PLM and Disruption: Emerging Technologies That Will Reshape the PLM Value Equation

Perspectives from the CIMdata PLM Roadmap and PDT spring 2021 conference, co-organized with Eurostep.

Ken Versprille, executive consultant with CIMdata (left), Peter Bilello, president and CEO with CIMdata (center), and Hakan Karden, director of marketing, Eurostep (right), kicked off the CIMdata PLM Roadmap and PDT conference, which focused on “Disruption—the PLM Professionals’ Exploration of Emerging Technologies that Will Reshape the PLM Value Equation.” (Image credit: CIMdata.)

Ken Versprille, executive consultant with CIMdata (left), Peter Bilello, president and CEO with CIMdata (center), and Hakan Karden, director of marketing, Eurostep (right), kicked off the CIMdata PLM Roadmap and PDT conference, which focused on “Disruption—the PLM Professionals’ Exploration of Emerging Technologies that Will Reshape the PLM Value Equation.” (Image credit: CIMdata.)

The 2021 spring edition of the CIMdata PLM Roadmap and PDT conference was a two-and-a-half-day event, focusing on PLM professionals and disruption. Broadly speaking, the conference covered questions related to digitalization, such as: How is digitalization disrupting the PLM practice and product development? What emerging technologies will survive the hype and create new business value? With those that survive, how will they contribute to changing and redefining industries?

When it comes to emerging disruptive technologies, the conference synopsis referred to “SaaS, cloud, hybrid, low-code/no-code integration platforms, model-based engineering, additive manufacturing, virtual reality/augmented reality, IoT, blockchain, machine learning and artificial intelligence.”

In other words: how does the “digitalization of everything” affect—and will continue to affect—the role of PLM in the digital future? That’s a question I asked in a previous article on engineering.com following the CIMdata PLM Roadmap and PDT conference back in fall 2020.

Per its agenda, the conference sought to answer the following questions:

  • How do we select technologies, define processes, and train people to realize the potential value when whole industries are digitalized?
  • How do we establish a balance between efforts in strategy, innovation, standards, openness, growth hacking, and DevOps?
  • What is the role of PLM Professionals across the PLM ecosystem?
  • How fast can we go without losing the ‘M’ in PLM?

Reshaping and Rethinking PLM

Peter Bilello, president and CEO with CIMdata, opened the event with an insightful presentation on “Reshaping and Rethinking PLM,” focusing on both technological and nontechnological disruptors (whereas many often try to oppose the two perspectives).

“PLM practitioners must expand their scope, rethink strategies and capabilities, and embrace the fundamental shift in PLM requirements and their implementation.” Peter Bilello (2021)

In his presentation, Bilello elaborated on “new ways of working” and their application in the context of product development, and/or implications to the PLM practice. (Image credit: CIMdata.)

In his presentation, Bilello elaborated on “new ways of working” and their application in the context of product development, and/or implications to the PLM practice. (Image credit: CIMdata.)

Bilello’s key points can be summarized as follows:

  1. Keep current with new ideas, new technologies and new ways of working and innovation. This must be part of a consistent approach to understanding opportunities from disruptors that are likely to survive the associated hype.
  2. Continuously look to improve how PLM solutions are implemented and leverage business value.

OEM keynote presentations

With this edition of the PLM Roadmap conference, I counted 7 OEM-led presentations over the 2 days:

  1. An interesting perspective on the U.S. Army’s modernization and its 20-year PLM road map.
  2. A discussion about model authoring versus consuming and the importance of data integration from the Boeing Company. This was apparently a follow-up to a presentation from the previous PLM Roadmap and PTD conference in fall 2020.
  3. A perspective on additive manufacturing and the benefits of on-demand spare parts and rapid manufacturing from Siemens Energy, which highlighted the use of machine learning to optimize 3D printing operations for gas turbine repairs.
  4. An excellent review of how digital twins contribute to digitalizing the AEC industry with EGIS, with emerging disruptions covering industrialization, new material, “digital twins as a service,” and new entrants challenging existing business models.
  5. A discussion on the role of people analytics in disrupting PLM in a joint study between NASA and Northwestern University.
  6. An overview of the cloud PLM journey with Zoetis, which is supported by Propel.
  7. A case study on product configuration across PLM and MES to support ABB’s manufacturing-to-order process, which is supported by Configit.

Keeping Current with New Ideas, New Technologies

PLM is not just about technology alone. Having said that, it is often a source of debate among industry experts and solution editors. Bilello pointed out that “innovation is not formulated; it requires social interactions” and highlighted the need for experimentation to leverage data and processes supported by new technologies—from AR to VR, IoT, big data, AI, ML, and so on.

Subsequently, Bilello highlighted that “agile encourages collaboration and interaction” in product development. He also warned that “agile is not a panacea; it is most effective and easiest to implement where the problem to be solved is complex, the solutions are initially unknown, product requirements will most likely change, the work can be modularized, and close collaboration with end-users is feasible.”

A common thread: “data is gold’,“ hence the importance of data and process mining to convert raw data to information and capture new actionable knowledge. (Image credit: CIMdata.)

A common thread: “data is gold’,“ hence the importance of data and process mining to convert raw data to information and capture new actionable knowledge. (Image credit: CIMdata.)

Improving How PLM Solutions Are Implemented and How They Leverage Business Value

When delivering PLM as a service and SaaS solutions, DevOps and agile delivery practices become very relevant to shorten the implementation life cycle. From a PLM technology perspective, Stan Przybylinski, vice president with CIMdata, reported on a market analysis initiated in 2017 to leverage PLM and the cloud. He elaborated on the need to choose a solution and path that “must address both today’s and tomorrow’s requirements.”

Finally, there wasn’t much new to report from the closing session of the conference: a “fireside chat with industry expects” (featuring Peter Bilello, Jos Voskuil, Industry Expert, Tacit, and Torbjorn Holm, founder of Eurostep). It included similar questions and answers from the last conference—though there is nothing wrong with getting a second dose of evangelization:

  • The role of technology at a high level (from machine learning to artificial intelligence), though it is not only about technology
  • The role of data and the importance of data continuity
  • The need to learn and fail fast … while managing value realization and return on investment
  • The opportunity to leverage holistic system thinking to manage complexity and make things simpler and more user friendly for end users (which does not mean making products simpler)
  • The essential people aspects and the need for social interactions to innovate (hence the importance of communication tools, which are becoming even more relevant in COVID-19 times due to the rise of remote working)
  • The importance of strategy and purpose alignment in implementing digital twins and digital thread solutions (“start with why”; source: Simon Sinek, Start With Why).

What are your thoughts?

Written by

Lionel Grealou

Lionel Grealou, a.k.a. Lio, helps original equipment manufacturers transform, develop, and implement their digital transformation strategies—driving organizational change, data continuity and process improvement, managing the lifecycle of things across enterprise platforms, from PDM to PLM, ERP, MES, PIM, CRM, or BIM. Beyond consulting roles, Lio held leadership positions across industries, with both established OEMs and start-ups, covering the extended innovation lifecycle scope, from research and development, to engineering, discrete and process manufacturing, procurement, finance, supply chain, operations, program management, quality, compliance, marketing, etc.

Lio is an author of the virtual+digital blog (www.virtual-digital.com), sharing insights about the lifecycle of things and all things digital since 2015.