Page 1 - Welcome Page 2 - Update Page 3 - News Page 4 - Brief lines |
* Welcome * Welcome to this issue of 2PLM, an e-zine distributed every two weeks on a free subscription basis. * PLM and NASA * PLM enables a company to manage a product across its lifecycle, from "cradle to grave", from the very first idea for the product all the way through until it is retired and disposed of. Managing a product all the way across its lifecycle allows a company to take control of what happens to it. Source If a company loses control of a product it runs several risks:
In addition to getting control of products, companies also look to PLM to help them get most value from their products. A company's products are its most valuable resource. Companies generate revenues from the sale of their products and related services to customers. The same source indicates that just as a company has a CFO and a CIO with responsibility for major resources such as finance and information, it should have a Chief Product Officer (CPO) with responsibility for products. The CPO role becomes increasingly necessary as the product and its environment become more and more complex. It's a demanding role, for this is "where the buck stops". Last week, NASA's Discovery mission was delayed as first one part fell off, and then another misfunctioned. This was just after the Stafford-Covey Return to Flight Task Group had published its report (PDF). One area with which the Task Group seems to have had reservations was CAIB Recommendation 9.1-1: Detailed Plan for Organizational Change. The Task Group "believes that embodied in Recommendation 9.1-1, however, are a myriad of organizational and management issues raised by the CAIB, including "culture." A quick look at the Organization Structure page of the NASA site doesn't show a CPO position. The order in which some key positions are listed may be indicative of the current culture :
* Review of PLM in the First Half of 2005 (Part 2) * The previous issue of 2PLM contained a review of PLM in the first half of 2005. It focused on activities in the worlds of PLM vendors and PLM users. Readers suggested we could complete it by listing activities in the worlds of PLM Conferences and PLM Research in the first part of the year. The World of PLM Conferences and Exhibitions We are aware of the following PLM-related Conferences and Exhibitions that took place between January and June 2005:
The World of PLM Research and Academia The following list is definitely not complete:
* What next after CAD? * With CAD becoming a commodity, many CAD Managers are asking "What next?" There are several answers, depending on whether you stay within the same departmental/functional scope as CAD, or whether you go beyond. If you don't change the scope, then there is plenty to do in the way of improving user friendliness, enabling more analysis, collaborating better on product development, and extending knowledge-based support of engineering. If you change the scope a little, then there's plenty to do in CAM and PDM. If you change the scope even more, then you begin to get into different types of activity. Most organizations will start by running seemingly independent initiatives such as Risk Management, Systems Engineering, Software Assurance, Technical Standards, a Quality Program, etc. Then they realize that, although these may have looked independent, there is actually a lot of overlap, perhaps even conflict, between these initiatives. So they start to think about an enterprise-wide initiative, such as a PLM Initiative, that can bring all these together in a coherent way. They find it requires a lot of effort just to get a clear picture of what could, or should, be done. Making Progress with PLM in 2005 can help them. Details |
