmermann shared some of the increased focus on analytics and some really interesting case studies, including an exciting case study we first learned about during an earlier ENOVIA-NETVIBES analyst event (), Morgan shared another example of a virtual twin that correlates and synchronizes data from different systems on the virtual twin, created a dashboard of information from Primavera, SAP, CRM, and other systems overlaid on the physical model and supports a workflow to identify and trace an issue in the platform without resorting to email. Artificial Intelligence Patrick Johnson, Senior VP of Research and Science, shared a number of practical examples of AI. There we very little hype. They just shared that they are already using it and have plans for more. Watch this space. Model Based Systems Engineering CATIA CEO Olivier Sappin shared 3DS’ continued focus on MBSE to support the industry transformation to highly automated system of systems. He shared a virtual twin for cyber systems experience that started at mission definition, defined the system of Systems Architecture, and realized it with multi-discipline Engineering (including automation). Progress in AEC VP Remi Dornier gave us on update on the vision they shared last year to componentize and modernize architecture, engineering, and construction. He shared working examples that show they are further exploring and realizing their vision. Batteries Managing Director Reza Sadedhi shared some significant work they are doing around battery cells, starting from scientific principles and simulation, creating a digital twin of the battery cell. There was more shared and there are things I didn’t mention, but this is all I have room to share at the moment. Thank you Joe Horine, Orenella De Angelis, and Kurt Chen for hosting us and thank you to all of the 3DS execs who took time out of their schedule to meet with us. For related insights, Michelle Boucher and Jim Brown share their updates on ENOVIA and NETVIBES Transitioning to a Business Platform, Michelle Boucher highlights key takeaways from 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021, and take a look back to read how Dassault Systèmes has made significant progress on their 3DExperience Vision from 2017. [post_title] => Dassault Systèmes Shares Growth and Strategy at Analyst Day 2023 [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => dassault-systems-business [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-12-15 15:41:17 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-12-15 20:41:17 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://tech-clarity.com/?p=18680 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) ) [post_count] => 20 [current_post] => -1 [before_loop] => 1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 19049 [post_author] => 2574 [post_date] => 2023-11-20 09:00:09 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-11-20 14:00:09 [post_content] => Can a “dot-release” of SaaS software deliver even more value to the industry? If it expands the footprint, yes. The Apprentice press release announcing Tempo Manufacturing Cloud Version 7.2 appeared November 8, and quotes Tech-Clarity’s Julie Fraser. This SaaS product aimed at biotech and pharmaceutical manufacturers includes MES, but is much more. Per the quote in the press release, “[Apprentice’s] Tempo suite is a fresh approach that marries the latest enterprise mobile and SaaS technologies with composable applications for pressing industry issues," said Fraser. "Yes, there’s a SaaS MES – but there is more for the plant, quality lab, enterprise, and manufacturing network. It serves the product lifecycle, starting with preclinical and clinical." Apprentice has entered a crowded market for pharmaceutical-focused software with great success. The relationship between plant, quality, and enterprise is a foundation. Now the extension to trading partners such as CDMOs makes the solution even stronger. We have been researching the role of cloud-based applications in manufacturing, and reaching across siloes is one advantage. We continue to watch the progress of the Apprentice Tempo Manufacturing Cloud. The vision of meeting the changes in the industry with a new type of software to support regulated operations clearly resonates. Thank you, Kristen Kucks and team for the opportunity to share our views in this Apprentice press release. For related content, read an Insight from Julie Fraser's briefing with Apprentice back in June 2023 on Tempo.
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One of our most recent guides,
The transition to electric vehicles (EVs) is fundamentally disrupting the automotive industry, forcing manufacturing engineering to digitally transform. Given this: 













