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2PLM John Stark Associates |
Number 5 |
- Welcome Page 2 - Update Page 3 - News Page 4 - Brief lines | Welcome to this issue of 2PLM, an e-zine distributed every two weeks on a free subscription basis. This week's article, "Moral Hazard", is from Menno Huijben of Technia. But first, a quick update about the PLM Interest Group. * PLM Interest Group * As mentioned in the previous issue of 2PLM, we ran two inaugural meetings of the proposed PLM Interest Group in September. 38 delegates from 32 organizations and 12 countries took part. Most participants were from Europe. Others came from Canada, New Zealand and the USA. PLM vendors, users, system integrators and consultants were present, as were participants from universities and government organizations. The need for a neutral PLM Interest Group was widely agreed. The Agenda was the same at the two meetings and led to the identification of the main headings for a Charter for the Group and suggestions for its contents. The next step will be to hold a meeting in November at which the Charter will be confirmed. This should enable the Group to be formed and start operating by 2004. The Charter will be based on the feedback from the Forum meetings and the November meeting. You have an opportunity to influence it by completing the same Feedback Form that the Oxford attendees are using. Your ideas will then be considered as the Draft Charter is drawn up. To receive a copy of the Feedback Form, contact Roger Tempest. If you complete and return your copy of the form we will include it in the feedback collation. We hope to have the forms returned to us by Friday 17 October and to publish the outcome by the end of the following week. This will allow us to arrange the November meeting and circulate the registration details. The Draft Charter will then be circulated by Monday 27 October. We intend to hold another meeting between Monday 17 November and Friday 28 November at which the Charter will be finalized. It was proposed that this meeting should be held in Germany. During this meeting, initial activities of the Group will also be discussed. This could include a global PLM benchmarking initiative and the development of a Vision for PLM. If you are interested in attending the November 2003 meeting, contact Roger Tempest. If you are interested in participating in PLM Interest Group activities in 2004, contact John Stark. * Moral Hazard * PLM projects are not very different from any other IT/business improvement project. However, the combined challenges of improving product data quality, introducing a new information system, and streamlining business processes in a global environment make them, perhaps, more prone to risks. There are many risks that can lurk within a PLM project. There is the primary risk of not delivering the projected business benefits. Furthermore, there are all the day-to-day risks of legacy data migrations activities that take longer than planned, integrations that turn out to be more difficult than expected, network capacity problems, user resistance, processes that turn out to be undefined (or only exist on a 'PowerPoint presentation'), key people who leave unexpectedly, etc., etc. Good project management includes risk management. This means that the project has, as a minimum, a checklist of things that might go wrong, and a risk-mitigation plan; what will we do if something does go wrong? This checklist needs to be regularly updated and reviewed. PLM projects are not simple, they require courage and that means risk taking. Courage to sell the PLM vision to senior management, courage to spend the money, and courage to defend the project when some of the risks are realized. In economics, the term 'moral hazard' is used to describe the situation where people can take risks but do not need to bear the consequences when the risk is realized. For example, in the insurance industry, where coverage against a loss might increase the risk-taking behavior of the insured. Moral hazard can occur in PLM projects. When risks are realized, i.e. the project is delayed, there are plenty of ways out: you can blame the provider, the software, the network capacity, the organization, the low quality data, or you can take a job somewhere else. Moral hazard may be encouraged by over-optimism during the sales and startup phase of a PLM project. Expectations are raised high to collect the courage to make the investment and start the project. Tough time schedules are demanded and fast payback promised. Beware of moral hazard when the people planning, buying and selling the PLM project are not involved and committed to the implementation and rollout phases of the project. Imagine the following: a project manager has not been involved in the sales and startup phase of a project laden with high expectations. In the course of the project a large problem, a 'show-stopper', is identified. The project manager now has to deal with that and remove the 'show-stopper', but he/she has an additional problem. The project manager needs to put extra energy into defending the reputation of the project, as unfulfilled high expectations cause a large amount of disappointment. So, try to avoid moral hazard situations:
For questions and comments, please contact me by mail or call +358 424 722 1. Menno Huijben is a consultant at Technia, a leading supplier of PLM solutions in the Nordic countries. He has 13 years experience of using, consulting, developing, managing, and providing PDM/PLM solutions. |
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News |
Agile Software announced it has acquired Tradec, a privately held provider of cost management and analytic tools for controlling direct material costs and measuring supplier performance. Details Firepond, Inc. announced it entered into a definitive agreement pursuant to which an affiliate of Jaguar Technology Holdings, LLC has agreed to acquire all of the outstanding equity of Firepond for $3.16 per share in cash, or an aggregate cash purchase price of approximately $11.7 million. Details Mentor Graphics Corporation announced it has acquired FirstEarth, a software company specializing in the supply of analysis software for design of electrical wiring systems used in automotive, rail and aerospace markets. Details * Financial * Manugistics Group, Inc. reported results for its fiscal 2004 second quarter. For the second quarter ended August 31, 2003, total revenue was $59.7 million, down 15 percent from $69.9 million in the prior year quarter. Details Oce announced third quarter 2003 results. Total revenues were 653.1 million euro, down 11.8%. Details * People * Cyco Software announced it appointed Luis Quiles as Business Development Manager. Details Imaginestics, LLC announced that Jerry McFeeters has joined imaginestics as Vice President of Business Development. Details  Intergraph Corporation announced that Michael D. Bills was elected to its Board of Directors. Details MSC.Software Corp. announced that chairman and CEO Frank Perna has joined the Board of Directors of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Engineering Management (CEEM) at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Details * Implementation * AVEVA announced Hitachi Thermal and Hydroelectric Systems Division Ltd announced positive results from its ongoing 'E-project'. Details Domain Systems, Inc. announced that Control Solutions, Inc., has selected Domain System as the vendor of choice to provide Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) at their facility in Naperville, IL. Details EDS PLM Solutions announced Proton Team KR has chosen EDS PLM Solutions' product lifecycle management (PLM) software as part of its drive to win the MotoGP World Championship. Details EDS PLM Solutions announced its flagship product lifecycle management (PLM) portfolio, Teamcenter, has exceeded 1 million licenses sold. Details EDS announced that Ritsumeikan University in Japan has selected and successfully implemented its Solid Edge CAD software. Details Engineous Software, Inc. announced the award of two government contracts that reflect the company's continued commitment to the Defense Industry. Details MatrixOne, Inc. announced that BAE SYSTEMS North America has extended their existing deployment of MatrixOne's technology to develop a universal design environment for classified program information within their Information and Electronic Warfare Systems business unit. Details Open Text Corporation announced that Air Liquide, a world leader in industrial and medical gases, has signed an agreement to purchase Livelink. Details SGI announced that AstraZeneca, one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, has purchased SGI Altix 3000 and SGI Origin 3000 servers and superclusters. Details SolidWorks announced that California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, is using 200 licenses of SolidWorks, COSMOSWorks, and COSMOSMotion to teach 3D mechanical design and analysis to its engineering students. Details SolidWorks announced that Queensland University of Technology has purchased 300 seats of SolidWorks 3D mechanical design software. Details think3 announced a multi-year agreement with Franz Schneider Brakel GmbH for 39 subscription licenses. Details think3 announced it will provide a complete product development solution as well as design outsourcing services to Universe Corporation, one of the leading fabricators of aluminum materials in the U.S. Details 3D Systems Corp. announced that In'Tech Industries has purchased multiple Viper SLA systems to be used to produce master patterns for its injection molding manufacturing capabilities and for digitally manufactured ear shell services to hearing aid manufacturers. Details * Developments * Alias Systems announced that it has released Alias ImageStudio, a completely new application for rendering, as well as a significant upgrade to Alias StudioTools, computer-aided industrial design software, and an improved version of Alias PortfolioWall, a presentation tool for digital images. Details AutoSolids, Inc. announced the release of AutoSolids and AutoSolids EXPRESS for AutoCAD 2004. Details Autodesk, Inc. introduced AutoCAD Electrical software. Details Cadence Design Systems, Inc. announced Encounter Test Solutions. Details Cadence Design Systems, Inc. announced the Cadence Advanced Packaging Engineer 3D. Details Documentum announced that it plans to offer support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Documentum 5. Details EDS PLM Solutions announced plans to provide its NX portfolio of CAD/CAM/CAE solutions on Itanium 2-based HP workstations running the HP-UX operating system. Details EDS PLM Solutions announced the new release of Teamcenter Consumer and Packaged Goods. Details E2open announced the general availability of the E2open B2B Integration Solution. Details ICAM Technologies Corporation and Siemens announced the release of the CAM-POST SINUMERIK 840D CNC post- processor. Details Intergraph Corporation announced two SmartPlant programs offering process plant owners the opportunity to increase the lifecycle and operations value of engineering information contained within piping and instrumentation logical designs. Details LMS introduced a new 4-channel entry-version of the LMS Pimento, its ultra-compact PC-based noise and vibration analyzer. Details MatrixOne, Inc. announced support for RedHat Enterprise Linux AS, version 2.1 on leading Intel platforms. Details Mentor Graphics Corp. announced the FormalPro Multi-Processor equivalence checking product. Details Moldflow Corporation announced the release of Moldflow Manufacturing Solutions 1.1. Details MSC.Software Corp. announced the availability of MSC.Robust Design. Details Oce announced Oce Engineering Exec version 3.3. Details Orions42 announced the new StepAlpha solution. Details Processia Solutions announced that it has selected technology from Actify to act as the 2D/3D CAD embedded viewer of VPMViz, the 3D portal to ENOVIA VPM data. Details SAP AG announced that customers across the globe in the manufacturing, services, oil and gas, and chemical industries are leveraging the benefits of mySAP Mobile Business to connect employees more effectively to their work. Details Sopheon introduced Sopheon Accolade version 5.0, a new version of its flagship product development software system. Details Spatial Corp. announced the R12 release of its full line of 3D subsystems. Details 3D Systems Corp. announced that it began shipments of its new InVision 3-D printer to the US market. Details * Relationships * Actify Inc. and 3Dconnexion announced a marketing agreement. Details Autodesk, Inc. announced a new strategic alliance with Microsoft Corporation to integrate Autodesk's engineering data management (EDM) software with Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) enterprise resource planning (ERP) offerings. Details Dassault Systemes and ImpactXoft announced the signing of a strategic development agreement under which ImpactXoft joins Dassault Systemes' CAA V5 Software Community Program as a Gold Software Partner. Details Endeca announced the establishment of a strategic relationship with In-Q-Tel, a private, non-profit enterprise funded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Details Eurostep announced it signed a partnership agreement with META-1 GmbH. The companies will jointly offer solutions in the engineering supply chain area. Details IDEAL.com named Kodak Service and Support preferred U.S. service provider for its large format IDEAL/Contex scanners. Details InnovMetric Software announced that it has entered into an agreement with four important players in the 3D digitizing community for the distribution of PolyWorks. Details RealityWave Inc. announced that Kisters A.G. is the latest to join its reseller channel. Details REALVIZ announced that they have signed Pritzat Derech 5D (PD5D) as the latest reseller of their software portfolio. Details * Other * ALGOR announced support of Microsoft's Product Life-Cycle Policies. ALGOR's policies on supported operating systems are based on Microsoft's Product Life-Cycle Policies. Windows NT Workstation 4.0 has entered Microsoft's non-supported phase as of June 30, 2003 and will reach its end-of-life date June 30, 2004. Details Avatech Solutions announced that K Bank has closed a $2 million credit facility with Avatech Solutions Subsidiary, Inc., the operating subsidiary of Avatech Solutions, Inc. Details Cadence Design Systems, Inc. announced support for SystemVerilog. Details Documentum announced that Documentum eRoom, the company's enterprise collaboration solution, has completed Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) testing, and has been certified as interoperable with Department of Defense (DoD) Defense Collaboration Tool Suite (DCTS). Details Endeca announced that it has been selected as a winner of IDG's Computerworld second annual Innovative Technology Awards. Details Informative Graphics Corporation announced that its Visual Rights security architecture will become a standard component of the entire IGC product line. Details Oce Technologies B.V. announced it intends to transfer part of its assembly activities for printers and the associated sourcing of components from Venlo to Eastern Europe and China in 2004. The company expects to achieve a cost price reduction in the order of several tens of per cent by transferring the assembly activities concerned to countries with lower labour cost levels, in addition to lower purchasing costs which can be achieved in these countries. It is planned that the assembly of modules will be transferred to Eastern Europe during 2004, while the assembly of fully developed wide format printing systems will be transferred to China. Oce intends to focus in Venlo on knowledge-intensive activities including the development and the production of strategic components and the assembly of complex printing systems for the world market. Details PTC announced it endorsed a newly published report from AMR Research. The study credits PTC with strong leadership in product lifecycle management (PLM). Details SAP AG and IDS Scheer announced a global initiative designed to forge new levels of business process innovation by strengthening collaboration between the corporate and academic communities. The companies are founding the Institute for Business Process Innovation. Details SensAble Technologies announced a new FreeForm seminar for its seminar series. Next stop, Miami. Details STEP Tools, Inc. announced it will attend the last 2003 gathering of the worldwide ISO STEP community. Details Synchronicity announced that a study just issued by Gantry Group found that electronics companies using the Synchronicity Developer Suite for design collaboration and management are achieving a strong positive ROI as a result of both cost reduction and the ability to attract more revenue. Details PRTM PLM Benchmarking Study When fully implemented, PLM promises to provide an end-to-end solution for managing the information and decisions about a product or service from initial concept to retirement. However, realizing the full promise can be difficult. The complexity of PLM processes and systems can be daunting, and because of PLM's relative newness, no definitive benchmarking studies exist to provide a performance comparison. To capture PLM's real benefits, companies must first thoroughly assess and identify opportunities within their own critical operating and management processes, practices, and IT infrastructure. To help you understand PLM and capture its benefits, PRTM invites you to participate in the 2003 PLM Benchmarking Study hosted by its benchmarking subsidiary, The Performance Measurement Group (PMG). |
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