Time to manage complexity

As manufacturers recover, accepting that IT complexity is here to stay – and managing it accordingly – is essential to success. So says IDC Manufacturing Insights in a language common among analysts seeking to extract a measure of gravitas from the bleeding obvious. And the firm goes on to cite a recent survey of CEOs, conducted by IBM, which evidently reveals that the top issue for executives in 2011 is indeed complexity. While that is no great surprise to anyone involved with managing manufacturing IT, IDC believes the tone has changed. Rather than talking in terms of reducing complexity, CEOs now talk about harnessing it. Hence IDC's focus on 'capitalising on complexity', which seeks to make a virtue out of what most might regard as a necessity. Bob Parker, group VP of research for IDC, suggests that manufacturers should be launching initiatives to "better deal with complexity for competitive advantage". And for him, everything from managing complex supply chains to improving product lifecycle management (PLM) is fair game. Can't argue with that – except to note that tools capable of handling even the most complex and volatile of supply chains have been around for years, in the form of increasingly accessible EDI and web-based trading systems and services. But what about PLM, widely predicted to be the answer to managing complexity on the engineering side? Despite more than a decade of development, PLM remains primarily the preserve of global corporates in big-ticket industries, such as automotive, and aerospace and defence, where the barriers to change are no match for the promise of collaborative engineering and cost cutting. Recent examples include European satellite designer and manufacturer Thales Alenia Space, which deployed Dassault Systèmes' PLM software, and super yacht design firm John Shuttleworth, which chose Siemens NX with Majenta PLM to link everything from conceptual design to modelling and product visualisation. Will SMEs ever be able to take advantage, and make their engineering complexity dance and sing? PTC is claiming a breakthrough, with general availability of its Creo apps, which, it says, "enable enterprise wide participation in the product design process, unlocking a new potential for teamwork, efficiency and value". We'll see.