Making the value of technology clear
Making plant floor software more straightforward to use, rollout, maintain, and sustain is a worthy endeavor. The fourth annual release of the GE Digital Proficy portfolio as an integrated release was packed! Updates range from expanding industry fit to architecture for enterprise rollout, cloud everywhere, composability, consistency for connected workers, sustainability functionality, and pre-built analytics for common needs.
Jim Brown and Julie Fraser had a chance to catch up with the GE Digital product management team for a preview of the Proficy 2024 unified launch. Unified is a relatively new capability for Proficy, with cloud or hybrid hosting, a common user experience (UX), and common administration. That’s rare, since this suite includes not only comprehensive MES and plant applications, but also historian, automation software and Sustainability software.
Some of the highlights are:
Coherent, flexible architecture: Historian and MES are entirely rewritten to be containerized on the same unified namespace (UNS). Other components of this model are a data model, support for a range of databusses including MQTT, OPS-UA and more, and a directory service. We see this as a solid approach for the software to stay useful at enterprise scale over the long term.
Connected worker consistency: IT are not the only ones with new capabilities. Operations Hub supports operators, supervisors, technicians, and other connected workers. It lets the customers compose applications as they wish behind a single UI. Applications from HMI, dashboards, engineering analytics, and MES all use containers and Operations Hub to appear in a consistent way. It aims to work even beyond the Proficy suite.
Enterprise scale: Cloud, on-prem, or hybrid hosting is working into most of this suite. Customers can now pipe data into data lakes and an array of analytics tools. The file storage approach means sending even millions of data points per second from OT tags across multiple plants is possible. Configuration Hub is central to the ability of a center of expertise (CoE) to manage all of these applications seamlessly. GE reports that one automotive customer is automatically building tag databases for their many plants retooling for EV production, and it’s taking only weeks to build HMI/SCADA databases. Licensing by tags also enables customer flexibility to deploy as needed.
Expanded discrete industry support: GE Digital is working with GE Aviation to support complex low-volume discrete industries such as A&D (Proficy has long had a strong base in automotive). This industry has only a few successful MES who offer what they need in engineering change and dispatching, so this market entry is welcome.
Expanded analytics: More of the applications now have embedded issue-specific analytics already included. The suite also offers customers the ability to build their own analytics models. Sustainability is one such area, based on Vernova’s focus. PID loop health is another. Alarm management in the automation suite has been upgraded to reduce distribution during alarm floors, and new capabilities for troubleshooting alarms are included also.
All of these new capabilities are in a coherent yet open suite of products. Customers can benefit across OT, IT, sustainability, and plant operations. We see how this would put GE Digital in a strong position as the spin-off of GE Vernova approaches.
Thank you, Steve Pavlovsky, Prasad Pai, Joe Gerstl, and Ben Whiteman, for an excellent overview of the new possibilities in Proficy. Thanks, Carter Conway and Spenser Murray, for setting up the briefing for us. We will look forward to more news as Proficy continues to leverage technology advances and meet market shifts.
For related content, read our previous insights on how GE Aims to Operationalize Sustainability and how they plan to Enhance MES for TCO and Flexibility.
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Denodo Data Virtualization Capabilities[/caption]
Julie Fraser and I were introduced to Denodo through a connection made in the Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association (MESA) International Smart Manufacturing Community. Denodo is a large, fast-growing data management company with capabilities supporting enterprise data fabric and data integration. We spent some time with the Denodo team, learning about their solution for data virtualization to create “integration without integration.”
Denodo helps companies create a single view of distributed data to drive analytics. As one would expect, the offering provides data integration, management, quality, and governance. But Denodo’s solution does not aggregate and replicate large volumes of data, instead creating a form of data mesh by sourcing and storing metadata while leaving data in place, but accessible. They then use the metadata to create a data catalog that allows self-service data discovery and data preparation on a logical abstraction of a variety of data stores. Although Denodo takes a “logical first” approach, leading with virtualization, they can also support ETL, ESBs, or APIs with over 200 adapters for complete data management and delivery.
Our research shows that manufacturers typically invest significant time and effort in creating and maintaining integrated data to drive decisions and support AI. In particular, they struggle to put IT and OT data in context. Denodo’s abstraction layer and services could play a significant role in simplifying this and deliver significant benefits.
[caption id="attachment_19829" align="aligncenter" width="824"]
Denodo Platform Functionality[/caption]
The real value comes by putting the data into action. Denodo provides connectivity to data analysis tools like Tableau or PowerBI to turn that data into actionable insights. In this way, their data virtualization approach can help create intelligence from fragmented and proliferated data in real time without waiting for traditional extract, transformation, and load (ETL) processes.
We’ve seen some case studies and we’re impressed, but we also have more to learn. We believe that Denodo can offer significant value to support manufacturing and supply chain analytics and AI with their data fabric approach. Thank you, Dave Nixon, for making the connection, and Saptarshi Sengupta and Deborah Wiltshire for introducing us to Denodo’s capabilities. We look forward to continuing our learning and watching their progress in manufacturing industries.
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I caught up with an old friend who has an exciting new role as Executive Board Member and Co-Owner of PDTec, a company that I am excited to get to know better. The company offers a series of composable apps based on their data management platform, ice. NET. I love their tagline “innovation through integration” and their focus spanning data, process, and systems integration. Their solutions, based on a scalable component architecture, are designed to help engineers be more effective and efficient in product development, including:
In addition to these preconfigured standard offerings, PDTec can leverage their component-based platform to develop unique solutions on a consultative basis driven by their deep industry expertise.
PDTec is not a flashy software company, instead focusing on serving their customers who include majorlinke complex, discrete manufacturers with significant adoption in the automotive industry. In fact, they publicly list many German automotive OEMs as their customers, including Porsche AG, AUDI AG, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz AG, and Daimler Truck. Their customers also include tier 1 automotive suppliers such as Brose Group, Japanese automotive OEMs Mitsubishi Corporation and Nissan Motor Corporation.
PDTec is a company I look forward to learning more about. Thank you Michael Murgai for the overview.
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Tech-Clarity Analysts Jim Brown and Michelle Boucher at Autodesk University[/caption]
2023 is in the rearview mirror and I’m reflecting on a few things that Michelle Boucher and I learned and what they mean for our industry. Here are some takeaways from Autodesk University 2023, including AI and PLM strategy updates, that will have a big impact on the industry. This is only a small portion of what we learned from multiple presentations and conversations, it’s always hard to decide what to report on from these large conferences!
It's important to point out that Autodesk is not new to AI. We’ve been in conversations with Autodesk about AI for a long time. Autodesk was one of the first large engineering software vendors to focus heavily in generative design and has been at it for some time. They are continuing their investment in generative AI to augment human innovation, for example they announced an acquisition of Blank.AI to rapidly develop design concepts for the automotive industry.
Autodesk has invested a lot of brainpower into how AI can make a difference for their customers. They’ve also invested a lot of expensive computing power to develop AI models from the vast amount of data they have access to. They have learned a lot and we expect to see continued AI capabilities rolled out at all levels of Autodesk products. To support this, Autodesk announced Autodesk AI to provide intelligent assistance and generative capabilities across their software portfolio as a part of the Autodesk Platform.
Autodesk VP Vikram Dutt further shared their vision for AI, “The cloud has connected our customers’ data, and it's enabling AI to unlock new ways of working. We really believe we're on the cusp of a new era, one where AI will fundamentally change the way our customers do business, unleashing both their agility as well as creativity. And we believe our customers really need an entirely new way of working.” It’s a bold objective that offers significant potential. We’re keeping our eyes on the progress.
Autodesk University PLM Summit[/caption]
Fusion 360 Manage is a flexible, workflow-oriented system. Fusion 360 Manage complements Autodesk’s extended PDM solution, Vault. They also offer their still relatively newly acquired Upchain solution that supports what they described as “fully cloud PDM with some PLM capabilities,” which is well suited for design-centric, multi-CAD environments.
Although there is some overlap in the offerings, Autodesk is investing in integrating all of these solutions with Fusion, their industry cloud for manufacturing. In a presentation on Autodesk Fusion Data Management, Jeremy Lambert explained that their goal is a single, unified industry cloud with capabilities from Prodsmart, Fusion 360 Manage, Fusion 360, Vault, and Upchain.
[caption id="attachment_19628" align="aligncenter" width="961"]
Autodesk Fusion Data Management[/caption]
Fusion is clearly Autodesk’s long-term strategy for the manufacturing industry. Fusion is a pure platform built from the ground up and goes well beyond PLM. As described by VP Cloud Data and PLM Derrek Cooper, Fusion is CAD, CAM, PLM, and MES data in a graph database, decoupled from logic, run through APIs. It leverages a common data model across applications, which is the target for integrating Autodesk’s PDM and PLM offerings.
AU Design & Manufacturing Executive Panel[/caption]
Autodesk University AEC Panel[/caption]
Autodesk has a leading position in AEC and there is much more to share, but I’m going to limit my commentary to one more exciting update related to the the intersection of D&M and AEC, industrialized construction. There was a very interesting presentation and exhibit from Factory OS sharing how they use Forma for sustainable modular construction, working collaboratively in the cloud , around a common language and drawings. The parallels with Fusion are noticeable, and both supported by Autodesk Platform.
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.
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:
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.
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When can an early technology decision create a risk conundrum? When you’re a semiconductor company that implemented MES a decade ago or more. You now face the decision of whether to stick with an outdated legacy system or migrate to current MES. Julie Fraser explores this risk conundrum in her second of three guest blog posts for the semiconductor industry.
Semiconductor company risks are high, and those for production are as well. While keeping with the old familiar system may seem the safer choice, it poses enormous risk. Particularly as the semiconductor industry continues to power forward with new products, applications, and markets. The uncertainty in demand is only increasing, and fabs and backend sites must keep up by becoming more agile and higher-mix.
The overall business risks are high in this time of change. The risks of technical debt from heavily customized, no-longer-supported MES include disconnected data, inability to confidently run test lots, support burdens, IT, and staffing challenges.
This article also points out that while the risks of migrating to a new MES in a current facility are substantial, they are lower than in the past. These risks are short-term and only possible, while risks of staying with the status quo older MES are long-term, persistent, guaranteed risks that current workforce shortages exacerbate.
Read the blog to learn what to look for in a new MES to ease the migration and minimize the risk. Thank you to Eyelit for the opportunity to share our views.
For related content, read Julie Fraser's guest blog post on Eyelit to learn why redefining semiconductor MES is essential to support the next 30 years of semiconductor progress. 
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:
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:
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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.
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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:
[post_title] => International Manufacturing-X Council for Supply Chain Data Flow
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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:
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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