CIMdata 2012 PLM Market & Industry Forums: “The Whole Truth”

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Evolution is the name of the game in the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) market–evolution and acronyms, of course. Have you been around long enough to remember Team Data Management (TDM), Engineering Data Management (EDM), and Collaborative Product Commerce (CPC)? While the names have changed, many of the goals have not. One major goal has always been to manage all of the data necessary to define products. That then expanded to include data to define and manufacture products, and then additionally to service products, and then to manage products at end-of-life, and so on.

Product complexity contributes to this data explosion. Managing data for products with mostly mechanical components was a complex problem within a single organization. The desire to collaborate with suppliers increased the amount of data, and made intellectual property concerns paramount. Adding electrical, and then electronic, components made things even more interesting. Now, with software components enabling the functionality of many products across multiple industries, configuration and data management concerns drop down to individual lines of code.

This is the motivation behind this year’s theme, “The Whole Truth,” which has its roots in both jurisprudence and marketing, two disciplines with seemingly little in common. In the United States, when people testify in court, they are asked to provide the “truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” The word truth also appears in the marketing positioning for many suppliers in this market, who offer solutions that will empower companies with a “single source of truth.”

Our sessions in this Forum will look at different aspects of truth management, and we will do it from a different perspective: CIMdata’s evolution through 2011. In May 2011, CIMdata acquired Collaborative Product Development Associates, LLC (CPDA), an organization well known for their collaborative research programs that look deeply into technology and business process issues in the PLM space. CIMdata’s 2012 PLM Market & Industry Forum will be the first to include this collaborative research on the agenda. For example, one area of significant PLM market growth over the last several years is in simulation and analysis (S&A). Historically, S&A was used more to validate designs after they were mostly complete. But moving S&A tasks earlier in the design cycle and embedding them into other design tools bring significant benefits. Today, some are asking whether computer-aided design should drive analysis, or if analysis should drive design.

Products in many industries get increasingly more of their functionality from their embedded software content. Today’s automobiles have hundreds of embedded processors and gigabytes of software. For many products, the software is the solution. This session will explore issues that result from this change, for both solution providers and the end-user companies they serve. This drive toward mechatronic systems has raised the profile of systems engineering, once focused mainly on aerospace and defense applications. Now companies in many industries have to look at systems issues in product development, deployment, and maintenance. This involves more disciplines in the development process, bringing more data and more truth that has to be managed over the product lifecycle.

Much of the development of the PLM market over the last decade has been in mechanically focused product development. At the same time, companies in the process industry have quietly been implementing PLM solutions focused on recipe and formulation development/management, mostly from smaller companies whose customer lists include some of the largest consumer packaged goods, cosmetics, and food and beverage enterprises. Through organic development and acquisitions, the PLM mindshare leaders are now offering both mechanical and process-focused PLM solutions, expanding the PLM truth in yet another direction. But while both capabilities are offered, they are often not truly integrated to support simultaneous mechanical/process PLM development. During this Forum, we will explore the appropriate level of integration between these two facets of product development.

Finally, companies are expanding their universe of contributors to the product development process to include end consumers, mainly enabled using social computing technologies. Most of the PLM mindshare leaders employ different aspects of social computing in their core solutions or have started to offer social computing solutions (or both). This will further expand the sources and uses of data from the broader range of constituents to be involved in the product development process.

There is one final aspect of evolution with respect to this event. For 2012, we chose to rebrand this long-time event, changing the name from the CIMdata PLM Vendor Forum to the CIMdata PLM Market & Industry Forum, to more closely reflect its content and the position CIMdata takes in the “PLM Economy.” The session focuses on market results and the issues facing the PLM economy for all suppliers in the market: PLM solution providers, systems integrators, value-added resellers, and others who make their livelihood helping end-users succeed in their PLM journey. CIMdata’s 2012 PLM Market & Industry Forum will provide insights on the current economic climate and trends, and their effect on the PLM economy. We will discuss the issues highlighted above and changes in how CIMdata is transforming to better serve its clients. CIMdata’s perspective on the state and trends of the current and future PLM market will be presented in detail, as well as providing our first public exposure to CIMdata’s analysis of 2011’s PLM market results–including our extensive analysis and forecasts regarding market growth across PLM domains, industries, and regions, and the performance (revenue and market-share analysis) of leading PLM solution providers. Over the last several years, CIMdata has greatly expanded coverage of a number of PLM domains, including tools, simulation and analysis, and digital manufacturing, making these sessions more valuable to a broader range of solution providers. CIMdata views these sessions as an opportunity to learn more about solution supplier requirements to optimize such coverage expansion to meet PLM Community needs.

New for 2012 is CIMdata’s Fall PLM Market & Industry Forum, a half-day event set for October. The Fall CIMdata PLM Market & Industry Forum will offer professionals from PLM solution providers information on insights and trends in the market from CIMdata’s industrial consulting engagements. This includes feedback from the field about current and planned implementations, and best practices from some of our leading industrial clients. The Fall Forum will also provide a preview of CIMdata’s Collaborative Research Programs for 2012 from our Research Practice Managers.

Participants in CIMdata’s PLM Market & Industry Forum should expect to gain a solid understanding of the current PLM market situation and the dynamics impacting it, and develop realistic expectations for its continued evolution. Attendees will gain further insights into opportunities they can exploit and approaches they can use to navigate the PLM market environment in the year to come. This session also provides the chance to network with other professionals in the PLM Community, including competitors, collaborators, and potential partners.

Forum attendance is open to all PLM solution providers.

CIMdata 2012 PLM Market & Industry Forums Dates & Locations

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Spring Forum

North America
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Kensington Court
610 Hilton Boulevard, Ann Arbor, MI 48108, USA

Europe
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Heidelberg Marriott Hotel
Vangerowstrasse 16, Heidelberg 69115 GERMANY

China (For information call +1 734-668-9922)
Friday, April 20, 2012
Hotel Shanghai Marriott Hotel Luwan
Shanghai, CHINA

Japan (For information call +81 47-361-5850)
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Myojin Kaikan
Sotokanda 2-16-2, Chiyoda-Ku, Tokyo, JAPAN

Fall Forum

North America (For information call +1 734-668-9922)
Monday, October 1, 2012
The Inn at St. John’s
44045 Five Mile Road, Plymouth, MI 48170, USA