The first steps a mid-market company should take when deploying PLM

The PLM vision is wide and can touch almost every hidden corner in the company. This is why we recommend our customers a phased approach or what we called as: “start small and grow as you go” (if you want it is like eating a sandwich – better to take small bites than try to have it all and choke… )

Most of the companies are starting by managing their design environment. Establishing a solid PLM foundation with CAD Data and Document management. Then Expanding to cover the process from concept to manufacturing with item centric approach, collaboration around the BOM and Process/Change Management – based on the same modular PLM platform. Then Reaching PLM to the entire Enterprise with Global collaboration and effective decision making process.

I could say that, as wider the deployment is, the grater the benefits and the end-users acceptance are. Starting the deployment with concept to manufacturing solution will tie most of the end-users to this process and will deliver a huge benefit and users acceptance (because people see value from work been done by others – the secret of collaboration…). I am saying that even if in each business process you deploy first the most simple and intuitive solution and not necessarily the most advanced available, as long as again based on the same terminology: you can “start small and grow as you go” within the same PLM platform. (e.g. manage first requirements as documents in the system only after leverage the complete requirements management solution)

So, 1^st get the process managed, get the people on board, only than enhance each area to a more advance solution.

Obviously, deploying PLM require a culture change within the company. I believe that if the solution own the following 3 elements, the impact on the company will be minimal and most beneficial:

• Deliver proven and modular Out-Of-The-Box packages (ready2go best practices)
• With complete flexibility and openness required to tune the Out-Of-The-Box packages to the company processes
• And with doing all that at low Total Cost of Ownership

PLM for SMB – I can understand. PLM for a single designer? Do I need that?

PLM for SMB – I can understand

We can understand big enterprises implementing PLM. we have also learned the need and the will to implement PLM in SMB companies. But when we have a single designer working in a CAD system (and even two or three)… why do we need data management for them? they do not really need to collaborate (especially if it is a single designer ).

If we look at software development you will not be able to find any company today where it’s developers working without any software configuration management system (source safe, clear case etc.).

Why is it clear for software development and not clear in design engineering?

Did you knew that ~80% of the CAD users around the world working file based?

 

Design Data Management – I need it NOW

Let’s have a look at the challenges the designer is facing while working file based without design data management system:

Challenge #1. Inefficient manage voluminous Design Data:

• No naming convention for files

• No revision management

• No representation of design structure

• “Reinventing the wheel” – no data reuse
• Duplication of data

The implications of Inefficient manage voluminous Design Data would be:

• No standardization – File names as opposed to company policy
• Time wasted finding the desired design revision
• Working on outdated designs, which leads to errors and delays
• Expends time & resources on redundant work

Challenge #2. Impact Analysis:

• I have no impact analysis when changing a component

 

The implications of not having the ability to analysis impact would be:

• Design errors due to local changes that widely affect the design
• Errors in derived documents (drawings, NC) as a result of the change
• Time wasted on understanding the scope of the change

Challenge #3. Keep data secured:

• Data is not secured – risking in not protecting your IP and in the other hand not be able to share the data easily when needed

The implications of not having your data secured would be:

• Prevent efficient collaborative work
• Unauthorized people access protected data
• Time wasted on handling data in order to share only authorized data with suppliers.

Challenge #4. Multi CAD:

• If the company is working with several different CAD systems, Each one is managed (file based) separately. Having that managed in PLM system enables a single environment to manage all CAD systems

 

Challenge #4. Supply chain:

• Everybody today are working with suppliers or they are suppliers. so when working file based with your designs:
• How do I receive/register data from the OEM, or from your suppliers?
• How do I exchange data?
• How do I reconcile received updated data back into my design?
• How do I control my exchanged data?

 

 

For a quick and easy to use solution for design data management look at Design Express.

From Documents management to BOM management…

Many of the companies I know do understand and implements data management for mechanical CAD design. Many of those think it is enough. But, is it really enough? Does it represent my product structure?

Let’s see an example:

What do you see in here? This is my mechanical design.

What I can see is: A palette with two screws.

Is that the definition for the product? The truth is that this product is: A movement detector to identify earthquakes.

Can you realize that from the mechanical design only? Probably not…

The problem is that in the organization we have a lot of islands of information. all are related to my product structure and defining it: Mechanical design, Electrical design, Embedded software, Requirements, Specifications, Analysis, Simulations, Testing specs, Tooling… and more…

So… what should I do? How do I manage my complete product structure if managing my mechanical design only is not enough?

The answer my friend, will be… you need to manage BOM (Bill of Materials) – Items structure.

Item is this magic entity invented in order to comprise all definitions of the product and to represent its complete physical structure.

This will also enable you to follow the leaders:

• CMII
• EIA-649
• MIL-STD-973A

If you are looking for an easy and robust solution for BOM management you can have a look at ENOVIA SmarTeam Engineering Express.

Do Mid-Market companies need to adopt PLM?

PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) is well accepted in the large OEMs of the world – you probably won’t be able to find any leading OEM that is not utilizing PLM. But in the mid-market (the vast majority of the world’s manufacturers), PLM use is not that obvious.

Is it because the mid-market manufacturers do not need PLM?

Is it because the challenges mid-market companies face are not the same challenges as the big ones; are they not that critical to the business?

When you look at today’s mid-market companies, you will see that not only  they face and are affected by the same challenges as the big OEMs, they deal with even more challenges:

·         The demand for shorter product lifecycle is getting higher and higher

·         Globalization of markets

·         Supply chains have been changed and almost every mid-market company find itself as part of a supply chain (even outside the traditional Automotive and Aerospace supply chains)

·         More complex design or distributed design environment

·         Mid-market companies are developing and manufacturing more complex products than in the past

·         Huge amount of parallel projects (unlike a small number of big projects in the large OEMs)

·         Data reuse becomes critical for success, ~70% of the products does not start from scratch

·         Competition in the mid-market is higher

·         Less resources; less money to invest

If you look at the short list above (if you belong to a mid-market company I am sure you have nodded your head while reading each line…), you understand that the answer to the question in matter is very clear… YES, YES and YES.

Not only implementing PLM today gives one of the biggest ROI a critical business system can give your company, but the truth is that in today’s world, you can’t really afford not to implement PLM.

After we all understand that adopting PLM even in the mid-market is a must, a short fun exmple: “Why we need PLM…”

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