- 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. * 2005 - a great year for Product Lifecycle Management * Going into 2005, it's good to see that PLM is gaining acceptance with users and solution vendors. There's still a long way to go, but the concept of managing products across their lifecycles is increasingly accepted. This will make it easier for companies to develop the business case for PLM, make plans and implement PLM. Among the events helping PLM forward in 2004 was the publication of "Product Lifecycle Management: Paradigm for 21st Century Product Realisation" (details). This helped establish the credentials of PLM, and get it to first base. As shown in the book, the business activity of PLM emerged because of market needs to manage products across their lifecycles (cradle to grave) in a joined-up way. The drivers of PLM, such as widespread industrialization, improved means of transport, telecommunications, ubiquitous computing, the Web and globalization, also have effects in other areas. One example is that a new form of conflict (9/11) has emerged. Another example is that a natural disaster has affected people from all over the world, and led to an international response, in ways unthinkable in the past. The emergence of PLM has already helped focus the scope and objectives of other business activities such as Product Data Management, Product Development Management and Product Portfolio Management. Its evolution appears to be leading to two major poles of business activity, one focused on the business itself (Business Management), the other focused on the product (Product Lifecycle Management). In 2005, such evolution could lead to changes in business strategies, restructuring of manufacturing companies, and changes in business process and application software architectures. Building on the momentum of 2004, the PLM Interest Group (PLMIG) is preparing a set of major PLM events for the coming months. Subjects will include:
With PLM seen as so important, many companies are asking how to achieve PLM Best Practices. In some cases, they will find the answers fairly quickly. For others it will be less easy. This may be because they work in several phases of the product lifecycle, participate in several design and supply chains, and use application software from several vendors. In such an environment, they may see many claims and proposals for PLM Best Practices, but on closer examination find that these are over-dependent on a single source, lack industry acknowledgment, or may even be in conflict. A lot of work is needed to understand claimed Best Practices, and their content, relevance and fit. Even more is required to identify, structure, define and plan the PLM Best Practices for a particular company - and all this before implementation has started. A lot of this work will be similar for different companies, some of it identical. Much could be carried out collaboratively. PLM Best Practice is a challenging subject, and the PLMIG is planning a Workshop in February to discuss the scope and overall content of PLM Best Practice, and to identify a collaborative way forward for companies aiming for PLM Best Practice. For more information about participating in this Workshop, contact Roger Tempest. * Awareness of PLM * With PLM now established among early adopters, the next step is to increase its use in other companies. What is needed first is a general increase in the PLM awareness of potential users and managers of PLM, all the way up to the CEO. Increasing their PLM awareness will be of benefit to all players in the PLM market - vendors, service providers, integrators, and the users themselves. Unless the PLM awareness of users and managers is increased, companies will fail to take full advantage of PLM, and the market will grow slower than expected. A faster growing market would offer more potential for vendors, and would lead to lower costs for users. The PLMIG is planning a Workshop at which PLM industry players can get together and agree how to increase PLM Awareness. For more information about participating in this Workshop, contact Roger Tempest. * PLM Research proposals for 2005 * At the end of 2004 the European Commission announced, in the context of FP6, a new set of Calls for research proposals. Some of these address PLM-related topics. The PLMIG Research SIG is planning a February Meeting at which organizations (e.g., universities, research institutes, corporate research centers, software developers) interested in proposing PLM research projects in 2005 will decide how best to respond to these Calls (details). For more information about participating in this Meeting, contact Roger Tempest. * Definition of PLM * Now that the concept of PLM is more generally accepted, the definitions of PLM proposed by various organizations are beginning to converge. The PLMIG is investigating options for a Workshop to be held later this year at which PLM industry players could get together and agree a common definition of PLM.  * PLM Review * In 2005, achieving successful implementation and use of PLM is high on the agenda of many companies. However, PLM has only emerged over the last few years, and it can be difficult to get a good initial overview of the subject, and relate it to a particular organization. A one-day seminar, "PLM : The Next Frontier", provides an opportunity to extend your team's understanding of PLM, and focus on its success in your organization. Led by John Stark, author of "Product Lifecycle Management: Paradigm for 21st Century Product Realisation", the seminar provides full, in-depth coverage including discussion of your specific situation. Details * Feedback on the previous issue * Vijay Srinivasan's article in the previous issue of 2PLM led to the following response from Don Frank, President, D. N. Frank Associates. I enjoyed the discussion in the latest 2PLM ezine on the relationship between the graphics/geometrics of the engineering community and the BOM world of ERP et al. I see this continued separation as a hindrance to real lean product realization. Remember, at the beginning of time, the BOM was on the side of the drawing, hence the word bill, meaning list. The advent of the computer caused the movement of the prime source BOM from the engineering drawing to a database. In their infinite wisdom, the engineers insisted on their own version, the EBOM and the operations folk, claiming that the EBOM did not reflect the way the product was made in manufacturing, insisted on maintaining a separate MBOM. Both the PLM/EDM and the ERP software houses have perpetuated this wasteful activity by trying to maintain separate EBOMs and MBOMs, an exercise in total uselessness and impossibility of maintaining concurrence between them. The discipline of Concurrent Engineering has brought the two worlds closer together but has not eliminated the miasma of configuration management where engineers think in terms of revision letters and operations folk think in terms of effectivity by date, order or serial number. There is no known software system out there that really maintains synchronization between revision code and effectivity rules. I have, for more years than I want to count, been an advocate and have written extensively of a single, enterprise level BOM system concept that insists that the basic design is incomplete unless the BOMs reflect the way the product is manufactured and has the source document ownership migrate from quotation, design, manufacture and field service with the ability to take a snapshot of the BOM at any stage of its life. Forgive this long polemic, but it seems that too many folk are more interested in their own turf than in real lean new product introduction and configuration management throughout the life of products. Take a look at my website www.dfrankasso.com for a list of papers on this subject. I'd be happy to share any of them with you. email: dfrankasso@optonline.net |
