Hint: Don't focus on a single source of truth first.
Many heralded product lifecycle management (PLM) as a silver bullet solution, one capable of serving as a comprehensive hub for business operations. In fact, PLM software’s strongest value proposition for many years was to focus on a single database for all product information: the so called “single source of truth.”
The approach of bringing all data into a single database is important, and obviously very valuable. However, when I’ve seen companies rush into PLM adoption, by attempting to centralize all their data they often ignore the changes it brings to people and processes.
What I learned after being involved in many PLM implementations with large and small industrial companies is that without considering the unique nuances of their company processes, their PLM implementations often encounter resistance and inefficiencies.
I believe success with PLM implementation lies in prioritizing people and processes before slamming everything into a single database. In my article, I want to share a perspective about why an agile PLM framework can help companies improve adoption. I will also discuss how modern web services and tools can contribute to this process.
Barbie vs Oppenheimer: A Single Source of Truth is Boring
The cinematic showdown between Barbie and Oppenheimer teaches us an important marketing lesson: great content alone won’t cut it. Both movies are loved and successful, but it’s been widely discussed that Barbie won the box office because those in charge of its brand and products knew when and how to engage their target audience. The same is true for a PLM implementation approach. It can be improved by engaging its future users and stakeholders with an educational approach.
Despite its intrinsic benefits, however, PLM concepts often fail to resonate with a broad audience. First, it triggers a headache to wrap your head around the concept of a lifecycle—let alone what to do about it. As a result, PLM is complex even before any other product data management concepts are added to the mix. So, people will have a tough time articulating and understanding its business benefits and how it can streamline processes and product development.
The PLM discipline is hard. It includes process management, product lifecycles, qualify management, project management and many other disciplines mixed into one. There are also not many places where you can learn PLM as a discipline. Nonetheless people need to understand its importance and learn how to bring themselves, and others, up to speed about PLM software, document management, supply chain management and PLM systems.
As an additional challenge, businesses are diverse with unique needs and objectives. Insisting on a uniform approach can also result in a lack of enthusiasm and engagement from stakeholders. It’s essential to recognize and celebrate these differences, rather than attempting to suppress them beneath a single system, UI or workflow.
Overcoming Document and Excel Culture
In my interactions with modern businesses, I’ve observed a deep-rooted reliance on documents and Excel. These tools, due to their versatility and familiarity, are often at the core of many operational tasks. To ask employees to abandon these in favor of a ‘superior’ system can not only breed resistance but also lead to reduced productivity during transition phases.
The trick is to inform those using these documents how a modern PLM system can improve their daily work. So, to avoid the clash with existing document paradigms and spreadsheet culture use these talking points:
- Don’t speak about user experience adoption. A more effective approach would be to bring a familiar user experience and integrate it into the PLM offering. This produces a seamless blend of the old and new. Documents and spreadsheets are two of the most familiar user experiences that have existed in the computing industry for the last 50 years. Meanwhile, most PLM systems look like complex database browsers. Instead of replacing Excel sheets and files, adopt a familiar user experience and bring hidden database services into the mix to gain adoption.
- Mix the old with the new. Change is hard. Therefore switching everyone to a new way of doing things might be too painful for an organization. Instead, modern PLM software tools can seamlessly import and export capabilities and data from familiar documents. By doing so, introducing new approaches will be gradual and won’t be as painful.
- Facilitate processes. Every organization is defined by its processes. By molding PLM to reflect and enhance these processes, the transition becomes smoother. Employees will also appreciate the tangible benefits to their day-to-day tasks.
You are also likely to encounter experts in their specific roles within an organization. These individuals can often be the most steadfast to their current way of doing things. The way to win these individuals over is to speak about specific benefits to their specific tasks. Here are examples of PLM processes that can be beneficial to some of those expert audiences:
- Design for manufacturing and new product development. In many industries, a gap exists between design and manufacturing. PLM can align the design process directly with manufacturing, ensuring smoother workflows and a product that truly mirrors design.
- Sourcing, procurement and supply chain. You need to purchase components (both off the shelf and custom) to make products. Modern supply chains are complex beasts that often span continents. PLM has the potential to streamline the process by making data available and facilitating real-time communication and using data analytics. This ensures that all stakeholders, regardless of their location, are in the loop.
- Costing and compliance. In today’s global market, compliance is more critical than ever. An effective PLM system can streamline compliance adherence while providing tools to accurately estimate and control costs at every stage of the lifecycle.
- Impact analysis and change management. Making a change requires deep understanding of what impact it will make on existing products, customers and businesses. With a proactive PLM approach businesses can anticipate the ramifications of any alterations, enabling them to strategize effectively and improving the effectiveness of decision making.
Expressing the strategy to transform an organization from focusing on product and applications to one that focuses on data can also create a strong movement towards openness and interoperability in PLM implementations. Consider the shift towards global web applications and true multi-tenant SaaS services. Nobody cares how many times these vendors are rebuilding the software—if they provide continuous data support. This means that vendors and users can continue to use the tools they build around the offering without worrying about starting over again during the vendor’s next software update. Rather than perceiving data, tools and applications as clashing and conflicting with each other, PLM can offer a data-driven strategy that can unveil a plethora of innovative possibilities.
Moving to Bespoke Collaborative Services
Static software solutions are a thing of the past. Today, businesses thrive on tailored services that can be orchestrated together to perform specific tasks. This is how you can provide a specific user experience for people and bring workflows together. Here are a few benefits that this setup can mean for PLM users:
- Design service. Collaborative design tools can foster creativity and cohesion among teams working in a connected way and sharing design data.
- Planning. New product development requires quickly moving from design to production, building prototypes and making procurement. Tools that can connect both engineering and design with project management, production planning and procurement are extremely beneficial to help customers to build products faster with accurate data.
- Collaborative Services. Allowing people to share data, communicate and iterate together can provide a significant improvement.
Agile PLM Implementations
New agile methods are coming to product development and companies are examining how to implement these methods to replace old “waterfall processes”. For the last two decades, however, these agile methods have become the norm in software development practices. Especially when combined with cloud and continuous integration (CI), these product development processes create a huge competitive differentiation for these organizations and improve the way technology products can be developed and delivered to customers
By adapting the agile process, I’ve come up with a 6-step process management best practice that can help manage PLM implementations. The foundation of this approach is a sprint-based (phased) approach. Based on my experiences, fast iteration combined with these best practices gives a great outcome.
This circular approach to PLM implementation means continuous iteration, feedback and adaptation. Dive deeper into this agile framework and you’ll understand the strategies that ensure smooth and efficient implementations.
Engagement and AI
The transformative potential of AI is undeniable. When integrated into PLM systems, AI can tailor experiences, offering smart recommendations and automating mundane tasks. Such a system, responsive and intuitive, can boost engagement as users find their tasks simplified and value-driven.
We are still in the very early stages of introducing AI to PLM systems, but these changes will be stronger over time. Integrating AI with PLM offers more than just content generation and summary. It can predict trends, identify inefficiencies and recommend potential innovations.
The Potential of PLM
PLM’s real potential lies beyond slamming a single database in the middle of an organization’s processes and forcing everyone to make a change. This was maybe a good idea 20 years ago, where companies had no real way to access siloed information and were forced to print paper between departments.
But modern PLM offers a strategy and set of services that should adapt and evolve with an organization, enhancing processes and meeting distinct needs. Adopting known user experience and pattern and avoiding clashes with people can help to transform an organization rather than ‘break it overnight.’
By prioritizing people and processes over data centralization, engineers can unlock the true power of PLM.
