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How SunPower Deployed PLM Globally: Adopting PLM the Lean Way

Pascal Rassinoux, Senior Operations Program Manager, SunPower Corporation

Six years ago SunPower had a number of challenges in new product introduction. In particular, each product team had its own distinct process and system for managing configurations and changes, making cross functional collaboration difficult. At the same time SunPower was gearing up for its biggest challenge to date: construction of the California Solar Valley Ranch (CVSR) project.

In response, a small SunPower team led by Pascal Rassinoux made an attempt to launch a comprehensive, global PLM program in a traditional way, requiring consultants, IT professionals, a six-figure budget, and new hires to sustain the new tools.  The plan failed to get funded. However, the need for a PLM solution did not go away, so SunPower leadership issued a challenge – to find a better way to get the same benefits faster and cheaper.

This presentation will chronicle the exciting steps that came next; how the SunPower team overcame its constraints by adopting a lean methodology, with a pragmatic, cloud-based approach to deploying PLM capabilities. That new approach successfully reinvigorated the PLM program back to the original, enterprise scope at a fraction of the cost.