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2026 PLM Road Map & PDT EMEA Proceedings
PLM Road Map & PDT EMEA 2026 | Gothenburg, Sweden | 4-5 November 2026
Conference Proceedings
AI in PLM: A Disruptive Opportunity and Challenge
Turning AI disruption into enterprise value: Strategic insights for the PLM professional
Day 1 - 4 November
- 07:30 – 08:30 | Registration & Continental Breakfast in the Collaboration Café
- 08:30 - 08:40 | Welcome
Peter Bilello, President & CEO, CIMdata & Håkan Kårdén, CEO, HKAB - 08:40 – 09:20 | Opening Presentation: AI in PLM: Beyond all the Hype
Peter Bilello, President & CEO, CIMdata [Bio] [Presentation]
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been present in the PLM market for years, but the impact of newer generative AI or yet-to-be-defined applications of AI remains unclear. While practical benefits exist, companies are still working to understand, integrate, and optimize AI. CIMdata expects AI in PLM to bring both challenges and opportunities, with the potential for significant, disruptive gains if managed well. Big data within PLM, for example, can now be used to develop new AI applications that deliver actionable insights. However, like most emerging technologies, AI is often hyped before its real value is proven. The task for PLM professionals is to turn AI’s disruptive power into enterprise value. So, where are we today with AI’s support for PLM? Has AI’s enablement of PLM reached its tipping point? What is available and what is potentially next? The emergence of these topics in the context of the product lifecycle will be presented. - 09:20 – 10:00 | Keynote: Strategic PLM Implementation – How to Avoid the Typical Ten Mistakes
Professor Dr. Martin Eigner, Founder, Eigner Consult [Bio] [Presentation]
The presentation outlines the strategic imperatives for successful Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) implementation, emphasizing that project failure is rarely due to software limitations but rather to a lack of strategic alignment and organizational readiness. PLM is not merely an IT tool; it is a fundamental business transformation. To avoid the common pitfalls of "digitizing chaos" and budget overruns, leadership must pivot from a technology-centric view to a process-driven strategy. The value of PLM is realized through eliminating media breaks and creating a "Single Source of Truth" alongside other legacy Systems across the Product Lifecycle (CRM, ALM, ERP, MES, SCM). Management must prioritize cultural change, acceptance management, and process integration over technical features to ensure a sustainable competitive advantage. - 10:00 – 10:20 | Sponsor Thought-Leadership Vignettes
Configit [Presentation]
Prostep [Presentation] - 10:20 – 10:25 | Key Takeaways: What You Need to Know
- 10:25 – 10:55 | Networking Break & Collaboration Café
- 10:55 – 11:25 | Strategy Is Not the Problem: Why Digital Transformation Fails in Execution
Rui Feio, MBA Candidate, Nyenrode Business University [Bio] [Presentation]
Industrial firms do not lack digital ambition. Most already have strategies, roadmaps, and transformation programs in place. Yet digital transformation still lives mostly in PowerPoints, not on the shop floor. The uncomfortable question is not whether companies understand the promise of digitalization, but whether they can operationalize it. This presentation argues that the real barrier to transformation is not technology maturity, and not even strategy formulation, but the persistent inability to translate strategic intent into coordinated operational change across the enterprise. Drawing on field research and interviews with practitioners from large manufacturing firms in Europe, this presentation identifies recurring execution themes and patterns across reported challenges, such as leadership spending months shaping strategy but relying on a single town hall to drive organizational understanding. Through the interviewees' lens, this session challenges the audience to look beyond the hype and confront a simpler reality. Before scaling new technologies, companies must first learn how to translate strategy into day-to-day operations consistently. The presentation offers a practical, enterprise-focused perspective, with real-life examples of what has worked and what hasn’t, such as implementing governance layers across business and IT, Enterprise Architecture roles, and Operating Model frameworks. - 11:25 – 11:55 | Key Findings in the Arrowhead fPVN Project – A Knowledge Graph-Based Digital Twin for Semantic Lifecycle Interoperability
Torbjorn Holm, CEO, Torbjorn B Holm Konsult AB [Bio] [Presentation]
One use case in the Arrowhead fPVN project demonstrates a Knowledge Graph-based Digital Twin that enables semantic interoperability across engineering, enterprise, and operational systems throughout the asset lifecycle. Rather than introducing new standards, the solution reuses established industrial standards—including DEXPI, STEP Core, CFIHOS, and the Arrowhead Framework Ontology (AFO)—and transforms them into interoperable OWL 2 DL ontologies aligned through the IDO Upper Ontology. The use case builds on Arrowhead microservices, semantic technologies, and federated Knowledge Graphs to create a shared semantic knowledge layer that supports Digital Twins, AI-assisted engineering, and future industrial applications without replacing existing business systems such as ERP and engineering tools. The presentation illustrates how limited semantic alignments between industrial standards can deliver significant interoperability benefits while preserving existing investments in engineering information, enterprise systems, and operational technology. It also demonstrates how a Knowledge Graph-based Digital Twin can serve as the foundation for future AI-driven engineering, maintenance, and lifecycle management. - 11:55 – 12:15 | Sponsor Thought-Leadership Vignettes
CONTACT [Presentation]
AMC Bridge [Presentation] - 12:15 – 12:45 | AI in PLM – Balancing Innovation with Stable Enterprise Architecture
Peter Vind, Enterprise Architect, Siemens Energy [Bio] [Presentation]
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming part of Product Lifecycle Management solutions, introducing capabilities such as assistants, generative AI, and advanced data insights. This presentation explains how Enterprise Architecture and the Business Capability Model provide a stable foundation for introducing AI in a controlled and scalable way. The focus is not only on AI use cases, but on the architectural building blocks required to make them work in practice. The session will highlight core components such as AI platforms and services, data foundations, security, AI Governance, monitoring, error handling, and cost control (FinOps), as well as emerging patterns like multi-component architectures and cross-system integration. Participants will learn how Siemens Energy introduces AI in a way that supports innovation while ensuring reliability, governance, and long-term sustainability. - 12:45 – 12:50 | Key Takeaways: What You Need to Know
- 12:50 - 14:00 | Networking Lunch & Collaboration Café
- 14:00 – 14:40 | KEYNOTE: Digital Threads for Digital Agents & Collaboration: Connecting ALM, Mechanics, E/E, Software and Production
Markus Zimmermann, Business Project Lead Agile PLM & MBD, Rolls-Royce Power Systems [Bio] [Presentation]
Software-defined products are reshaping engineering across the automotive, aerospace, and off-highway industries. This transformation exposes fundamental shortcomings in today’s document-centric and siloed ALM, PLM, and ERP landscapes—especially in meeting growing demands for lifecycle traceability, regulatory compliance, sustainability, and cross-company collaboration. Addressing these challenges requires new technical architectures and measurable organizational change. This presentation outlines how Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG is establishing an end-to-end Digital Thread through a staged, adoption-focused approach. The technical foundation is built on Model-Based Definition using Digital Data Packages to preserve engineering semantics across formats, domains, and supply-chain boundaries. The scope expands to include Requirements Engineering and Model-Based Systems Engineering, enabling consistent cross-domain traceability from requirements to realization. Trusted collaboration across organizational boundaries will be achieved through Asset Administration Shells deployed on a GAIA-X infrastructure. Equally important, the Digital Thread is embedded through a structured Organizational Change Management framework. By combining clear change storytelling, role-specific value propositions, targeted enablement, and adoption KPIs, the approach focuses on real behavior change rather than tool deployment alone. By integrating semantic data structures with organizational change mechanisms, Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG establishes a lifecycle-spanning Digital Thread that accelerates development, improves transparency, and provides a robust foundation for future digital value creation. - 14:40 - 15:10 | Achieving Digital Integration for Post-Delivery Operations: Harmonizing PLM Requirements for In-Service Aircraft Support & Services
Marcellin Dagicour, Senior Expert Configuration Management, Airbus [Bio] & Robert Birch, Chief of Digital – Engineering for Services, Rolls-Royce, [Bio] Both presenting for the AD PAG [Presentation]
While aerospace PLM solutions are mature for design and manufacturing, a significant digital gap exists during the in-service phase. Current out-of-the-box architectures are optimized only for line-fit production. Consequently, downstream activities like technical publications, parts catalogs, and interchangeability rules rely on fragmented systems and manual workarounds to maintain continuous airworthiness. Furthermore, post-delivery modifications and retrofit engineering cause a configuration explosion that increases costs. To solve these industry-wide limitations, a working group called “PLM for In-Service“ was launched by the Aerospace & Defense PLM Action Group. This presentation delivers the group's first synthesis, aligning the common positions, shared pain points, and core use cases identified by major aerospace design organizations. By analyzing the critical integration boundaries between the Engineering BOM, Manufacturing BOM, and a true Service BOM (SBOM), we explain how the industry is establishing a unified voice. Ultimately, this group aims to cascade harmonized functional requirements to vendors, steering the market toward robust, standard in-service capabilities. - 15:10 - 15:30 | Sponsor Thought-Leadership Vignettes
PTC [Presentation]
Share PLM [Presentation] - 15:30 - 15:35 | Key Takeaways: What You Need to Know
15:35 - 16:00 | Networking Break & Collaboration Café- 16:00 - 16:30 | Digital Product Passport: From compliance to customer value
Johan Anderson, Global Strategy, SSAB [Bio] [Presentation]
Digital Product Passports (DPP) are being introduced as part of the European Union's Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), creating new requirements for how product information is managed, shared, and accessed throughout the value chain. As DPP requirements roll out across industries, organizations will need to prepare for new expectations around product transparency, traceability, and data exchange. This presentation will explore what Digital Product Passports mean for organizations across the steel value chain, including the regulatory landscape, expected timelines, and the emerging standards that will shape implementation. Drawing on SSAB's work with Digital Product Passports, the presentation will demonstrate how DPP can become more than a compliance exercise. By enabling greater transparency and collaboration across the value chain, DPP creates opportunities for new customer value and more connected ways of working. Moreover, this presentation will provide an overview of the expected implementation timeline between 2027 and 2030 and the key considerations for organizations preparing for upcoming requirements. - 16:30 - 17:00 | Why a Circular Economy in Manufacturing and How to Implement it Better through PLM and AI
Tomohiko Sakao, Circular Economy, Linköping University [Bio] [Presentation]
This presentation aims to inform practitioners interested in the circular economy (CE) of its benefits, how to implement a CE in manufacturing, and recommended actions for manufacturers and software solution providers. It will focus on PLM to support CE implementation. The talk will introduce reuse, repair, refurbish, and remanufacture (R activities) and environmental and economic assessments of R activities. It will then recommend five high-level guiding principles for a manufacturer’s implementation of R activities. It will also share potential contributions of PLM and AI to performing R activities efficiently. - 17:00 – 17:40 | KEYNOTE: From Circular Economy to Industrial Strategy: Building Europe’s Resource Sovereignty
Dr. Tom Voege, Policy Director of the PRO Circularity Alliance [Bio] [Presentation]
In an era of geopolitical instability, supply chain disruptions, and intensifying competition for critical materials, the circular economy can no longer be viewed solely as an environmental agenda. It has become an essential pillar of Europe’s industrial strategy. This keynote presentation explores how strengthening Europe’s competitiveness requires bringing more of the circular value chain back to the continent, spanning product design and manufacturing through collection, sorting, repair, reuse, and recycling. As a resource-poor but highly innovative region, Europe must retain the value embedded in materials already circulating within its economy, reducing strategic dependencies while enhancing resilience and economic security. Achieving this vision will require both greater European autonomy and stronger alliances with like-minded partners. We will examine the critical role of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) systems and Producer Responsibility Organisations (PROs) as the interface between end-of-life products and secondary raw materials, enabling resources to flow efficiently across the EU Single Market. Finally, we will explore how digitalization, particularly through Digital Product Passports (DPPs), can unlock unprecedented transparency, traceability, and efficiency throughout circular value chains, helping transform waste into a strategic resource for Europe’s future prosperity. - 17:40 - 17:45 | Day 1 wrap up and looking forward to Day 2
17:45 - 18:45 | Cocktail Reception followed by optional dinner (check your registration for details)
Day 2 - 5 November
- 07:30 – 08:00 | Registration & Continental Breakfast in the Collaboration Café
- 08:00 – 08:05 | Welcome
Peter Bilello, President & CEO, CIMdata & Håkan Kårdén, CEO, HKAB - 08:05 – 08:45 | Keynote: Scaling Model-Based Definition: Driving Enterprise Adoption and Unlocking Cross-Engineering Value
Dennys E. B. Gomes, Senior Director and Head of Hardware Design, Vestas [Bio] [Presentation]
This presentation focuses on the practical scaling of MBD across a large engineering organization. Moving beyond initial implementation, the focus shifts to driving enterprise-wide adoption through disciplined CAD methodologies, robust design governance, and structured onboarding of engineers and suppliers. By mandating MBD for all new designs and Form-Fit-Function changes, the organization achieves a significant cultural and operational transformation. This enables consistent, high-quality Product Manufacturing Information (PMI), reduces manual CAD–FEA data transfer, and unlocks broader reuse of engineering data. The result is a scalable digital thread that extends MBD benefits beyond manufacturing into simulation and across the full value chain. - 08:45 – 09:05 | Sponsor Thought-Leadership Vignettes
Uncountable [Presentation]
Dassault Systemes [Presentation] - 09:05 – 09:35 a.m. | Ontology-based Data Governance and Enterprise Data Modelling: Standards, AI Readiness and Governance Processes for PLM Data Management, a "Data Town Plan" Approach
Dr. Mikkel Haggren Brynildsen, Chief Data Scientist, Grundfos Data & AI [Bio] [Presentation]
Enterprise data landscapes are increasingly complex, spanning product lifecycle management (PLM), IoT, CRM, and engineering domains, often with millions of product variants and continuously evolving data. In this context, traditional data management approaches struggle to deliver the semantic consistency, governance, and contextual richness required for advanced analytics and AI. This presentation discusses an ontology-based approach to enterprise data governance and data modeling, structured around a “Data Town Plan” (John Giles)—a high-level, business-centric conceptual model that serves as the enterprise's north-star data model. The Data Town Plan bridges conceptual modeling, Data Vault 2.0 patterns, and ontology-based knowledge graphs, enabling both historical data storage and semantic reasoning. This integration enables scalable logical validation, multi-hop relationship traversal, and traceable reasoning, supporting AI use cases that require up-to-date, contextualized knowledge rather than static datasets. - 09:35 a.m. – 09:55 | Sponsor Thought-Leadership Vignettes
TCS [Presentation]
Siemens Digital Industries Software [Presentation] - 09:55 – 10:00 | Key Takeaways: What You Need to Know
10:00 - 10:25 | Networking Break & Collaboration Café- 10:25– 10:55 | Transforming the Industrial System Lifecycle and Product Industrialization Across the Extended Aerospace & Defense Ecosystem
Dr. Rebeca Arista, Expert in Industrial Modelling and Simulation, Airbus for the AD PAG [Bio] [Presentation]
The Industrial System is the multi-level ecosystem for aerospace manufacturing, in which industrial engineering is treated as a core engineering discipline rather than an afterthought. Product industrialization is performed collaboratively with the product lifecycle to prepare and scale a product for systematic, large-scale manufacturing while ensuring quality, efficiency, and market readiness. Gaps in the Industrial System lifecycle, the first of which is that Industrial Engineering is not treated as a primary discipline, have historically caused operational inefficiencies, budget overruns, and program issues that extend far beyond the factory floor. Because Industrial System operational excellence relies on the entire extended Aerospace & Defense ecosystem, fixing these issues requires a holistic, end-to-end solution suitable for all Aerospace & Defense manufacturers. This presentation introduces the work of the A&D PLM Action Group’s Manufacturing Engineering for Collaborative Development working group. We will share the Problem Statement and Go-Forward plan as the starting point for a strategic roadmap, defining the unified processes, methods, tools, and standards required to achieve true Industrial System lifecycle integration. - 10:55 – 11:25 | AI Adoption in PLM: Results from CIMdata's Global Study of Industrial Companies and Solution Providers
Laurent Finck, Vice President EMEA, CIMdata [Bio] [Presentation]
CIMdata conducted what may be the first global benchmark study on AI in PLM, surveying industrial companies and solution providers on their AI adoption efforts. This presentation shares the results, covering how organizations are approaching AI in product development and engineering, where they are focusing their efforts, what early results look like, and what challenges they are encountering. Beyond presenting the data, the session offers CIMdata's commentary on the findings, highlighting interesting trends and patterns that emerged from the research. The presentation will give attendees a grounded, fact-based picture of where the industry stands with AI in PLM, helping them make more informed decisions about their own AI investments and priorities. - 11:25– 12:15 | Panel Discussion: AI and PLM: Synergies and Critical Dependencies
Moderated by Peter Bilello, President & CEO, CIMdata
This panel discussion will bring together industry leaders and the strategic consultants who advise them on AI and enterprise PLM strategy. Together, we’ll examine the symbiotic relationship between AI and PLM through the lens of those transforming strategy into reality. Questions will come from multiple sources, including submissions from early conference registrants. The discussion with experienced practitioners and thought leaders promises to deliver invaluable guidance to PLM professionals seeking to secure executive recognition that their PLM program is aligned with the enterprise AI strategy. - 12:15 – 12:20 | Key Takeaways: What You Need to Know
12:20 – 13:30 | Networking Lunch & Collaboration Café- 13:30 – 14:00 | Will Humans Remain Resources in an AI-dominated Society?
Jos Voskuil, Industry Expert, TacIT [Bio] [Presentation]
Agentic AI is poised to reshape business models, core infrastructure, and the nature of work, raising a critical question: what is the human role in an autonomous future? Since 2018, the shift from merely coordinated to truly connected enterprise operations has stalled—largely because of human factors. Agentic AI is removing some of these barriers, rendering traditional Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) architectures obsolete. This session explores this paradigm shift, diving into the end-to-end digital thread and the emergence of "product memory" as the new backbone of enterprise operations. - 14:00 - 14:30 | Transforming PLM Upgrade Cycles Through AI Driven Test Automation: A Real World Experience from a Complex PLM Landscape
Mahavir Rathi, Global IT Operating Manager, Test Automation, Keysight Technologies [Bio] & Sachin Gupta, PLM Transformation & Solution Delivery Manager, Keysight Technologies [Presentation]
Large industrial organizations often run highly customized, multifaceted PLM environments that have grown increasingly complex over many years. While these systems support essential functions such as Engineering BOM management, documentation, compliance, and change processes, their scale, configuration depth, and tight integrations with other boundary applications, such as ERP, MES, and other Engineering applications, make manual regression testing increasingly difficult. As a result, PLM upgrades frequently become lengthy, resource-intensive initiatives that slow the adoption of new capabilities and introduce significant operational risk. In the case presented, major PLM upgrades traditionally required up to twelve months, with testing activities consuming most of the overall effort. This trajectory began to shift in early 2024, when Keysight launched an internal Center of Excellence for AI-supported test automation to streamline mission-critical regression testing across its PLM systems. Early results indicate significant improvements in testing efficiency, greater resilience to UI changes, and the feasibility of shortening upgrade cycles that had previously been repeatedly delayed beyond the intended three-year cadence. This presentation shares practical lessons learned from introducing AI-driven test automation into a complex PLM landscape and offers concrete guidance on reducing upgrade risks, increasing release agility, and strengthening the digital thread across engineering and enterprise systems. - 14:30 – 14:35 | Key Takeaways: What You Need to Know
14:35 - 14:50 | Short Break & Collaboration Café- 14:50 – 15:20| Unlocking PLM Success: Proven Strategies for Scalable Transformation in a Complex Organization
Dr. Bjorn Wilhelmsson, Business Lead for Product Information Management, Alfa Laval [Bio] & Manish Madhavan, Product Manager for PLM & Product Design, Alfa Laval [Bio] [Presentation]
Are you ready to revolutionize your PLM journey? In this presentation, discover how to unlock real value from PLM with a clear roadmap, a practical operating model, and an implementation framework tailored for your organization. Learn the secrets behind scalable PLM templates and organizational setups, backed by insights from Alfa Laval’s decade-long PLM transformation. Avoid common pitfalls and accelerate your success—let’s make your PLM vision a reality! - 15:20 – 15:50 | Practical AI Transformation in Enterprise PLM
Jorgen Dahl, Senior Director – Enterprise PLM, GE Aerospace [Bio] [Presentation]
AI is rapidly reshaping what is possible in PLM, but enterprise value depends on more than experimentation. This session shares practical lessons & outcomes from applying AI to PLM operations, upgrades, modernization, and performance engineering in a complex industrial environment. Attendees will learn how to prioritize use cases, establish enabling architecture patterns, prepare for MCP-style agent integration, and engage vendors on the capabilities required for safe, scalable adoption. - 15:50 – 16:00 | Conference Wrap Up
16:00 | Conference Adjourns
Featured Cimdata Reports
PLM-Enabled Digital Transformation Benefits Appraisal Guide
The Guide is designed to help potential PLM users evaluate the applicability and payoffs of PLM in their enterprise, and to help existing users of PLM monitor the impact it is having on their product programs.
Aerospace & Defense PLM Action Group
A CIMdata administered PLM advocacy group for the A&D industry
PLM Market Analysis Reports
The PLM MAR Series provides detailed information and in-depth analysis on the worldwide PLM market. It contains analyses of major trends and issues, leading PLM providers, revenue analyses for geographical regions and industry sectors, and historical and projected data on market growth.
PLM Market Analysis Country Reports
These reports offer country-specific analyses of the PLM market. Their focus is on PLM investment and use in industrial markets. Reports cover Brazil, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Simulation & Analysis Market Analysis Report
This report presents CIMdata’s overview of the global simulation and analysis market, one of the fastest-growing segments of the overall product lifecycle management market, including profiles of the leading S&A firms.
CAM Market Analysis Report
CIMdata's definitive guide to the worldwide CAM software and services market. This comprehensive report provides critical intelligence on market size, user expenditures, trends, and segmentation, alongside authoritative rankings of the top CAM solution providers and reseller revenues.