PDM/PLM systems to converge with ERP systems in “two to three years”

Product data management (PDM) and product lifecycle management (PLM) systems are not – and should not be – seen as solutions to engineering development and production problems by manufacturing end users. They are simply the best that IT has been able to offer so far. What users really need, if not want, are fundamentally collaborative and integrated systems that embrace everything from materials sourcing, to product development, engineering change control, production development and management, right out to supply chain management. And that’s what’s coming next. So says Stéphane Declée, vice president R&D at Dassault Systemes, one of the principal architects of Dassault’s engineering PLM and product visualisation strategy for the last decade. He makes the point that the requirement is particularly acute in the high tech and electronics industries where change at all levels is an everyday fact of life. But there’s little doubt that if and when IT fulfilment comes, any ‘requirement’ will spread as the benefits of such connection are realised and percolate across people and industries. Declée believes the next two or three years will witness a convergence of ‘pure’ systems like ERP, CRM (customer relationship management), SCM (supply chain management) and PLM as the power and importance of physical and functional connection, web-based or not, are realised. “Existing applications will either disappear or change dramatically,” he insists. “[Users] need to extend all their internal processes and do that externally as well – and make that seamless. “Most companies are still in the Stone Age when it comes to manufacturing production systems, for example. There’s a major bottleneck on cycle time and cost reduction: they don’t have the technology to help them design production systems as part of new product development. “Factory simulation is part of it, but it’s more than that: design of the production system, all the operations, the facilities, the line balancing, the replenishment, and monitoring impact analysis when they make changes – all in one system.” Clearly, he’s describing the holy grail of integrated engineering/manufacturing business systems – and just as clearly it sounds far fetched. The scope is no more enormous than the complexity, and there’s the small issue of existing cultures and legacy systems – we are managing all this somehow right now, even if with Stone Age tools. Nevertheless, the IBM and Dassault Systemes axis is better placed than most to turn vision into reality. Consider the scope of its systems. In engineering, there’s the flagship Catia, Enovia PLM, Smarteam collaborative product development and data management and Delmia product and factory visualisation and simulation systems. And in manufacturing business and supply chain, there’s the giant IBM Global Services’ practices, with its fingers in just about all the IT pies and providers, from SAP to Manugistics and i2. Declée’s timetable for convergence sounds optimistic, but with this range of capabilities under IBM’s belt and a sales and consulting force to match, at least incremental moves in the direction sound reasonable. For users big and small – but especially big, where current complexity, likely benefits and wallet size look right – it will mean some rethinking. What will hold organisations back will be, as much as anything, the aspects of business culture. Remember how long it took PDM systems to gain any kind of acceptance – and the hugely pioneering and very long term work done in the aerospace sector with PDM implementations. Declée: “Remember, these organisations all have different leaderships on the engineering, manufacturing and business sides – so it will mean new ways of doing business as well.” But this is the next step: as he says, with ‘vertical’ ERP integration done, and similar but independent ‘vertical’ integration being done on the engineering side, the next step will be what he terms “horizontal optimisation”.