Hello and welcome to Tech-Clarity. We are in the process of converting to our new website which provides greater access to our research. As we are reposting our content in the new format, we want to make sure you can access our existing materials. The list below represents almost ten years worth of research. Enjoy!
Note: If you find a bad or missing link, the easiest way to find what you are looking for is through the search box. Please let us know if you can’t find anything and we will be glad to help.
| Perspective: Developing Software-Intensive Products: Addressing the Innovation-Complexity Conundrum – Presents survey data and analysis to help manufacturers understand the benefits and challenges of developing products that derive a significant amount of their capabilities from software. Describes how they can take advantage of the benefits and use organization structure, business processes, and structured systems like ALM and PLM to address the signifcant challenges and business impacts resulting from added development complexity.. (See Overview) |
| Insight: Better Service from Better Product Information: Evolving to Visual, Product-Centric Service Communication – Discusses the importance of having accurate, timely product information at hand in order to profit from service and satisfy customers in the service lifecycle. Highlights the importance of detailed, visual service information such as 3D graphics and animations to communicate product details, and explains how companies are leveraging PLM assets to improve service performance. (See Overview) |
| Issue in Focus: Social Business Collaboration and the Product Lifecycle: Combining the Collaborative Power of Social Media with PLM – Explores the possibility that companies could adopt a social business collaboration platform to improve product development processes and add proven PLM capabilities as needed to establish a socially capable PLM system. (See Overview) |
| Issue in Focus: Product Data Accessiblity: Getting Value from All of Your Proudct Data – Explains the importance for manufacturers to be able to access and share product data, regardless of whether it is centralized in a system like PDM or not. Explains that accessing product data and centralizing it are not absolutely linked, and describes emerging technologies that can help. (See Overview) |
| Insight: Improving Portfolio Decision-Making: Marrying PPM Best Practice Processes and Technology to Drive ROI – Describes the ability for Product Portfolio Management (PPM) initiatives to improve portfolio decision-making and ultimately company profitability. Explains that companies can take a practical approach to achieve the value of PPM by utilizing readily available best practice processes and metrics, leveraging the right software technology, and starting small to provide rapid value without a large, academic exercise. (See Overview) |
| Insight: Systems and Software Driven Innovation: Complexity and Opportunity in the Mechatronic Era – Describes the fundamental shift to increased software and electronics in traditionally mechanical products, sometimes known as “mechatronics.” Explains the need to manage the resulting design complexity and how to take advantage of the opportunities offered by systems and software based products. (See Overview) |
| Tech-Clarity Perspective: Understanding Product Development Trade-offs: Designing Products for Compliance, Cost, and Sustainability – Presents results from a survey on how companies design their products to meet environmental regulatory compliance, product sustainability, and product cost targets. Shares survey data and perspectives from two leading manufacturers . (See Overview) |
| Issue in Focus: Optimizing Product Portfolios with Advanced PPM: Applying Value Optimization to Portfolio Decision Making – Explains how companies can gain greater levels of product portfolio profitability by using value optimization techniques to make portfolio decisions. Describes how the basic best practices of PPM can be extended by Advanced PPM concepts. . (See Overview) |
| Issue in Focus: PLM Goes Mobile – Reducing Barriers to Engineering Decision-Making and Innovation – Explains how mobile devices like the iPad have set the stage to extend the opportunity for engineers and others in the product lifecycle to contribute, decide, act, and innovate with PLM. (See Overview) |
| Product and Program Management Goes Mobile – Compressing Project Cycle Time and Time to Market with Mobile PLM – Describes how mobile workers can decide, approve, and contribute to their projects and programs in real-time using PLM in a mobile scenario. (See Overview) |
| Enabling Mobile PLM – IT Considerations for Leveraging Mobility to Extend PLM Value – Points out some very practical considerations that IT leaders must take into account when taking PLM mobile. (See Overview) |
| Insight: The Business Value of Product Data Management – Achieving Rapid and Extendable Benefits – Explains how manufacturers use PDM to control their product data, improve their ability to find information, and better share knowledge with other departments. Shares the experiences of three manufacturers that took a more “out of the box” approach to reach these benefits quickly. (See Overview) |
| Insight: The Business of 3D Technical Communications: Evolving Strategies to Document Products – Explains how companies are changing their views on technical documentation to a more strategic approach, including the use of 3D to go beyond flat, static documents to incorporate richer, interactive, more realistic representation of products. (See Overview) |
| Insight: Integrating PLM and MES – Realizing the Digital Factory – Expands the discussion on the roles that ERP and PLM play in manufacturing to include the role of Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES). (See Overview) |
| Insight: The Business Value of Simulation – Saving Time and Money, and Getting Products Right the First Time – Reviews how manufacturers can leverage simulation processes and technology to save time, reduce cost, drive efficiency, improve quality, and increase innovation. Discusses the economic value available from early design analysis and validation. (See Overview) |
| Insight: Managing Engineering Data – The Role of PDM in Improving Engineering Efficiency – Shares the benefits of controlling engineering data and collaborating with Product Data Management. Discusses extending PDM with product-related processes and expanding implementations beyond engineering data. (See Overview) |
| Insight: The Five Dimensions of Product Complexity – Highlights the trend toward increased product complexity and how it has made developing profitable products more difficult. Details the five dimensions and discusses how PLM software helps manage the complexity on an enterprise scale, helping manufacturers achieve greater efficiency and better products. (See Overview) |
| Issue in Focus: CAD Standardization Strategies – Considerations for Multi-CAD versus Standardization – Helps companies develop a “CAD Standardization Strategy” based on a thorough understanding of the business drivers, constraints, and tradeoffs impacting their decision to operate in a multi-CAD environment or standardize on a single solution. (See Overview) |
| Insight: Product Portfolio Management in a PLM Strategy – Closing the Loop on Product Planning – Explores how engineering-centric businesses can take a more closed-loop approach between Product Portfolio Management (PPM) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) to extend the value of PPM. (See Overview) |
| Insight: Consolidating CAD – Benefits of a Unified CAD Strategy – Examines the strategic and tactical value of standardizing on a single CAD package. Provides a framework for determining the cost savings available from consolidating tools. (See Overview) |
| Insight: Quality Risk Management in Life Sciences: Preventing Failures, Protecting Patient Health – Reviews manufacturers’ experiences in using Quality Risk Management (QRM) to proactively reduce risk in the Life Sciences industries. Explains how QRM software can be used to efficiently manage risk by sharing quality knowledge across the enterprise and closing the loop on product quality. (See Overview) |
| Issue in Focus: Product Compliance – The Hidden Tax on Innovation – Discusses the need for early product compliance checking for formula- and recipe-based products. Explains how manual processes for compliance checking and documentation limit product innovation, and how PLM with compliance checking built in can help relieve this burden. (See Overview) |
| Business in Focus: Burner Systems International – Improving Collaboration with Product Data Management (PDM) – Highlights a conversation with a global component and assembly manufacturer supplying the gas appliance industry. Discusses their adoption of Product Data Management (PDM) to improve engineering and new product development performance. (See Overview) |
| Issue in Focus: Product Collaboration 2.0 – Explores the use of social computing and “Web 2.0” techniques to improve product collaboration. Explains how social computing in PLM allows manufacturers to discover new intellectual property and capture existing know-how for the future – increasing corporate product knowledge. (See Overview) |
| Perspective: Product Environmental Compliance – Discusses the key elements of a sustainable approach to developing and maintaining products that comply with environmental regulations such as RoHS and REACH while reducing compliance risk and cost. Draws conclusions from over 300 responses to a web-based survey and several in-depth interviews with leading manufacturers. (See Overview) |
| Issue in Focus: Business Intelligence Extending PLM Value – Points out the significant value that has accumulated in PLM systems as implementations and usage have matured, and how manufacturers can tap into that value with business intelligence (BI) solutions. (See Overview) |
| Issue in Focus: Digital Prototyping in the Plant – Discusses how digital prototyping solutions help manufacturers achieve greater agility by leveraging a digital factory approach. (See Overview) |
| Insight: Leveraging the Digital Factory: Enhancing Productivity from Operator to Enterprise – Provides visibility to the way manufacturers utilize Manufacturing Process Management (MPM) processes and solutions to help reduce cost, speed time to market, and improve product quality. MPM, also known as Digital Manufacturing, is an important element of any PLM strategy. (See Overview) |
| Insight: Going Social with Product Development – Explores how manufacturers are taking advantage of social computing and “Web 2.0” technologies to raise the bar on product development performance. (See Overview) |
| Insight: Engineering Reference Information in a PLM Strategy – Highlights the importance of efficiently providing engineering reference information to engineers in order to increase productivity. Describes how engineering information offers another tool in the PLM toolkit to improve design efficiency so engineers can spend more time on product innovation. (See Overview) |
| The PLM Program – An Incremental Approach to the Strategic Value of PLM – Introduces a pragmatic approach to implementing Product Lifecycle Management in a way that drives towards a strategic vision by taking incremental steps with tangible returns on investment. (View PDF) |
| Issue in Focus: The ROI of Product Portfolio Management – Companies are frequently challenged when they are required to develop a credible, supportable financial model to determine the benefits of PPM initiatives. This “Issue in Focus” is intended to help guide companies in developing a realistic ROI based on a conservative financial model. (View PDF) |
| Mass Customization of Highly Configurable Products – Discusses the challenges that mass customization places on manufacturing companies. Describes how customization makes seemingly “simple” products complex to design, sell and produce (View PDF). See related article in Mechanical Engineering Magazine. (View PDF) |
| Insight: Innovating Through an Economic Downturn – Guides small to midsize manufacturers to develop an action plan that both recognizes the difficult financial reality that most manufacturers face today and allows them to leverage PLM to innovate for the future. (See Overview) |
| Insight: Engineering’s Role in Surviving a Down Economy – Discusses strategies that Engineering can adopt to help their companies navigate difficult financial times. (See Overview) |
| Insight: The Integrated ERP-PLM Strategy: Closing the Loop on Product Innovation – Reviews the importance of an integrated ERP-PLM strategy to provide a rapid, confident flow of innovation to and from Manufacturing. Discusses a strategy to close the loop between Engineering and Manufacturing to get the most business value from innovation in all its forms. (See Overview) |
| Insight: Enabling Product Lifecycle Management: The CIO’s Guide to Supporting a PLM Initiative – Provides PLM technology insight and understanding to prepare today’s CIO to support Product Lifecycle Management. Points out unique implementation and support challenges the CIO and their team must be aware of in order to get the most business value out of PLM. (See Overview) |
| The Evolving Roles of ERP and PLM – Extending past research on the roles of ERP and PLM, describes the evolution of ERP-PLM integration beyond the basics to a more mature, bi-directional interaction. Reviews how companies can close the loop between product innovation and managing the business of manufacturing. (See Overview) |
| Issue in Focus: A Risk-Based Approach to Component and Supplier Management – Discusses the importance of a structured risk management process to mitigate supply risk and the importance of having the right supply chain information to support the process. (See Overview) |
| Complementary Roles of ERP and PLM – Provides an overview of the roles that ERP and PLM can play in maximizing product profitability, describing recent implementations and key considerations to help manufacturers determine the right application approach for their business. (View PDF) |
| Business Processes Cross Application Boundaries – Analyzes the impact of point solutions that must be integrated in order to support a business process that typically crosses the artificial boundaries common in today’s enterprise applications. Part of the “What’s Wrong with Enterprise Applications?” series. (View PDF) |
| Insight: Equipment Service Management – Suggests two fundamentals that service organizations must master to rise above the competition – operational control of service operations and equipment intelligence, and introduces an Equipment Service Management Framework. (See Overview) |
| Insight: Servicing Medical Equipment – Extends prior research on world class service management to the medical device industry. Discusses leveraging lessons learned from other service-oriented industries, but points out distinct differences in the healthcare industry. (See Overview) |
| The Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) Approach – Overviews an approach to improve the profitability of services businesses by concurrently increasing service and lowering costs. (View PDF) |
| The PLM Program – An Incremental Approach to the Strategic Value of PLM – Introduces a pragmatic approach to implementing Product Lifecycle Management in a way that drives towards a strategic vision by taking incremental steps with tangible returns on investment. (View PDF) |
| Regulatory Compliance Across the Product Lifecycle – Examines the importance that regulatory compliance and product related EH&S play in protecting the value available from PLM across the product lifecycle. (View PDF) |
| Digital Manufacturing – Discusses the use of technology—including 3D CAD and simulation—within a PLM strategy to help manufacturers develop more profitable products by optimizing the planning, development and deployment of better manufacturing processes. (View PDF) |
| Computer Aided Design for Formula-Based Industries – Outlines the business value achieved by Revlon, Shiseido / Zotos, Pfizer and other leading companies utilizing CAD software for formula-based product development, and provides guidance for similar manufacturers. (View PDF) |
| Successful PLM Programs – Reviews the characteristics of a phased approach for manufacturers to meet their PLM objectives, highlighting some relevant, successful PLM Programs. (View PDF) See German translation. (View PDF) |
| Selecting a PLM System to Improve Product Development Performance for Small and Medium Sized Manufacturing Businesses – Jim Brown of Tech-Clarity and Ray Kurland of TechniCom offer a framework for smaller manufacturers to evaluate, select, and implement a PLM system based on a structured plan and objective requirements. (See Overview) |
| Complementary Roles of PIM and PLM – Explores how Product Information Management (PIM) can extend the value of PLM implementations by providing complementary tools and capabilities. (View PDF) |
| The Many Faces of PLM – Overviews the various, inter-related software solutions that contribute to achieving the PLM value proposition, and where they fit in the PLM software suite. (View PDF) |
| Rules-driven Product Management – Highlights the manufacturing strategy of customizing products to exact customer specifications to combat commoditization, globalization, margin shrink and increased competition, and how Rules-driven Product Management can help. (View PDF) |
| Moving Innovation Closer to the Customer (Order) – Explores the question “Can innovation be moved closer to the customer in order to meet their needs, and if so, how far towards the customer’s point of order can innovation still be included?” (View PDF) |
| Mass Customization of Highly Configurable Products – Discusses the challenges that mass customization places on manufacturing companies. Describes how customization makes seemingly “simple” products complex to design, sell and produce (View PDF). See related article in Mechanical Engineering Magazine. (View PDF) |
| PLM Proving Value at Heinz – Reviews the strategic value achieved by Heinz from implementing Product Lifecycle Management processed and software in their global business. (View PDF) |
| Maximizing Product Development Value – Highlights key insights on realizing value from new products based on discussions with product development leaders. Analyzes a new approach to portfolio management that focuses on achieving the economic value available from new products. (View PDF) |
| Regulatory Compliance Across the Product Lifecycle – Examines the importance that regulatory compliance and product related EH&S play in protecting the value available from PLM across the product lifecycle. (View PDF) |
| Agile, IBM, Others Take PLM in a Green Direction – Reviews increasing manufacturers’ responsibilities for product-related environmental impacts based on recent regulations such as WEEE and RoHS and how PLM vendors are stepping in to help. (View PDF) |
| PLM Is An Industry Affair – Or Is It? – Discusses the counterintuitive fact that some PLM solutions must be highly focused on vertical industry needs, while others can be applied in a more industry-neutral approach. (View PDF) |
| Can ERP Speak PLM? – Analyzes the trade-offs between advanced PLM functionality and pre-built integration that is offered by ERP vendors. Specifically discusses the challenge of semantics. (View PDF) |
| Dynamics of Electronic Components (Component Event Management) – Discusses the inherent challenge of managing product lifecycles for products that contain electronic components, given that the components often have shorter lifecycles than the parent products. (View PDF) |
| The Role of PIM and PLM in the Product Information Supply Chain – Summarizes the need for managing and synchronizing commercial product information, discussed Product Information Management (PIM) and increased demand for PLM vendors to provide supporting tools. (View PDF) |
| Selecting PLM Software – Describes the challenges of selecting enterprise application suites. Offers advice for selecting PLM based on lessons learned from more mature application suites. (View PDF) |
| Customization Drives Complexity – Introduces the complexity that product customization places on the process of selling, designing and producing custom products and suggestions on how to streamline the process of incorporating customer specifications into orders. (View PDF) |
| Supply Chain Decisions – Understand the Dollars and Sense – Overviews an approach to incorporate detailed, activity-based costs into supply chain decision making and optimization. (View PDF) |
| Optimizing Capacity Deployment and Reducing Capital Investment – Discusses ways to go beyond simple supply-chain and manufacturing planning for the process industries and highlights the results of one large process company that has implemented a different approach. (View PDF) |
| Business Processes Cross Application Boundaries – Analyzes the impact of point solutions that must be integrated in order to support a business process that typically crosses the artificial boundaries common in today’s enterprise applications. Part of the “What’s Wrong with Enterprise Applications?” series. (View PDF) |
| What’s Wrong With Application Software – A Possible Solution? – A discussion of how model based architectures offer potential benefit to companies by more naturally assembling solutions into business processes. (View PDF) |
| Service Lifecycle Management – Discussed ways that the services industry can improve their service processes in order to tap into the value of the product aftermarket. (View PDF) |
| SLM Goes Mobile – A guide to furthering the value of Service Lifecycle Management through the pragmatic implementation of mobile technology. (View PDF) |
| SLM for Point of Sales – Reviews the need for strong support processes when servicing equipment for retail and hospitality companies, both to satisfy the customer and to generate profits . (View PDF) |
| SLM for IT Equipment – Explores tackling the profitability crunch in the IT equipment services market as service becomes more difficult, competition gets stiffer and margins keep shrinking. (View PDF) |
| SLM for Medical Devices – Highlights the strategic role that service plays in the medical devices industry in ensuring customer satisfaction to enable future sales, while maintaining optimal costs to protect profitability. (View PDF) |
| SLM for HVAC and Controls – Discusses how convergence of the HVAC and Controls service markets has changed the rules of competition, highlighting the need for SLM to compete. (View PDF) |
| More Value for Your Service Dollar – Reviews a strategic way for companies to ensure that capital equipment is marking a profitable return for their business through better service. (View PDF) |
| The Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) Approach – Overviews an approach to improve the profitability of services businesses by concurrently increasing service and lowering costs. (View PDF) |