Blog

In today’s rapidly changing and highly competitive global market, innovation of some type—product and/or process (e.g., how the product or service is defined, delivered, and/or supported)—must be a fundamental element of an organization’s ethos. But as most companies painfully find out, innovation doesn’t just happen without a culture that encourages and nurtures idea generation. Idea generation, or ideation, is the essence of creativity and in fact, it is has been the fundamental rationale of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and the end-to-end lifecycle management it supports from the beginning—for 21st century enterprises, it is not optional. A far-reaching shift is underway in end-to-end lifecycle management, which increasingly is about sustaining the extended enterprise and not just enabling better, faster, and cheaper products. This shift is rapidly forcing PLM to be an enterprise business process enabling a platform focused on innovation—one that connects product data, people, and processes from an end-to-end and highly

Businesses grow through partnerships. Whether you partner internally within your firm or externally to initiate a new business, source innovative ideas and technology, or create new channels for your products and services, a common goal is joint value creation. While many partnerships start with a big vision and goals, many fail due to conflicts among the participants. There is an immense amount of research and a large number of publications on the topic of what makes or breaks a partnership. Not surprisingly, essential success factors are the basic elements of human relationship building: trust, mutual respect, shared vision and values, and open and honest communication. While conceptually this is easy to understand, it is hard to achieve. Planning and the adoption of best practices with a system view of innovation, i.e., Management, Organization, People, Process, and Culture, helps: Management: A passionate top management sponsor with a vision about the possibilities to

For innovation to succeed, we must first consider the human factor: our consumers, employees, and partners. Each of these stakeholders will have a different role and interest for collaborating with us on innovation. Understanding and satisfying their needs will take time and effort, but when done well, the return on investment is significant. In a series of blogs I will talk about each of these key innovation stakeholders. Who is your consumer? And why should she care? Defining and winning with our target consumers should be our first priority. It is a simple logic: The more consumers choose our products and services among the many choices available, the better our business outcomes will be. Therefore, we must start our innovation initiative by defining our target consumer, and learn to understand her at an emotional level, i.e., her hopes, dreams, and aspirations. This kind of understanding led Procter & Gamble’s “Pampers” business to

CIMdata consults with many end-user clients on their PLM and simulation strategies which, of course, turn out to be all about data management and process. In spite of clients having spent millions of dollars on solutions, it is incredible that when we bore down with the question about "How does collaboration and data sharing really happen?" the clients invariably get this sheepish look, stare down at their shoes, and mumble "shared drive." It is amazing how much organizations rely on local network shared drives, and how out of control they are.  I am reminded of "The Tragedy of the Commons," which is about how shared resources can be exploited and destroyed for perceived individual benefit at the expense of the common good1. I am surprised that there seems to be no available solution to what I call "The Shared Drive Problem." A decade ago (at GM) I wrote my requirements for a Simulation

“What’s next?” This is a question often asked in the PLM market but seldom fully understood without looking at what has already happened (i.e., letting the past predict the future). Fortunately, there are a multitude of signs that indicate significant growth well into the foreseeable future. But what do these signs tell us? What will the PLM solutions of the future look like? What solution characteristics are industrial companies looking for? What functionality do they need? What type of business solutions are really required to be successful? In general, today’s signs point to the ongoing evolution of PLM. What it is…what it looks like…how it supports a company…all of this is progressing and evolving fairly rapidly. In this ongoing evolution as a business strategy, PLM is approaching, and in some cases already achieving, the status of a business platform. PLM has always been a core enabler for innovation as part of

As you crawl out of bed for the first time in 2015, I am sure the first question you are asking yourself is, “why does my head hurt so much?” The second question you might ask yourself is, “what’s in store for PLM in 2015?” There are many exciting technologies that will impact PLM this year. 2015 should be an exciting year for any business that embraces the goals of innovation and efficiency. In this blog post I want to highlight several key technologies that everyone should target in 2015 for a potential place in their business. The Cloud The number of companies that are moving to PLM on the cloud has grown in 2014. There are many options for those that want to try cloud technologies for some part of their business. There are also solid cloud-based PLM solutions for those that are thinking of moving a significant part of their PLM

Recently, Joe Cocker passed away. If you don’t know, he was an iconic front-man for several rock groups in the 70's, and he sang with a unique style. He was best known for singing many covers of other people’s songs including the Beatles. Probably one of his best known covers was of the Beatle's song "With a Little Help from My Friends". I am thinking about PLM and ERP today, and wondering why they can't be better friends. PLM and ERP are both part of most major manufacturing companies. But, their relationship can often be rocky. Both are needed to create innovative, high quality products that delight customers. But, how they are deployed across the company is often a hotly contested topic. I wrote a blog in 2013 titled: PLM and ERP: Can't We All Just Get Along? In this blog I talked about the often rancorous relationship that PLM and ERP