PLM Interest Group : PLM User Forum Mind Power

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PLM User Forum

How to Multiply PLM Expertise

Every PLM implementation has a PLM team to manage it - the task is far too great for one individual. The intellectual power applied to the task is therefore equal to the collective mental capability of the team. This can be augmented by the addition of external input from vendors or consultancies (increasing the intellectual resource); facilitated by proven tools and methods (increasing its effectiveness); and enhanced by contact with peers from other companies (reducing its weaknesses).

The body of experience within any given PLM implementation is therefore a kind of summation, or aggregate, of the expertise of its contributors. But what if experience could be multiplied, rather than added? Some of the most difficult issues of PLM might finally be resolved.

To achieve this there must be some sort of mechanism that leverages many bodies of implementation experience and constructs something more advanced from them. It needs:-

collaboration, to create the initial pool of combined knowledge
standard working material, so that real comparisons can be made
iteration, so that results from each stage build on the stage before
continual payback in terms of benefits for the participants

The first step is to run meetings for PLM users which are detailed enough for the participants to work together in depth. The meetings will be part of a series in different world regions, and everyone involved will share the results. This immediately multiplies the return on everyone's time, because you attend one meeting and yet get the results of several. The continual payback is that as users build their own issues into the meetings, the solutions that are generated are directly applicable in their own implementations.

The next level is achieved because, with many experienced users working together, new tools and methods will arise which standardise much of the experience that PLM managers currently retain in their minds as expertise. This will create a common vocabulary and best practice approach that will streamline the implementation process for those who use it. More multiplication, and more payback.

The level after that is when the PLM industry as a whole changes. When a significant number of major user companies have implicitly standardised their views on best practice, and formalised such issues as PLM metrics and PLM maturity assessment, then vendors, consultancies, research organisations and other user companies can use this as a common reference point.

This does not mean that everyone needs to agree with the new knowledge - just that players in the PLM marketplace can use it as a reference point. Currently, no such neutral PLM reference point exists, so debate is either impossible or becomes polarised around specific features or vested interests. A comprehensive body of commonly-supported PLM material would allow vendors, for example, to say: "we don't agree with this because..."; or "our solutions are better than this because..."; just as well as they might say (preferably): "we agree with this and support it wholeheartedly".

And when the vendors and service providers finally have access to some safe common ground, it will allow them to do what they have been wanting to do for quite some time - to provide neutral and generic support that will help the PLM industry as a whole. This could range from support for targeted academic research to the launch of multi-company working groups to resolve complex issues that are currently re-invented within every implementation.

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