Anyone who has been covering the product lifecycle management (PLM) market will have likely met Oleg Shilovitsky at some industry events or at least read one of his impartial and knowledgeable blog posts on the available PLM vendors, solutions, and market trends. Shilovitsky has been building software products for product data management (PDM), engineering, and manufacturing for the last 20 years or so.

He spent 11 years (from 1999 to 2009) working for Smart Solutions, an Israeli company with the SmarTeam PLM offering, and then for the mighty Dassault Systemes, after it acquired SmarTeam and merged it under the ENOVIA PLM brand. Over these years, he held various positions in the company’s research and development (R&D) group and management, with the most recent position being ENOVIA SmarTeam Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

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Part 1 of my recent blog series, Filling the Holes and Breaking Down Artificial Walls in a Process PLM Solution Set, established that the product lifecycle management (PLM) software market for process industries (i.e., food & beverage, life sciences, chemicals, paints, consumer products, etc.) has not been well-defined as compared to its counterparts in the discrete widgets manufacturing and fashion (apparel) industry segments.

Indeed, the process PLM solution market is currently a mosaic of established generic PLM providers and a plethora of specialized vendors with solutions that cater to only a part of the entire process PLM scope. The recent acquisition of Enginuity (mostly for its formula management capabilities) by Dassault Systemes only proves the point and the need for some consolidation in the market.

My post then analyzed typical workarounds to solve the puzzle of integrating these specialized solutions, most of which focus on structured data, which is insufficient for creating adequate multi-media product specifications in this day and age. 

Part 2 of the series analyzed other typical constraints of generic PLM solutions that claim process PLM expertise, such as the level of these process PLM vendors’ global enterprise support as well as available solution configuration options and ongoing change capabilities.

The series ended with the promise of separate future posts talking about some concrete process PLM add-on products that are already generally available (or that will be available soon). This post is the fulfillment of that promise.

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Part 1 of this blog series established that the product lifecycle management (PLM) software market for process industries (food & beverage, life sciences, chemicals, paints, consumer products, etc.) has not been well-defined as compared to its counterparts in the discrete manufacturing and fashion (apparel) industry segments. Indeed, the process PLM solution market is currently a mosaic of specialized vendors with solutions that cater to only a part of the entire process PLM flow.

My post then analyzed typical workarounds to solve the puzzle of integrating these silo-based solutions with their focus on structured data, which is insufficient for creating adequate product specifications in this day and age. Part 2 will analyze other typical constraints of these solutions, such as the level of process PLM vendors’ global enterprise support as well as available solution configuration options and ongoing change capabilities.

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The product lifecycle management (PLM) software market for process industries (food & beverage, life sciences, chemicals, paints, consumer products, etc.) is serviced by a plethora of solution providers, but it hasn’t been well-defined as compared to its counterparts in the discrete manufacturing and fashion (apparel) industry segments. Indeed, the Process PLM solution market is a mosaic of specialized vendors, starting with enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors with some process PLM capabilities (i.e., SAP, Oracle, and Infor) and pure-play PLM vendors (i.e., Siemens Industry Automation Division and Dassault Systemes). In addition, there are many toolset-oriented niche vendors and document management system (DMS)-oriented point solutions.

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Today’s product lifecycle management (PLM) is an ever-growing and flexible container for holding a variety of functionality and it has become more important to treat PLM adoption as a phased endeavor with prioritized requirements. PLM adopters (especially first-time and early-stage adopters) should give their priority to urgent areas where quick but significant results can be expected.

I mentioned in a blog post the “the crucial 20 percent of the PLM functionality may bring you 80 percent of the benefits of adopting PLM and help secure the bottom line of your business.” After certifying CXInsight for Electronics from Adeon Software House (ASH), I think this product is a good example of the 80-20 rule—even though it’s not a full-fledged PLM solution, CXInsight for Electronics does address some of the most urgent requirements for product development in the electronics industry.

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Two recent blog posts by Oleg Shilovitsky (PDM vs. PLM: A Data Perspective and PDM vs. PLM: A Process Perspective) got me wondering about what a true product lifecycle management (PLM) system actually is.

In his posts, Shilovitsky discussed the differences between product data management (PDM) and PLM from the perspective of

• data (scope and control of the data) and
• process (coverage of product lifecycle activities)

I have a bit of a different perspective. Read the rest of this entry »

Product lifecycle management (PLM) systems are too complicated, too expensive, and take too long to implement. That’s what I said last month in a blog post. However, more and more companies find that adopting PLM is an unavoidable route to take regardless how many obstacles ahead. Can companies find ways to adopt PLM more easily and faster? After listening to Lectra’s introduction to its Easy Start PLM implementation approach, I think I’ve found some answers. Read the rest of this entry »

There wasn’t a lack of big news in the product lifecycle management (PLM) industry in the past few weeks. On May 20^th, Siemens PLM Software unveiled High Definition Product Lifecycle Management (HD-PLM) at the World Exposition Shanghai China 2010 (Expo 2010). On June 7^th, PTC told PTC/USER 2010 attendees that a virtual launch event for Project Lightning was schedule on October 28^th, 2010. Two days later, Dassault Systèmes announced the acquisition of Exalead (read the press release). Since the month of June is packed with three major PLM events in the world (PTC/USER World Event, Dassault Systèmes SwYm Conference, and Siemens PLM Connection) in a row, it is no surprise to have some big PLM news  for the sake of marketing. However, this time I also see some new things beyond marketing purposes. Read the rest of this entry »

Following the general opening session presented by keynote speaker Peter Burrows, CIO Emeritus, Head of Enterprise Architecture, adidas Group, the media and analyst discussion session with Burrows allowed me to learn more details about adidas’ FlexPLM implementation.

In addition, I also had a 1:1 interview with Kathleen Mitford, VP, Product and Marketing Strategy focusing on the consumer products, retail, footwear, and apparel industries, to learn FlexPLM’s achievements and product roadmap of FlexPLM.

After all that, I have to give my personal Day Two keyword to “FlexPLM.” As to my keyword for Day One, I believe it was “strategy,” as I indicated in my previous blog post. Read the rest of this entry »

Shorter time-to-market, higher product development efficiency, better product quality, and lower product costs are often associated with the benefits of adopting product lifecycle management (PLM) systems. When there is an economic downturn, these benefits seem to be more desirable. However, a recent poll (CIMdata Online Polls, presented near the end of CIMdata PLM Industry Summary, 28 May 2010) shows that ten percent of poll participants thought that PLM couldn’t really help tackle economic downturns. I totally agree with CIMdata that this result indicated an awareness issue—current and potential PLM users are not always on the same page with PLM vendors and advocators. Besides this, I felt that some of the ten percent who responded might speak about the real experiences they had with PLM. With the economic downturn in mind, below are a few points I can think of: Read the rest of this entry »

Today, many assets are designed and manufactured with the help of product lifecycle management (PLM) tools and systems, which contain highly valuable product definition information for enterprise asset management (EAM) and computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) operations.

That being said, if there is a way to tie the two systems (EAM and PLM) together, the result will be beneficial to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), asset owners, and third-party maintenance service providers. However, this isn’t an easy job. The following are a few barriers between EAM and PLM as I see it. Read the rest of this entry »