Second European PLM summit indicates gathering business momentum

Those are among top line observations from the second annual European PLM Summit, in its final day today at the Excel Centre, Docklands London. When analyst Garnter research director Marc Halpern, in his keynote address yesterday, asked the 300-plus delegates how many were getting value – having already established that around three quarters of them either had or were implementing PLM system – just two raised their hands. Yet a substantial audience had come and paid over £1,200 each for the privilege; and they were mostly senior people in manufacturing and engineering companies (including CEOs and CIOs). So had 20 exhibitors, and not just the obvious names in PLM, but also SAP, Oracle, Adobe, Infosys, Vistagy and others that clearly sense the PLM bandwagon finally on the move. What’s more, when questioned individually, the majority of delegates confirmed that business-wide PLM systems – and the disciplines, standardisation, efficiencies, cost-cutting, speed and additional revenue opportunities they enable – are seen as critical for the future of their manufacturing businesses’ future. The most common stumbling blocks are: grappling with the enormity of the PLM task (particularly in terms of re-engineering inter-departmental, inter-site, inter-partner and inter supply chain business processes to get the improvements); and going through the consultation, people and role issues, workflow and the rest while existing manufacturing business has to carry on. JCB, for example, is now 18 months into a two-year PLM project with UGS PLM software – and facing the reality that its project and allocated resources will have to be substantially extended if it’s to achieve what it knows can, and indeed must, if its to get its design communities, global manufacturing operations and product portfolios synchronised and more competitive. Halpern told his audience that they have to do this, and that it’s more important today than ever – not least because PLM systems and disciplines can give organisations the financial clarity around their products that ERP, SCM and CRM systems simply can’t. And that is fundamental to better decision-making – and not just for bringing the right products to market faster and more cost-effectively with all the right collaboration, communication and model sharing tools. It’s also about improving departmental, partner and supply chain support, better opportunities for re-use and sensible rationalisation, reducing risk and obsolescence, and improving schedules, traceability and compliance with RoHS, WEEE and so forth. Halpern says he still sees gaps in functionality and scope in what PLM vendors are bringing to market, and adds that the best of breed versus ERP provider argument remains as it was two years ago. But he also believes that those gaps are reducing, and that PLM is now mature. That’s not why existing PLM users aren’t all shouting about their successes. Halpern reckons the problem is inadequate ‘information’ (not just data) sharing between PLM systems and their ERP counterparts running the lifeblood of today’s big manufacturers. For him, that’s key to getting the real world engineering context into the central nervous system of businesses. “It’s good, for example, to get CRM and ERP information into the engineering infrastructure so they can understand service calls and the implications of inventory. Federated product data across the different applications is a very valuable opportunity,” he says. And that’s quite apart from the primary PLM benefits of root cause analysis, design for manufacturability and serviceability, visualisation, one version of the truth and so on. Detlef Bielohlawek, chief engineer, IS&S Product Development at GM Europe in Germany demonstrated just how much can be achieved, and with what scope, by rattling through 10 years of PLM endeavour at GM. No organisation with 28,000 CAD seats and 12 main engineering centres plus 11 design centres around the world can have found PLM more challenging. But Bielohlawek left delegates in no doubt: nothing short of GM’s future success is down to the opportunities and economies its global PLM project is enabling. But it’s taken the best part of eight years to get there, and taken a global IT reorganisation founded on UGS Teamcenter PLM software. “We have rebuilt and transformed our systems, reinvented ourselves – and we have enabled all this with one PLM system and one CAD system,” he said. And he added: “Business is changing all the time, and having one common system is making it possible to change too.” As are the facts of dedicated global process managers in GM, with overall responsibility and visibility (through the new systems) to steer its world-wide engineering matrix, thus enabling standardisation and cost reductions that Bielohlawek says are targeted at 25%. “GM is investing in PLM; we’re adding functionality and will have one global process owner all over the world. That’s good for re-use, and we’ll support it with a single engineering BoM enabling faster, better business by eliminating duplicated work.” And he indicates colossal savings – financial, time, effort, prototypes, you name it. For GM, its major PLM means all the dreams become workable reality: all designers around the world working virtually together as if under one roof; optimised technologies, standards, real time visualisation, everything synced up 10,000 times per day and digital mockup with its tentacles going out to include logistics and after sales service. And all that is on what he terms “out of the box UGS Teamcenter”, although it has to be said that a company the size of GM is more than capable of leaning on its suppliers to materially effect what precisely is in that box! Summing up in classic Germanic form, he said: “Math is the master; the digital world is real; supplier collaboration is key; and PLM is the future.”