What I Learned

Should You “Exnovate” your Product Portfolio?

What I learned this week … came from a blog entry by Paul Hobcraft on Innovation Tools asking “What is ‘exnovation’ and where does it fit in the innovatin life cycle?” I found “exnovation” an intriguing term and an interesting concept. And then, as usual, I tried to think about how manufacturers could apply it to their product lifecycles to enhance product profitability.

Why is Implementing PLM Hard?

What I learned this week … is that there are still some technical challenges that make implementing PLM challenging, but that is not what this post is about. The technical challenges include customization, data migration, and integration among others. See Oleg’s post on the “3 main factors of mainstream PLM adoption” for more detail on each of these, and his views on why these three factors impact the adoption rate of PLM. I accept Oleg’s premise on these factors (although we will likely continue to debate the relative priority of ERP integration) from a technical perspective. But I think any technical conversation about PLM implementation has to be complemented with a view on why PLM is really hard – you have to change the way people work in order to improve your product development performance and your product profitability.

Is the PLM Ecosystem Ready for PLM? Razorleaf Is

I had the chance to talk with … Razorleaf during a research project earlier this year. Razorleaf helps manufacturers leverage PLM, Design Automation, and other enterprise technologies to improve product development and engineering processes. During the conversation, it was clear that they really understand how enterprise technology can be applied in an engineering environment. They are ready to step in and deliver the enterprise services required to implement PLM. But how much of the “PLM” ecosystem is really ready and capable to implement PLM? In my experience, too few.

Multitouch CAD – Are you Serious!?

What I learned this week … came from a Youtube video by direct modeling (3D CAD) company SpaceClaim. The video is cool from the music to the product, but after their hilarious April Fool’s joke – how serious is this really? Let’s put aside that question – and the question of how ready this technology may be – until I have a chance to talk with them a bit. In the meantime, what I want to discuss is “why we would care if multitouch came to CAD?”

What can PLM Learn from Social Computing on TV?

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

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