What is holding companies back from Industry 4.0 project and initiative success? A few things: integration for data flows, speed to deploy software consistently to multiple sites for scalability, disconnects between corporate IT mandates and in-the-plant needs, and projects that don’t fit the budget of smaller plants and companies. Recently, Jim Brown and Julie Fraser…
- In the design phase, to predict how a design would work, for example, doing a throughput or feasibility analysis, and adjust the design to deliver on requirements and create a very high level of confidence that the operation is going to work effectively
- In the commissioning phase, by virtually testing controls and systems integration to find bugs and optimize designs early to commission and get up to your target OEE rates much faster
- In the operations phase, for example, for troubleshooting and testing a hypothesis on a potential solution to quickly implement improvements
Learning from Real Case Studies
Stephen and Leo shared a number of projects they've completed with their clients. I'll provide a summary of the benefits here, but I encourage you to watch the webinar to learn more about how they achieve these significant benefits from the manufacturing digital twin.- Design
- A medical device company simulated factories to understand real production flow, identify where bottlenecks occur, rightsize their warehouses, and improve supply chain planning, allowing them to meet a huge increase in demand as they release new products
- A solar panel manufacturer used both simulation and emulation to identify and eliminate over 157 design flaws in their material handling process design, leading to a significant improvement in the overall capacity of the factory
- Commissioning
- A major CPG company built a digital twin for both design and emulation of all of their control systems, leading to incredible savings in commissioning time for new lines
- A global retailer simulated and virtually commissioned half a dozen automated storage and retrieval systems, delivering 30% savings in commissioning time and a massive reduction in downtime
- Operations
- A tire manufacturer built a more analytical model of tire splicing that enabled them to reduce downtime, resulting in an annual production increase of about half a million tires per year
- A beverage manufacturer developed a digital twin to simulate and replicate line stoppages and was able to test potential solutions ten times faster, solving the problem which resulted in a 52% downtime reduction and 14% improvement in OEE
Final Thoughts
The conversation confirmed that the manufacturing digital twin can drive a lot of business value. The case studies show that digital twins are more than hype, they're a path to improve how manufacturers design, commission, and operate their plants, lines, equipment, and processes. Thank you to Stephen, Leo, and host Hadley Bauer for including me in the discussion. To learn more about how Kalypso helps manufacturers gain tangible value from the digital twin, you can watch the webinar replay (no registration required) and find additional information about digital twins for consumer and retail companies on the Kalypso site. For related content, read the State of PLM in CPG find out what top performers are doing with their PLM systems. [post_title] => The Value of the Manufacturing Digital Twin in CPG [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => manufacturing-digital-twin-2 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-02-20 12:33:14 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-02-20 17:33:14 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://tech-clarity.com/?p=19484 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [2] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 19366 [post_author] => 2574 [post_date] => 2024-01-04 09:00:24 [post_date_gmt] => 2024-01-04 14:00:24 [post_content] =>
How can you get on the journey to a model-based enterprise? What are we learning that you can put into action today? Mark your calendars for January 17th at 11AM PT/2PM ET to join us for an engaging webinar covering topics such as:
- Why transform? What are the biggest benefits as a manufacturer moves toward MBE? (For example, traceability, agility, time to market, quality, efficiency, new customer requirements, etc.)
- What do aerospace and complex manufacturers need to do now to prepare and embark on the MBE journey?
- Given that program cycles are long, how do we learn and iterate to advance MBE practices within just a few years?
- What software advances are needed in both PLM and MES to enable better PMI and model-based process planning?
- What is metadata, and what is its role in model-based design (MBD)?
- What are solution providers doing to support model-based manufacturing and get usable PMI from engineering to manufacturing?
- What have we already learned about what has worked and has not?
- Ron Squires, who leads Digital Transformation for the Strategic Space Systems Division of Northrop Grumman Space Systems
- Jeff Gleeson, an independent consultant and digital manufacturing leader with decades of experience at Lockheed Martin as both a practitioner and an innovator of production operations business processes and supporting technologies
- Michel Gadbois, Senior Vice President and Chief Enterprise Architect at iBase-t
- Julie Fraser, VP of Research for Operations and Manufacturing at Tech-Clarity and long-time industry analyst, will join and moderate.
Semiconductor makers must evolve and innovate, so how can MES keep delivering value? Specialty chips can be great niches, but they don’t necessarily improve linearly or predictably. So, semiconductor companies must become more effective innovators rather than only seeking stability or increased product processing speed. Changing products, processes, and customers can boost win rates. No matter what, research and development (R&D) is a crucial foundation for business success.
Yet historically, innovation, changes, and R&D created significant challenges for legacy MES. As a result, these older systems have lost value over time. Semiconductor companies need MES that is reliable and flexible to keep up with innovation and evolving business and production processes.
Meeting new applications that build on the company’s current capabilities is a winning strategy. Specialty chips often work where virtual meets real. The intersection of virtual and real is also where MES models and capabilities meet actual fabrication, assembly, and test of chips.
In the face of constant innovation, the MES must be able to process multiple experiments at the same time as standard runs. The MES should be able to support fabs in running experimental lots with little to no disruption to commercial production. The MES ideally fully records and reports all the runs, small, large, or one-off experiments.
For reliability at the same time as flexibility, it’s ideal to have an MES that includes not only dispatching of special and commercial lots, but also maintenance, quality, materials, and more. The value comes from support for all aspects of change and innovation.
Fortunately, there are semiconductor MES available that have all of that and support greater agility with less manual effort than ever before. These modern systems enable semiconductor companies to set and meet their goals for evolving and innovating into new market opportunities. Choosing the right semiconductor MES to evolve and innovate is crucial.
Read this third in a blog series about semiconductor MES issues by Julie Fraser for a deeper look into what you might need and why. Thank you to Eyelit for supporting our efforts to educate the market to the business value of technology.
For related content, please read the previous senmconductor blog posts by Julie Fraser on Eyelit, including Redefining Semiconductor MES and the Semiconductor Risk Conundrum.
[post_title] => Ongoing Value from MES as a Semiconductor Company Evolves and Innovates
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[post_content] => [post_title] => The Semiconductor Risk Conundrum: MES Status Quo or Migration? [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => risk-conundrum [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-12-19 16:34:19 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-12-19 21:34:19 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://tech-clarity.com/?p=19130 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [5] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 19119 [post_author] => 2 [post_date] => 2023-12-05 13:00:44 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-12-05 18:00:44 [post_content] => What’s new and interesting in the product portfolio management (PPM) market? I caught up with Bryan Seyforth’s new company, BrightFire, to find out. What I learned is that he’s planning to make PPM more accessible for smaller companies. This is early, but something to watch.
PPM Leader Starting Fresh
I was excited to catch up with Bryan Seyfarth after learning that he started a new company in the portfolio management space. I’ve known Bryan for years as an executive at Sopheon, that he helped become a leader in product portfolio management (PPM) solutions for consumer-oriented companies like food, beverage, and consumer packaged goods (CPG). BrightFire follows in the footsteps of other PPM solutions to help companies better capitalize on their product innovation portfolios to get the most out of their R&D and new product development (NPD) efforts.
Managing Portfolios from Innovation Through Execution
One of the things that struck me about Bryan’s vision for BrightFire is the comprehensive, yet right-sized scope. One of the key areas that many PPM solutions lack is the ability to put innovation decisions into action in the execution phase. As Bryan says, the goal is to support companies “from strategy, to prioritization, to execution.” To do this, Brightfire offers capabilities to help with:
- Strategy/platform governance
- Phase-gate governance
- Portfolio governance
- Resource planning
A lot has happened since I last wrote about Propel and their Product Value Management strategy. Several significant updates are their continued progress toward their vision, very successful Propulsion and Dreamforce conferences, and a carefully executed shift in executive leadership.
Delivering on PVM
Let’s start with vision. The goal of PVM, in a nutshell, is to better connect product development with product commercialization. It sounds obvious, and those from outside of the engineering software community would probably assume PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) would inherently create digital continuity across design and commercial people and processes. Instead, most PLM solutions don’t address go-to-market or incorporate the customer experience. Interestingly, perhaps, some are starting to focus on the service lifecycle of the product following commercialization, but that’s a different post. Propel is relatively unique in their focus on PVM to close the “Product Value Gap” between product and commercial teams.
Since our last post, Propel formally announced their PIM (Product Information Management) solution to complement their existing PLM and QMS (quality management) capabilities. They also released significant additional capabilities to support new product development and go-to-market. This is evidence of significant investment to achieve their PVM strategy and we expect to see more over time.
It's important to mention, though, that they’ve also continued to further their PLM capabilities, for example with recent enhancements to further support design collaboration and visualization and integration with Altium to support ECAD (electronic CAD) alongside mechanical designs and RenderDraw for converting CAD files to interactive 2D and 3D viewables. They’ve also extended their capabilities to better support design for supply to help manufacturers develop products that are better optimized for their supply chain with a SiliconExpert integration.
Leadership Change
Founder Ray Hein has paved the path to rethink how a software category supports an industry more than once, and proved his abilities again with Propel. He surrounded himself with a strong team and listened to his customers more than most CEOs I’ve met. He and the team continued to evolve their vision by learning from customer goals and experiences. They also leveraged their strong, inherent relationship with CRM and platform provider Salesforce to streamline and integrate across the digital thread from product inception to commercial offering. The result, their PVM strategy, is both valuable and differentiating.
Ray is stepping away from Propel’s day-to-day operations, but he’s leaving after a calculated and thoughtful transition. He passes control to Ross Meyercord, who has already been Propel CEO and worked on product planning and strategy for a year while Ray focused on the broader company vision as Chief Strategy Officer. Ray will retain a role on the Propel Board and continue to offer guidance. But Ross comes with strong experience in enterprise software for the manufacturing industry and appears to be taking the same customer-centric role that Ray did. He also inherited a strong team with great credentials. See the press release here.
We’re excited to see how Propel and their PVM vision continue to grow and create a continuous digital thread across the product lifecycle, as many would agree is the ultimate goal of PLM.
Thank you Ray Hein, Ross Meyercord, and Tom Shoemaker for continuing to keep us abreast of Propel’s progress.
Our related eBook teaches companies how to adapt people, processes, and technology to improve revenue and customer experiences by connecting the product digital thread. Watch the on-demand webinar with Jim Brown, Mark Boles (Propel), and Tom Shoemaker (Propel) to learn how to solve the product information disconnect, improve NPDI, and drive product profitability.
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[post_content] => How do you build a business case for PLM that puts business value first and recognizes the role that product lifecycle management (PLM) technology plays in achieving it? Watch the replay of our President of Digital Innovation Research, Jim Brown, and Trace One PLM expert, Jobi Varghese, to learn organizational and industry drivers that you can leverage to build a solid business case around the value of a single source of truth PLM platform for the CPG and retail industries.
Watch the webinar replay to:
- Learn how to build a data-backed business case for PLM implementation
- Uncover industry and organizational drivers that impact NPDI
- Understand projected ROI from implementing a PLM system
[post_title] => Building the Business Case for PLM
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[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.
[post_title] => Julie Fraser Quoted in Apprentice Press Release for Tempo 7.2
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One of our most recent guides, Seven Keys to Improving Service with the IoT, focuses on helping manufacturers and service companies get the most out of machine monitoring. The guide offers seven considerations for companies to consider when they target service transformation.
As we published the guide, I wondered if writing about “how” to improve service and the system capabilities it requires is enough. Are most companies aware of “why” they should be doing it in the first place, and how it can positively impact their business? If so, why isn’t everyone doing it successfully now that barriers to implementing machine monitoring through the industrial IoT (IIoT) have dropped?
Share your thoughts on my guest blog post on the PTC blog (registration required).
For related content, read our buyer's guide, Seven Keys to Improving Service with the IoT, to learn practical steps for companies to improve service through IoT condition-based monitoring.
You can also hear Jim Brown share insights from this buyer's guide and share his thoughts about improving field service by leveraging the IoT in episode 20 of PTC’s Speaking of Service Podcast with PTC’s VP of Strategic Partnerships, Christine Wolff,
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The transition to electric vehicles (EVs) is fundamentally disrupting the automotive industry, forcing manufacturing engineering to digitally transform. Given this:
- 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 ) [11] => 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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What is holding companies back from Industry 4.0 project and initiative success? A few things: integration for data flows, speed to deploy software consistently to multiple sites for scalability, disconnects between corporate IT mandates and in-the-plant needs, and projects that don’t fit the budget of smaller plants and companies. Recently, Jim Brown and Julie Fraser learned how IndustryApps aims to alleviate those issues and democratize access to best-in-class Industry 4.0 approaches.
How? By building an industrial dataspace using industry standards, and inviting software application providers to use this platform to expand their reach and speed time-to-value for their projects. Manufacturers subscribe to the apps they need at any time. The OpEx approach lowers the barrier to entry and the cloud-based hosting speeds implementation.
Aiming to Democratize Industry 4.0
IndustryApps’ stated mission is to make Industry 4.0 simple for all industrial businesses. They envision their single platform as a foundation for digital transformation. The platform is based on digital twin standards. With this platform, manufacturers can create digital twins for machines and products. The platform is a secured, private application enablement environment. Beyond the platform, the AppStore of proven solutions across the broad array of functional needs creates new opportunities for manufacturers of all sizes and industries.Ecosystem
Creating an ecosystem for other software companies has the potential to accelerate growth for IndustryApps – and rapidly expand value for manufacturers who use it. There are already 80 solution providers with software in the AppStore. All of these applications use the standard data exchange approach IndustryApps has built into its platform. Solution providers are interested in participating for several reasons. They get a new channel to market, covering geographies or industries that are hard for them to reach, that provides first-line support. Participating is a driver to adopt the many industry standards at the core of the IndustryApps Platform. These include RAMI 4.0, Asset Administration Shell (AAS) Consortium, ISO/ECLASS for semantics, Open Industry 4.0 Alliance architectures, GAIA-X distributed sovereign data rules, and ISA 95. Many software companies are already adopting these standards to provide customers with more flexibility and better integration. Although it takes a strong commitment from vendors, adopting standards is a path to more complete digital threads and industrial dataspaces.Industry Origins
The founders began to develop this platform approach while working at Henkel. When Sandeep Sreekumar’s scope expanded to 140 plants, he realized he needed a way to scale and roll out rapidly, plus allow flexible deployment at sites. Developing a platform enabled the bottom-up approach to digitalizing factories. Some of these Henkel factories became lighthouses in the World Economic Forum Industry 4.0 program. Extend Manufacturers continually seek to extend their company's capabilities by leveraging software. New applications from solution providers make up one aspect of the extensibility of IndustryApps. Now, the platform is open for manufacturers to onboard their internally-developed solutions. Manufacturers can subscribe to new apps for a monthly fee and get up and going with minimal training or delay. The connectivity is provided or open to using their own data connectivity layer.Cybersecurity
Another crucial aspect of Industry 4.0 software is cybersecurity and data protection. With manufacturers increasingly being a target for cyberattacks, this is crucial. Also, when the data may need to flow among multiple companies or departments, the ability to dictate and update access control for each person is vital. Further, the manufacturers always own their own data on the IndustryApps platform and ecosystem. Thank you, Sandeep Sreekumar, for spending time to update us on your vision and status. We look forward to following IndustryApps’ progress in the market. [post_title] => IndustryApps Industrial Dataspace and Ecosystem Aims to Democratize Industry 4.0 [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => industrial-dataspace [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-26 13:56:31 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-26 18:56:31 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://tech-clarity.com/?p=19638 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [comment_count] => 0 [current_comment] => -1 [found_posts] => 893 [max_num_pages] => 45 [max_num_comment_pages] => 0 [is_single] => [is_preview] => [is_page] => [is_archive] => [is_date] => [is_year] => [is_month] => [is_day] => [is_time] => [is_author] => [is_category] => [is_tag] => [is_tax] => [is_search] => [is_feed] => [is_comment_feed] => [is_trackback] => [is_home] => 1 [is_privacy_policy] => [is_404] => [is_embed] => [is_paged] => [is_admin] => [is_attachment] => [is_singular] => [is_robots] => [is_favicon] => [is_posts_page] => [is_post_type_archive] => [query_vars_hash:WP_Query:private] => 9dab440bb500a0aaf87b1065da37c360 [query_vars_changed:WP_Query:private] => 1 [thumbnails_cached] => [allow_query_attachment_by_filename:protected] => [stopwords:WP_Query:private] => [compat_fields:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => query_vars_hash [1] => query_vars_changed ) [compat_methods:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => init_query_flags [1] => parse_tax_query ) [query_cache_key:WP_Query:private] => wp_query:13bc869a8b079eff39b3ccbdd81ed2b2:0.39251500 17776595620.40127500 1777659562 )All Results for "All"
The Value of the Manufacturing Digital Twin in CPG
Introduction I had the opportunity to join two industry experts, Stephen Birtsas and Leo Moran of Kalypso, in an interactive panel discussion about the manufacturing digital twin. Our goal was to examine the business value of manufacturing digital twins in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry and review some tangible examples of successful implementations. There’s a…
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Transforming Manufacturing Planning in the EV Era
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International Manufacturing-X Council for Supply Chain Data Flow
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What’s The Cost of Disconnected Tools to Your Business?
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…
Selerant is now Trace One Combining Retail and CPG PLM
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TradeBeyond Expands in Quality, Compliance, and Traceability
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,…
How to Engineer Innovation with Simulation and Test
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…
The Manufacturing Digital Twin – Buzz or Bullseye?
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…














