CIMdata’s 2023 PLM Market & Industry Forum series theme is “The Digital Thread: Powering Business Transformation.” At this industry-leading Forum, CIMdata will frame the digital thread in a series of presentations designed to brief the PLM Software and Service community (aka the PLM Economy) on the issues faced by industrial users. Sessions provide critical information to members of the PLM Economy, enabling them to respond to new and evolving requirements. Learn more about the 2023 PLM Market & Industry Forum here.
The notion of the digital thread dates back to the application of digital technologies to the product lifecycle as part of Industry 3.0. Of course, the available technologies have improved dramatically since then, just as the needs of the industrial companies that employ them have evolved. From its roots in engineering data management in the 1980s, data and process management solutions that are at the core of most industrial PLM strategies can now support collaborative product development across far-flung value chains in many industries.
In our recent digital thread research, CIMdata asked industrial firms what solutions were on their digital threads at that time and in the next three years. The survey question focused on the product lifecycle from idea through life and asked about solutions/approaches used to define, create, mature, and deploy a product definition across that span, including requirements management, model-based systems engineering, mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD), application lifecycle management (ALM), electronic design automation (EDA), product data management (PDM), simulation and analysis, and maintenance-related applications. But what other solutions/data are industrial companies planning to link to their evolving digital thread? Our survey had a long list of applications, including Microsoft Office, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and manufacturing execution systems (MES). Beyond commercial software, many companies also want to connect their all-important “in-house systems.” CIMdata believes that the growing importance of the digital thread is a significant opportunity for the PLM Economy.
In this PLM Market & Industry Forum presentation, CIMdata will present the results of interviews with solution providers and additional research on other PLM market leaders on this critical topic.
Key takeaways from this session include:
- Many solution and service providers in the PLM Economy already support the digital thread in their industrial clients.
- Their approaches reflect corporate and technology strategies, solution capabilities, and the role those solutions play in industrial PLM strategies.
- As part of CIMdata’s recent research into the digital thread, we gathered information from leading solution and service providers on the challenges they face in meeting this new requirement.
- The digital thread can be a big opportunity for the PLM Economy.
The 2023 PLM Market & Industry Forum is a live event in Ann Arbor, MI, USA, on March 30 and in Frankfurt, Germany, on April 4. A series of virtual-live events will follow, each held over two half-days designed to share the same information in the following geographies, India, China, and Japan.
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I hope to see you in Ann Arbor or Frankfurt!
Stan
