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* Welcome * Welcome to 2PLM, an e-zine distributed about every two weeks. This issue includes :
by Roger Tempest Make no mistake - the European PLM Summit was good. After three years in London the show moved to Toulouse in June, drawn by the attraction of a pre-event tour around the Airbus facility, and the tour was fully subscribed. The programme was launched with an excellent keynote address by Michael Burkett of AMR, and included presentations by Lear Corporation, Timberland, Nike, Moelnlycke Healthcare, EADS and BAe Systems. Once again the agenda emphasised contact and shared time but, strangely, this highlighted the shortcomings of the format. It is probably fair to say that the European PLM Summit is the flagship PLM event outside the USA, but it is still below a critical mass to make it work properly. PLM is so complex that it needs a much larger programme to produce a "joined-up" effect. The AMR keynote presentation on "Creating a Strategic Vision", for example, was followed immediately by one on "Executing PLM Effectively" given by Thales Alenia Aerospace. Both of these were good PLM presentations but it was hard to detect a single common idea or thread to connect them. A similar effect could be observed among the delegates. As usual, the Summit brought together around 100 user PLM specialists and gave them the opportunity to interact, but most people seemed to find that they could not meet enough delegates from their own industry. Many companies had sent two or three delegates, which meant that the corporate base was fairly small. This in turn affected the exhibitors and sponsors. Everyone likes to see a torrent of delegates coming to their stand, and shows such as the Summit are expensive to support. One way forward is probably to extend the technical content for the delegates. A short workshop session in Toulouse on "Integrating PLM and MES" generated lively participation, not because of the subject but because people were drawn into the debate. The comparable show in the USA, PLM Summit North America, looks to build on this in October with a workshop day to follow the 2-day event, but its delegate footprint still looks to be around the 100 level. The PLM industry needs something much bigger and better than this. There needs to be an event so attractive and well-planned that it attracts a thousand rather than a hundred delegates, and gives them a comprehensive experience that makes it well worth their attending. Current expectations for PLM are too low. We don't need something as big as SAPPHIRE, for example, but we do need something that provides a valuable, structured, and even perhaps a thrilling experience that does justice to the delegates' needs and provides value for the sponsors and exhibitors. It may seem counter-intuitive to look at a format that seems to have peaked and aim to enlarge it, but a larger, bolder show would change the mechanism by which people decide to attend. Currently, attendance is driven by determined processing of large email lists, and by some delegates who went last year and would like to repeat the experience. It would be much more powerful for the PLM industry to agree the format and content of the event it really wants, so that delegates know they will get a comprehensive and productive experience and will feel "left out" if they don't go. The prize for the organisers would be to have the event where the industry really wants to meet. Generating such an event will need two things: cooperation between the organisers and the supporting organisations; and the willingness to aim for something higher than we have now. It is a goal of the PLMIG to facilitate this process so that 2009 sees the kind of conferences that PLM deserves. Roger Tempest is co-founder of the PLMIG, and would be interested in your views on current and future PLM events. 
* New Research on Product Development and Innovation Management * by Brad Goldense and Ervin Kule Innovation has become the epicenter of corporate interest since the end of 2004. Innovation methods and techniques utilized by companies have become the subject of numerous research studies. The science of innovation is regarded as among the most important elements in today's competitive R&D environments. In the recently released results of its 2008 Survey, Goldense Group, Inc. (GGI), which has been researching and benchmarking industry practices since 1998, reports on how industry understands and uses "tangible" innovation processes and critical tools; and the top corporate metrics practices that companies use to measure and manage their research and development. GGI's primary research, the 2008 Product Development Metrics Survey, was conducted by sending questionnaires to a wide distribution of product development professionals in North America, Europe and Asia. Responses were received from 209 companies ranging from industrial and medical products to aerospace defense, electronics, chemicals industries and software. Respondents were asked to complete 30 questions covering their demographic information and following five areas: innovation environment, innovation processes, innovation identity, innovation tools, and top corporate metrics used in industry R&D practices. The 2008 survey was completed by respondents from August 2007 to January 2008 and was published in May 2008. Over the next five months, 2PLM, with GGI's permission, will publish selected research results and analysis for each of the five topic areas:
For more information about GGI's 2008 Product Development Metrics Survey, the research and the available report go to GGI's website. To purchase reports with text and graphical analysis of the results, go to http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/cgi/catalog.cgi?display_p355. Bradford L. Goldense is President and CEO, Goldense Group, Inc. Ervin A. Kule is Manager of Market Research, Goldense Group, Inc. 
* Top Ten List of Frustrations * by Scott Cleveland A couple of years ago, I was putting together a presentation that was to be an overview of our product/solution. I had attended a marketing seminar where they were discussing reasons that someone might purchase a product/solution. They talked about people being afraid that they wouldn't meet management objectives. They talked about the risk of failure. They talked about the risk of lawsuits. And more ... As I was thinking this through, I began to realize that most of the people that I had talked to were frustrated that something didn't get done, or that they forgot to do something, or they couldn't see what was done and what was not, etc. I came across a top ten list that displays some of the frustrations that I have seen. I thought I would share it with you - a little humor for July. The top ten reasons why most of us are struggling to meet productivity and cost reduction targets.
Scott Cleveland is VP Sales & Marketing, Ingenuus Software. |
