There are two reasons which led me to write this blog. Firstly, I recently had briefings with vendors such as Learn.com and Xyleme that made me realize that the learning management system (LMS) industry is building up more and more connections with other technologies and enterprise applications. Secondly, a recent article (see Trends in LMS by Don McIntosh) explains how LMS is evolving with Web 2.0, talent management, mobile learning, software as a service (SaaS), and open-source software. Having worked mainly in the product development area in manufacturing, one question popped into my mind—does LMS have anything to do with product lifecycle management (PLM)? Read the rest of this entry »

“Basically, lean is [focused on] creating more value with less work.” – Wikipedia, Lean Manufacturing

No matter who can be credited with making this statement, I have to thank him or her. This statement allows people to apply lean principles in broader circumstances than manufacturing. Following this idea, I’d like to define lean product development (LPD) as this: LPD is focused on developing more products better and with use of fewer resources. To be more specific, LPD contains the following three major elements, in my view: Read the rest of this entry »

“Sometimes, I feel frustrated at work—there is a constant conflict between my department and others and it never stops.” – A product developer at a fashion company

During the process of building the request for proposal (RFP) template for fashion product lifecycle management (PLM), I spent some time talking with some relatively large fashion goods manufacturers and retailers to gain a better understanding of how the fashion business runs. As I learned more, I realized that the conflict between the two major driving forces (pushing and pulling) behind fashion products is causing frustration, unachievable sales targets, and missed sales opportunities. Let me explain these two forces briefly. Read the rest of this entry »

A few months ago while I was listening to Dassault Systèmes (DS) executives explaining the company’s sales and marketing strategies and achievements, I wondered what the next move might be since I found the relationship between DS and IBM was becoming more delicate than before. My concern was that a very sophisticated approach would be required in order to grow DS’s own sales capability, while keeping the strong and long-time DS/IBM partnership in good shape. Here’s the answer to my question: a press release from DS on October 26 tells us that “Dassault Systèmes and IBM Announce Intent to Integrate IBM PLM Sales Operation into DS.” Read the rest of this entry »

Within the product lifecycle management (PLM) arena, there is a category of solutions with a very specific industry focus: fashion and retail PLM solutions. For example, Lectra calls its solution Fashion PLM; at PTC, its FlexPLM solution is created for retail, footwear, and apparel; TradeStone Software names  its solution Merchandise Lifecycle Management (MLM)  (instead of PLM) and focuses on helping retailers to design and develop private label merchandise. No matter how vendors describe their solutions, it seems certain that now PLM manages not only “trees” but also “grass.” Read the rest of this entry »

PLM Boot Camp ’09 is coming in one week. As one of the committee members for this event, I’m delighted to provide three tips to those who are planning to attend this two-day virtual conference.

Tip #1: Prepare to See a “Different” PLM

PLM Boot Camp ’09 is obviously focused on product lifecycle management (PLM). However, it also has vertical foci: the fashion and consumer products industries. If a couple of years ago I had been told there would be such an event, I wouldn’t have believed there would be a large enough audience. However, things are changing significantly in these specific PLM fields. In the fashion sector alone, there are over 40 software solutions that serve specific PLM needs from this vertical. Although the methodology of PLM stays the same, when it comes to applying PLM in the fashion and consumer products industries, the business cases, adoption strategies, and functionality priorities are likely to be different than in industries such as aerospace and automotive. 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 »

There are multiple answers for how a bad product is developed; many of them are rooted in myopia in the development process.

This morning, when I was leaving a subway station through a tunnel, a billboard caught my eye. Actually, at first glance, I was kind of scared by the weird eye of one of the women in the picture. A second look revealed that the weird eye was a bolt (on top of a washer) located very close to her right eye. Read the rest of this entry »

Bringing all product stakeholders in a tighter loop within the entire product life cycle is one of the main strategies of the product lifecycle management (PLM) methodology. Following this idea, letting the customers (those who pay for and/or use the product) get involved as early as possible in the product design and development phases provides many benefits, including: more ideas for innovation, less design rework, higher customer satisfaction, shorter time-to-market, and more.

Today, including customer inputs in the design process is not only a theory, but also an increasing requirement from PLM users. Based on statistics from the TEC PLM Evaluation Center, among 50 possible business objectives for implementing a PLM system, the option of “including customer input in the design process” changed its ranking from 28^th (in the year 2007) to 20^th (in the year 2008) (see figure 1). Read the rest of this entry »

Product lifecycle management (PLM) originated decades ago in the discrete manufacturing area, and for quite a long period of time remained mainly as a solution for the upscale market in industries such as aerospace and automotive. However, recently PLM has become more approachable for smaller-sized businesses in more industries. It is not difficult to have this impression when you see increasing versions of PLM solutions targeting small and medium business (SMB) and mushrooming solutions such as PLM for consumer packaged goods (CPG), PLM for fashion, PLM for retail, and so on.

On the user side, based on statistics from TEC’s PLM Evaluation Center, it seems that users are willing to take the same direction – compared with 2007, more smaller-sized business users are considering PLM in 2008. At the same time, more potential users are from industries that traditional PLM doesn’t fit well.

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In the two previous blog posts (What Does the “P” in PLM Really Mean? and What Does the “L” in PLM Really Mean?) I discussed the object being managed within the product lifecycle management (PLM) methodology. Now, it is the time to move on to the last word—“management.” Management is such a general term nowadays, that simply looking at it won’t give you much idea of what it is about in the PLM context. If your organization is looking for a PLM solution, investigating the functionality that various PLM solutions can provide will help you better understand what a PLM system should be handling. However, I’d suggest establishing some high-level ideas about what a PLM system should be able to manage before you are overwhelmed by the functionality flood. Read the rest of this entry »

In an earlier post, What Does the “P” in PLM Really Mean?, I discussed what the word “product” means in  product lifecycle management (PLM). In this post, I am going to move onto the next letter, “L” for lifecycle.

According to Merriam-Webster, one definition of lifecycle is “a series of stages through which something (as an individual, culture, or manufactured product) passes during its lifetime.” In a typical manufacturing environment, these stages include conception, design and development, manufacture, and service. Ideally, a PLM system should manage the entire lifecycle that covers all the stages. Originally, however, the concept of PLM was designed to address product definition authoring and, later on, define data management issues for the design department. Not every stage receives equal attention under the PLM umbrella, and the application maturity of each stage is not yet at the same level. Read the rest of this entry »

Food production and distribution is a serious and strategic business, and I am not aware of anyone in my surroundings that takes it lightly; food can not only delight us, but can also make us quite sick and indisposed. While my inner circles (pets included) have luckily not been casualties of recent salmonella, E.coli, and whatnot outbreaks from tainted chilly peppers, tomatoes, spinach, pet food, or most recently peanut butter, the 2008 year-end holidays were not much fun for my family.

Namely, the “G.I. bug” that our 18-month-old likely got in her playgroup spread so quickly and violently to anyone who was in contact with her (including the broader family members that stopped by to just traditionally exchange holiday gifts). Sure, viral gastroenteritis might likely have had nothing to do with what we ate at the time, but the feeling of being listless and other unpleasant (and unspeakable) G.I. bug symptoms were quite similar to those that food poisoning outbreaks can “treat” us to.

Food processing and distribution are not be the only market with burning product safety issues, since similar issues can also apply to the drug and pharmaceuticals sector or consumer packaged goods (CPGs); remember lead-tainted toys or antifreeze-laced toothpaste coming from China? Still, we all seem to be the most sensitive about food-related breaking news, possibly due to the likelihood of those hitting home (perhaps even in a willful way by bio-terrorists).

Thus, some food processing market experts have lately been frustrated by companies’ focus on location and lot control, serial number tracking, and traceability as the panaceas to solve product safety issues. Read the rest of this entry »

We all agree that being “green” (more environmentally conscious) is great. But businesses often struggle with exactly how they can get closer to this wonderful color. To a certain degree, product lifecycle management (PLM) can help manufacturers with their “green initiatives.” There is an excellent Green PLM blog series—written mainly by Kate Bourdet, at Dassault Systèmes—explaining what PLM has to do with green, more or less from a product lifecycle activity point of view. In this blog post, I will provide some complementary writing from a slightly different angle.

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The year 2008 is approaching an end, and we still haven’t seen any major acquisitions taking place in the product lifecycle management (PLM) world. Truly, after a series of acquisitions during the years 2006 and 2007, there are not many acquisitions left to happen except the one between SAP (the one likely to be a buyer), and PTC (the one likely to sell itself). So, should SAP buy PTC?

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