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* Welcome * Welcome to 2PLM, an e-zine distributed about every two weeks. This issue includes :
by Menno Huijben Despite the "L" of Lifecycle, PLM initiatives still tend to focus very much on the product lifecycle's "cradle" and not the "grave". This is probably because PLM itself is still in its infant phase. Time to Market, faster NPI (New Product Introduction) processes, and design outsourcing and collaboration capabilities, are often mentioned in PLM business cases at the product's "puberty" phase. Sometimes these business cases do include aspects further down the lifecycle like "Installed base" and "Spare part" management. Knowing exactly what it was you delivered to your customer is useful if you want to create a more profitable service business. The real end of a product's lifecycle is rarely considered, though ineffective EOL (end of life) management costs a lot of money, money that could easily justify payback for PLM initiatives. The EOL-management of components and products is not straightforward. There are multiple stakeholder interests and external drivers involved which need to be synchronized to decide when, where and how to end a product's life. And, not to forget, it's also necessary to make sure that these decisions get implemented and reach beyond the small footnote in the Meeting Minutes produced after the Sales & Marketing Directors' product portfolio review. EOL-management has many similarities with orchestrating an NPI, a product launch. However, there's a big difference in that NPI is a very intensive, tightly managed event. NPI is time-driven, measured in weeks rather than months. Project and process management methods have been honed to get products faster and faster to the market. The relevance of PDM in NPI processes has been well recognized. EOL-management is in general a slow process, sometimes spanning many years. Pulling a product off the market is rarely time-critical (I am not talking about product recalls). Compromises are made to keep on selling a product in market X, though in markets Y & Z the decision has already been made to stopped selling it. Even when Product Management has firmly decided to stop selling a certain product, the implementation of this decision might take surprisingly long, e.g. what should be done with spare parts obligations for that product? For a lot of products, product responsibility extends far into the future. So there are a lot of decisions to be made for the EOL, but these decisions are not on the, let's call it, critical path of the business. This is why they often drop under the table. And to extend this metaphor, regular cleaning under the table will be required to keep things neat and lean. This cleaning can take the form of warehouse / inventory reviews - looking for items with a slow turnaround. Or sometimes, a sweeping production rationalization initiative will stir some dust - driven by the need for new production lines and more output per square meter of factory space. Most of these cleaning activities are re-active, and not pro-active. Though the pace of EOL is generally slow, it knows its frantic moments as well. Supply Management can announce "Last time buy" of a critical component. What to do? Buy a big stock of this component - enough for several years, redesign your product, or select another supplier? These are daily decisions made in any company. Have you thought about the following? If an average company has a total of 50,000 active components, each with an average lifetime of 5 years, it would mean that each working day about 40 components reach EOL. Of course this means as well that every working day 40 new components are selected or designed. If we have PLM in place we can easily obtain on-line statistics on e.g.:
So, do ponder what PLM could do in your business to manage your product EOL process more effectively and decisively. Menno Huijben is a senior advisor at Sofigate Oy. Sofigate is dedicated to improving the performance of Information Management in organizations, hands-on and down-to-earth. 
Artemis 7 NPD The Artemis 7 NPD solution looks as if it was developed to play a key role in PLM. It's targeted at a particular PLM requirement and is clearly focused. And rather than overlapping with most other applications in the PLM space, it's complementary to them. The following definition and objective of PLM help to position Artemis 7 NPD. "PLM is the activity of managing a product throughout its lifecycle - 'from cradle to grave' - making sure that everything works well with the product and making sure the product makes good money for the company. The objectives of PLM are to increase product revenues, reduce product-related costs, and maximize the value of the product portfolio." The value of the product portfolio (existing products, and products under development or modification) is an important metric that is continually changing. But its actual and expected future values need to be known precisely and to be available for strategic decision-taking, planning, investment and reporting purposes. The value of the product portfolio is the combined value of existing products and products under development or modification. Data about existing products, such as past, present and future sales is usually readily available, for example in an ERP application. More difficult to know is the value of products under development or modification, in the pipeline, or just present as ideas. Their value depends on parameters such as project phase, likelihood of success, technical difficulties, design and manufacturing trade-offs, resource requirements and availability, etc. Artemis 7 NPD can provide information on the value of the product portfolio because it doesn't just have data on sales figures and projections for existing products, but also:
Much of the functionality that's available in Artemis 7 NPD - such as process dashboards and analytics; phase-gate process management ; idea and initiative management ; financial planning and budgeting ; program and project management and risk management - isn't found in PLM applications such as PDM (Product Data Management) and CAD (Computer Aided Design), so Artemis 7 doesn't compete with them. Instead, through Artemis data connectors, it can be integrated with them, enabling the transfer of both management data about projects and detailed technical data about products under development and modification. Typical users of Artemis 7 NPD include Denso (automotive), LG Micron (electronics), Turbomeca (turbines), Actelion (pharmaceutical) and Sara Lee (apparel), showing that companies in many industry sectors have a need for this functionality. More details at http://www.aisc.com/solution/NPD_process_ppm 
* PLMIG's London PLM Benefits Model Workshop * The Product Lifecycle Management Interest Group (PLMIG) announced a PLM Benefits Workshop to be held:
The objectives of the PLM Benefits Workshop are:- to bring together PLM practitioners and enable them to examine and evaluate their experiences in defining and measuring PLM benefits; to work through the whole scope of what an industry-standard Benefits Reference Model should be; and to generate all of the draft material to create a workshop view of a PLM Benefits Framework. The Workshop on PLM Benefits will enable participants to:
Part Numbering Best Practices Sources by Don Frank I just did a webinar in the USA for APICS entitled "Putting Intelligence Into Part Number Management" and one of the many questions that followed was a real challenge: "Can you cite part numbering best practices sources?" What I'm looking for are specific documents from professional societies, government agencies or academia that I can use to answer the above question. Please respond to me directly at dfrankasso@optonline.net. I will tabulate the results and share them with all who respond. |
