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* Welcome * Welcome to 2PLM, an e-zine distributed about every two weeks. This issue includes :
by David W. Paulson There's a perfect storm brewing in the manufacturing world and it's centered over your engineering department. It's the result of years of focusing on the wrong thing by most manufacturers. Over the past three decades a lot of time and money has been spent chasing profits through initiatives focused on cost, quality, inventory, suppliers, manufacturing, offshoring, outsourcing, etc. Yes, those initiatives have been beneficial, but it's the product that makes a company successful. However, it takes more than one great product to remain successful -- it takes a series of them. That is why superior product development performance is the number one indicator of financial performance over time. In fact, a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers quantified that if a company generates 80% of their revenue from new products, they will double their market cap in five years...! Do you have any idea what percentage of your revenue is from new products? Or if your company even measures it? Whether this perfect storm is good news or bad depends entirely on how you react to it. For some it will be an opportunity to propel their Engineering department to the forefront of the organization and give their company a sustainable competitive advantage. The unfortunate ones will be wiped out by this disturbance. What is this perfect storm? It's the impending arrival of two things...
There have been at least a dozen initiatives in manufacturing in the last 30 years. A sample of these shows they were mainly focused on reducing cost.
Rest assured that once your company figures this out, the Engineering department is going to be very busy. And this is where the other aspect of the perfect storm comes into play. Product development efficiencies are rapidly evolving to enable Engineering to get more done than ever before. Most companies are cutting development cycles by more than 25% with their initial efforts. Besides the obvious, what is the hidden opportunity here? Think about the perception within your company of the relative importance of the Engineering department. Most companies think Engineering is an expensive black box -- you throw in a set of requirements and you hope a product comes out. It's a tragedy that it has gotten so bad that some companies are even willing to take the risk of outsourcing the entire engineering phase of their product development process. Think of the intellectual property that goes with it. To me it's a serious sign of their level of frustration. The good news is companies are starting to realize the importance of the product. And no other department has more to do with the product than Engineering. So if your own Engineering department can see this as an opportunity and step up to the challenge, there is a good chance Engineering will gradually become the most respected department in the organization. And that's how it always should have been. By the way, it was actually the plow that first made Deere famous. John Deere was in business for 81 years before they sold their first tractor. In 1837 John developed a plow that moist dirt didn't stick to and the rest is history. The Author David W. Paulson, the President of Accuer, Inc., can be contacted at dpaulson@accuer.com. Accuer helps manufacturers decrease their time-to-market by shortening the development cycle. Their services solve efficiency problems that plague engineering and impact other departments in the enterprise. 
* Effective PLM Workshop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia * by John Stark Last week's Effective PLM Workshop in Kuala Lumpur showed just how widespread is the need and interest for PLM. With a population of about 25 million, and a GNP of about $120 billion, Malaysia may not look, at first glance, like an obvious candidate for PLM. However, Manufacturing accounts for about 30% of the economy, Malaysia produced its first car, the Proton SAGA, in 1985, and Malaysia is a leading exporter of electronic and electrical goods and appliances. Many Global 2000 companies have development and manufacturing operations in Malaysia. PLM enables them to collaborate effectively with other parts of their companies in Europe, Japan and North America, maintaining control over development projects, new products and product data. And many Malaysian SMEs are being set up, with PLM infrastructure, to offer services to foreign-owned companies based in Malaysia and elsewhere. The Effective PLM Workshop, hosted by Kavaq Business Intelligence, was held in central Kuala Lumpur, about 5 minutes from the Petronas Twin Towers, at 1483 feet the world's highest building when built. The Workshop ran for two days, with the first day looking at the basics of PLM and the current situation and trends, and the second day focused on defining the best steps for a company's PLM Initiative. The Workshop ran on both days from 9am to 5pm, allowing a wide range of PLM issues to be addressed, and providing plenty of time to answer questions from attendees. The issues raised by attendees were similar to those raised at similar events in other countries. This is not surprising as there is little in PLM that is specific to a particular country, and much is common to different industries. In practice, the PLM opportunities and challenges faced by companies in different industries and countries are surprisingly similar. And, as one of the attendees pointed out, PLM is truly global and effective PLM is needed by every company developing, manufacturing and supporting products. The Effective PLM Workshop in Malaysia confirmed our previous findings that a workshop such as the Next Steps For Your PLM Initiative Workshop is of use for companies in different countries, different industries and at different stages of PLM progress. It's a good way to inform a large group of people in a short time about the importance and wide scope of PLM, and to prepare the ground for a well-managed and successful PLM Initiative. * 2PDM, 2PLM, Sony Battery Recalls, PLM * People sometimes ask us if we can send them a particular back issue of 2PDM or 2PLM. We answer that all back issues can be accessed from the 2PLM archive page. The first issue of the ezine, originally called 2PDM, was published on August 31, 1998. The name '2PDM' showed that the focus was PDM (Product Data Management) and PDM (Product Development Management). PDM + PDM = 2PDM. The April 8, 2002 issue was the first with the 2PLM name. An article from Mike Bryan in that issue finished with the following paragraph, "In these days of DASAMASA (Design Anywhere, Sell Anywhere, Manufacture Anywhere, Support Anywhere), I wonder if Anyone Anywhere really knows what we have. Perhaps this is one of the reasons there are still so many product recalls". That was written in April 2002. This month, on August 14, 2006, Dell announced the voluntary recall of approximately 4.1 million Dell-branded lithium-ion batteries with cells manufactured by Sony. It's possible for these batteries to overheat, which could pose a risk of fire (details). The words "DELL" and "Made in Japan" or "Made in China" or "Battery cell made in Japan, Assembled in China" are printed on the back of the batteries. The Dell site shows 38 battery models that may be subject to recall. They have five digit codes such as 3K590 (details). On August 24, 2006, Apple Computer announced it has determined that certain lithium-ion batteries containing cells manufactured by Sony Corporation of Japan pose a safety risk that may result in overheating under rare circumstances. Apple's Battery Exchange Program is detailed here. The batteries have a Battery model number such as A1061, and a 12-digit Battery serial number which starts with a five digit code such as 3K429. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission about 1.8 million battery packs are involved (details). Apple has previously recalled batteries that were sold worldwide from January 2004 through August 2004 (these batteries were manufactured by LG Chem, Ltd. of South Korea during the last week of December 2003, details), and batteries that were sold worldwide from October 2004 through May 2005 (these batteries were also manufactured by LG Chem, details). According to a recently published PLM White Paper, '10 Critical PLM Facts Every Executive Should Know', PLM can help minimize product risks - very costly risks ranging from customer annoyance to injury or even death of product users that can occur if you lose control of your products. Details |
