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* Welcome * Welcome to this issue of 2PLM, an e-zine distributed about every two weeks. * PLM Benefits Reference Model Project – Status Update * The PLM Interest Group (PLMIG) will be running a global collaborative project in 2006 to develop an industry-standard Benefits Reference Model for PLM. Currently the project is in the Launch Phase. PTC and UGS have confirmed that they will be Founder Members. Final details are being arranged with a third company that has decided to join the project as a Founder Member. The PLMIG is also holding detailed discussions with other organizations interested in becoming Founder Members, among them user companies, solution suppliers, and government departments, as well as other initiatives, projects and Interest Groups. The Founder Members will host a series of 2-day workshops early in 2006 in several different countries. These Workshops are currently in preparation. They will generate the first international understanding of a framework for PLM Benefits. The PLM Benefits Reference Model will save time when identifying the benefits in each new PLM situation, make it easier to communicate about PLM, and provide a basis for management decisions about PLM investments. The Benefits Model will also help companies to identify both their PLM effectiveness and ways to further improve PLM performance. More information about the project is available on the PLMIG's web site at www.plmig.com and from Roger Tempest. 
* Over 500 Registrants for PLM Web Seminar * Last week's live Web Seminar on 'The PLM Project' drew 511 registrants from leading manufacturers around the world. It was the last in a three-part live Web Series entitled 'PLM: Understanding, Justifying and Realizing'. We're now in the midst of completing the follow-up activities with the attendees, as well as analyzing the registration, polling and survey information. Due to higher participation than expected, these results are taking longer to process than planned. However, there are already interesting results. For example, in an on-line poll, attendees were asked what they thought is the single biggest barrier to PLM in their companies. The three top answers were lack of understanding of PLM at the VP/CXO level, lack of appropriate people to work on the project, and lack of a PLM champion. For those who were unable to attend, a future issue of 2PLM will provide a web link to all PLM Web Series presentation materials, playbacks of all three sessions, questions and answers, and a complimentary 'Top Ten PLM Pitfalls to Avoid' white paper. More information about the "Making Progress in PLM Manual" mentioned in the PLM Web Series is available here. * December PLM Reading * by John Stark Early in 2003, a VP of Product Development was telling me how his life kept getting harder. The environment for his products was so competitive, the customers so demanding, the rules and regulations ever-changing, the pressure to cut costs never-ending. His products were getting more and more complex, and took longer to develop, but the market wanted a wider range to choose from, and wanted them sooner and sooner. Everything he heard about would make his job more difficult in the future - ongoing globalisation, more outsourcing of product development, mass customisation to meet specific customer needs, more requirements for product traceability, enterprise applications of mobile telephony, end of life issues, support of products with very long lifetimes, government directives about disposal and recycling, and so on. His most competent people were due to retire soon, and he was worried about losing their knowledge. The people he'd have to replace them with didn't really understand the products. When customers complained about problems with old products, there wouldn't be anyone left with the answers. The education system wasn't producing good engineers anymore. Students were being taught the way that things were done ten years in the past. New hires didn't seem to understand how a company worked, they almost expected him to do their work. The Purchasing Department frequently changed suppliers as it looked for the lowest prices. Each time, his engineers lost precious days in discussions with the new supplier. The company itself was in play, and had been passed from one global corporation to another. Each new owner wanted its policies implemented, and that created even more work. Years ago, he'd been proud to join the company. Back then, the whole town had a culture of manufacturing, but that had gone. Over the years, local hotels had closed because customers no longer visited the plants. His kids had moved away to find good jobs. His boss kept prodding him for faster innovation, reduced time-to-market, and expanded use of knowledge management, the Internet and the Web. To help improve performance he'd tried everything from ABC (Activity Based Costing) through DFSS (Design for Six Sigma) and QFD (Quality Function Deployment) to XML (Extensible Markup Language). He'd managed to double the rate of new product introduction, but more products were failing in the market than before. One product had been recalled, something that had never happened in the past. Recently he'd been at a meeting where the President had said the next round of cost-cutting would have to take out another 20% of costs. The President said that having moved Manufacturing to China, and Support to the Philippines, the company would now move Engineering to India. Meanwhile the Logistics organisation would be expanded to proactively search for even lower sourcing costs. He'd heard that to cut Information Systems (IS) costs, product development computer systems would be melded into the company's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. And that he was charged with implementing Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). It was a new subject for him, and he needed to get up to speed quickly. He asked me, "What is PLM?, Why is it important?, How do we implement it?" Read on here using "Search Inside". |
