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* Welcome * Welcome to 2PLM, an e-zine distributed about every two weeks. This issue includes :
by John Stark In last week's issue of 2PLM, Roger Tempest pointed out, in an article about PLM Complexity, the difficulty of fitting the PLM environment of a $30bn multi-national corporation into a two-dimensional "PLM Benefits" spreadsheet. In that company, implementing PLM was far from easy. The PLM team had to establish an extremely complex process and technical architecture simply in order to make PLM work, then troubleshoot problems, quantify the implementation benefits, measure progress and show best practice. As I read that, I thought that he did not need to use such a large corporation - sales of $30bn - as an example. I remember working with the PLM Manager of a company that was only 10% of that size - $3bn - yet was faced with very similar issues. The company operated in more than 20 countries and there were nearly 1,000 product developers. Product development timelines were too long. This led to project overrun penalties and failure to respond to important Requests For Proposal. The window of opportunity on new products was missed because the company couldn't get into the market before the competition. Part of the problem was that the company had different product development processes, different CAD systems and different PDM applications in different countries. There was a Global PLM Manager, but there was nobody in the company with whom he could discuss PLM issues in any depth. We discussed a wide range of topics such as processes, applications, data models, document structures, project management, implementation plans, human resource issues, etc. He was always pleased when I arranged for him to visit the PLM team in another company - he didn't have time to learn by his own trial and error, but could learn from the trials of others. He read PLM books and journals, and went to PLM Conferences and PLM User Forums. He once said that, even after five years as PLM Manager, he didn't know everything, but was always learning about new technologies and new applications of PLM in the company. Then I thought of another company I worked with. Their sales were about $300M, just 1% of $30bn, yet they also had similar issues. When I started working with them, I found that, although many product development projects were running, few new products were getting to market. One key finding from a status review was that many projects were failing to achieve acceptance in the Final Prototype activity. Another was that even apparently very small projects were taking a long time to come to fruition. New projects were being added to the "new project funnel", but existing projects were blocking the exit from the funnel. There were several reasons for this. There was often a lack of agreement among the product development team members from different functions. People in Marketing complained that their ideas and opportunities were being lost because R&D had no time to work on new products. People in Production complained that "R&D's projects" interfered with their plant and production runs, costing them excessive set-up time, unnecessary downtime and reduced yield. Meanwhile people in R&D complained about the overload of work they faced and the continual demand for changes from Marketing and Production. There was incompatibility between the IS applications in use. There was data duplication between applications, and often data were being re-entered manually. There were only three people in the PLM Team. They complained they had so much to do just to keep the system running on an everyday basis, that they didn't have time to think about how they could improve the situation, or what was going to happen next. They said their managers weren't interested in PLM, and their application vendors didn't understand their questions. I suggested they go to some PLM events to get a feel for what other companies were doing. The events got them motivated to improve their PLM. We worked together to create a plan to increase the visibility of PLM and get more involvement from management. We built a PLM Vision to give everyone a common view of where PLM was going. We developed a PLM Strategy to show executives, and others, the type of benefits that would come with PLM, when they would be achieved, and how resources would be deployed in the PLM project. PLM Managers in companies of all sizes seem to face similar issues. Usually, although they have many problems and questions, there is nobody in a similar position with whom they can sit down and exchange ideas and discuss different approaches. However, it is helpful for them to work together with their peers from other companies to find answers to their questions and identify solutions they can implement. A PLM User Forum offers them the opportunity to get together with people with similar interests who they would probably never meet otherwise, to share experience, to learn how other managers are addressing PLM, and to look for ways and methods to move forward. 
* Top Issues on the User Forum Agenda * by Roger Tempest The purpose of the PLM User Forum events is not just so that PLM practitioners can work with each other in a neutral environment and have a pleasant conversation. They are working sessions designed to develop new ideas and material for the participants. There has been a three-month setup phase for these meetings during which around 20 companies input the issues they felt needed to be resolved in PLM, and these will be an integral part of the Agenda. The most common high-level issue is the lack of clarity of vision at boardroom level, and the difficulty of articulating a business case for the PLM journey. The business case needs to be maintained, and to deal with culture change; relate the PLM objectives and progress to the PDM implementation costs and timescales; deal with the different rates of change of the business and of PLM; and link PLM with downstream processes to achieve measurable improvements in product quality. The PLMIG has a methodology for addressing this, and we will be working on it at the meetings. Issues of configuration management were high on the list, either because existing tools are not good enough or consultants' expertise may fall short of what is required. More generally, these extend to: how to integrate different disciplines such as mechanical, electronic and software in a PLM environment; how to manage a multiple and complex set of "products"; how to integrate the PLM IT solution with others such as CAD, ERP and document management; and how to deal with multi-CAD and multi-PLM. The list continues: how to manage enterprise collaboration; how to develop a totally virtual product; how to benchmark KPIs; how to manage industry-specific PLM; integration strategies for legacy solutions and next-generation PLM; and many more. The need to develop ways of retaining data and keeping it live for 20-30 years is a common driver, and it may be that a large enough grouping of users can start to develop methods and standards for this. Finally, there is an underlying demand for a coherent customer domain that has sufficient mass and authority to influence vendors to react in the way it needs. Well, not quite finally - because everyone who participates in the User Forum in Reading or Cleveland will add their issues and discussion points into the meeting, so that the combined results published in December will be of direct use in their own organisations. If you have ever wanted to share experiences with other PLM managers then you will have issues of your own, and this is an opportunity to work on some solutions. Roger Tempest is co-founder of the PLMIG. You can find out more information about the User Forum events at userforum@plmig.com. 
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