The whole IT world is talking SMAC: social, mobile, analytics and cloud. 99 out 100 industry analysts agree that these are the major trends that are affecting everything. The big question is are they actually changing everything?

That is one of the current points of discussion in the product development and innovation space, where some claim we are undergoing yet another industrial revolution. SMAC is combining with new fabrication methods, like 3D printing, and industrial organization schemes (enabled by social technology) to cause some shakeups, perhaps even causing some disintermediation (I love that word).

But is this a revolution? Being a geek I often return to first principles like the dictionary in these situations. Dictionary.com provides the following definition:

In this case, the “established government or political system” is the dominant PLM paradigm. While I admit, there are some skirmishes on some fronts, the revolution will not be televised any time soon, but for no other reason that companies really don’t understand sunk costs very well. Social is supporting PLM use cases, as shown in some recent work at CIMdata, but it is often unintegrated, or even unassociated with PLM strategies. Mobile is a topic of discussion at this year’s PLM Market & Industry Forum. There are some exciting apps in downstream functions, like field service, and the PLM solution providers are working to bring more enterprise and PLM data to the handheld devices of the deskless. 3D printing has been around for a long time. (It is so old it was around when I was working on my Ph.D. in the 90s.) Much has been made about cost reductions for 3D printers, which will help with diffusion. But industrial use needs better materials and additive processes to replace more traditional manufacturing methods. (You can see this in the many acquisitions by 3D Systems over the last couple years.) Cloud is making in-roads, with Gartner claiming that public cloud services will have a 17.4% CAGR between 2011 and 2017. Many want their PLM on private clouds, and the solution providers are starting to oblige (slowly).

So yes, it is having an effect, but how should we characterize it? The word that struck me was renaissance: 

 

Of course, this is not THE Renaissance, but definition number 3 fits very well. There is a huge amount of life, vigor, and interest in this area. Maker Faires are vibrant events, where people come to share their passion for innovation. Autodesk, GrabCAD, and others are providing venues for all types of product development sharing and collaboration. There are many examples where this has led to commercial success, and most often in an additive, entrepreneurial way bringing net new opportunities. Maybe this can be part of the answer to the STEM problem, where science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills are not what they need to be to support economic development. 

Perhaps this is the way to that Star Trek future, where everyone is an engineering genius. Beam me up! Follow Stan on Twitter at @smprezbo.

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