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* Welcome * Welcome to this issue of 2PLM, an e-zine distributed every two weeks on a free subscription basis. This week's guest article, "Collaborative PLM for Global Product Development Teams" is from Peter Nummi of ENGINEERING.com. * Collaborative PLM for Global Product Development Teams * by Peter Nummi There's a lot of interest these days in the future of PLM from the management viewpoint, but it's equally important to look at the view from the product development team. The typical engineer would like to be able to collaborate effectively with other members of the development team, and these days that often means with someone who is located on a different site. And for project and program managers, who are tasked with organizing the distributed product development teams, the pressure to manage resources, commitments and schedules can be intense. The need for effective collaboration isn't just a whim of an individual engineer or project manager. It's being driven by powerful forces outside the engineering department and program office. In our ever more global economy, the location of sales, design and manufacturing sites, customers and suppliers are more dispersed than ever before, so a common communication process is required to be competitive. Due to widespread outsourcing, manufacturers need to involve dispersed project teams from different companies in a single product development environment. And companies want to give project team members the ability to do their tasks more effectively by reducing their reliance on manual processes (email, ftp, etc) and increasing access to data (Excel, MS Project, PDM, legacy applications, etc). As a result of these pressures, manufacturers are demanding 2 key requirements in their product development processes. First, the ability to manage programs for visibility and accountability. Secondly, process support and documentation for cross-functional team activities. 
The solution is PLM, but traditional PLM solutions have been deployed behind an organization's firewall, restricting their power to relatively few participants. Although most PLM solutions provide some capabilities for web-based collaboration, their architecture inherently restricts their functionality outside the firewall to simple tasks, and places a burden on internal IT administrators to manage external access. While that may be OK in a large corporation with a big IT staff, it can be difficult to handle in small and mid-sized companies. For SMEs, and for small project teams in large companies, a more suitable solution may be a hosted web-based portal environment for managing all the tasks, drawings, resources and documents required throughout product lifecycle processes. This works particularly well for engineers collaborating on product development and New Product Introduction (NPI) projects with participants outside of the engineering organization, such as sales and marketing, quality assurance, customers and suppliers. A typical application designed for the web might have an integrated suite of applications all in one place, including:
For example, ENGINEERING.com's Collaboration Suite is used in many different collaborative product development situations, including :
* Upcoming PLM Webinars * The Live PLM Web Series to be launched by John Stark in November 2005 is designed to help educate, eliminate excuses, and overcome the roadblocks to a successful PLM Initiative. Whether you have some element of PLM implemented in your business or not, this Web Series is for you. Every company needs to manage its products across their lifecycle. Every company faces pressure to reduce development cycle times, lower product costs, improve quality, boost product revenues and add to the bottom line. PLM gives you the opportunity to achieve these targets. Each session of the PLM Series is presented by John Stark and complemented with presentations by guest speakers from a variety of industries that have driven their PLM initiatives, implemented, and achieved benefit with PLM. Here's the schedule: Part I - PLM Introduction/Overview November 29, 2005 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EST / 8:00 - 9:00 AM PST Part II - Overcoming the PLM Dilemma December 6, 2005 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EST / 8:00 - 9:00 AM PST Part III - PLM: Vision & Strategy to Implementation & Use December 13, 2005 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EST / 8:00 - 9:00 AM PST Approximately 1 hour per session. There's more detail and you can register at www.softech.com/webseries/ * PLM Benefits Reference Model - an International, Collaborative Project * Preparation of the proposed 'PLM Benefits Reference Model' project is continuing. An 'Invitation to Participate' has now been drafted and is under review by potential participants. The project, which is being led by the PLMIG, will develop an industry-agreed standard PLM Benefits Model to help everyone involved in PLM move forward faster. A Group of Founder Members, representing the different constituencies in the world of PLM, is being assembled to drive the project forward. Discussions are taking place to identify locations for the kick-off meetings. For more information, and for participation details, contact Roger Tempest of the PLMIG. |
