PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) has been around for a number of years now, but it is only recently that mainstream design engineers and manufacturing organisations are taking notice of this powerful technology.
With its roots in the automotive, electronics and aerospace industries, PLM’s strength is in handling complex manufactured products as well as large numbers of products.
PLM has now spread out globally to industries as diverse as consumer packaged goods (CPG), industrial products, medical devices and pharmaceuticals.
PLM applications hold the promise of seamlessly flowing all of the information produced throughout all phases of a product’s lifecycle to everyone in an organisation, along with key suppliers and customers.
Michael Grieves, US-based PLM pioneer says PLM is driving the next generation of lean thinking – eliminating waste and maximising efficiency across all aspects of a product’s life from design to deployment, not just in its manufacture.
In his book, Product Lifecycle Management, Grieves says PLM is focused on using the power of information and computers to deliberately pare inefficiencies from the design, manufacture, support, and ultimate disposal of a product.
“In doing this, PLM takes ‘lean’ to a new level,” Grieves said.
Managing product data
David Mitchell, US-based VP with UGS Corp, describes PLM as primarily about managing product data across all aspects of definition; creation, modification, release, and obsolescence.
He says the core technology must be a flexible, scalable, data management platform with rich off-the-shelf application content specific to the industries that it serves.
“The platform must also be easily extensible in a way that does not preclude customers from easily adopting the next version of the software.
“All of these attributes should combine to deliver a set of capabilities which can enable global collaboration and foster innovation,” he said.
Mitchell describes PLM as a “must have” for traditional discrete manufacturing applications (automotive, aerospace and defence, heavy machinery, medical devices) and high tech, but says he is also seeing expansion into “new domains” such as packaged goods, pharmaceuticals, and retail.
“PLM is not only a ‘must have’ technology for large companies but also for SMEs. They cannot afford to ‘throw people’ at problems, and so have an even higher requirement to be productive,” he told Manufacturers’Monthly.
According to Mitchell the main ROI capabilities that PLM enables are time to market, time to quality and introducing new products.
Singularity
One of the most important characteristics of PLM, says Grieves, is singularity, “and might be one of the most elusive”.
“Singularity within PLM is defined as having one unique and controlling version of the product data.”
When it comes to an existing tangible object – a part, a component, an assembly or a product, Grieves says it’s reasonably straightforward.
“By definition, the data about a tangible object is contained in the object itself. If there is some question about the accuracy of a product’s data, we can always measure the object, weigh it, or take a colour spectrometry of it to compare with the product’s data.”
However when there is no tangible object to use as a reference, Grieves admits there can be problems.
“When a part or component is in the design stage, and there is as yet no physical representation of it, there has to be a shared understanding by the individuals involved as to how to identify the controlling product data if multiple ‘unique’ versions exist.”
“This lack of information singularity is a major source of wasted time, energy and material,” Grieves said.
“PLM systems must have the ability to identify the controlling product data so there is no question, if there are multiple versions, which is the one everyone refers to.
“If someone wishes to work with the product data, it is ‘checked-out’, worked on and the revised version ‘checked’ back in,” he said.
“The actual software implementations vary, but with digital data, nothing is really ‘checked’ in or out. In some cases, the data is copied to another location, worked on, and the revised data copied over the original data.
“In other implementations, the product data will be revised within that data file, but will be unavailable to anyone until it is checked back in.”
Grieves says there is nothing inherently wrong with duplicate copies of information. “The duplicate information can be used as back-ups or for experimenting.”
Grieves doesn’t expect to see singularity in the ‘relative’ near future. “But every time we can reduce an instance of the same information being duplicated in various systems, we will get closer to our goal of a single version of data,” he said.
PLM strategy
Before starting on the PLM journey, companies need to construct a PLM strategy. Grieves believes the most important component of a strategic plan is a vision of tomorrow. “Without a vision, inertia takes over.
“One technique is to bring together the senior leadership team and ask them to imagine themselves, say, in five years.
“It is only when we take a new and discontinuous look at the future that we might perceive novel and creative uses of information.”
Grieves says there is one very common vision of tomorrow that drives many PLM initiatives – “one company” and is a commonly used rationalisation for embracing PLM.
“Since increases in scale are due to not only organic growth, but to growth through acquisitions, companies find themselves with a myriad of different organisations and divisions that all operate differently.
“As a result, these companies suffer from inconsistent performance and the ability to take advantage of their size and scale.
“They have an inability to share a common knowledge base, and they incur unnecessary costs of time, material, and energy.
“Their thinking is anything but lean,” Grieves said.
Mitchell says a company deploying PLM needs to decide upon ‘where’ in the product lifecycle to begin.
“Many customers begin by deciding to get the authoring systems managed first; but many customers also choose to get the bill of materials under control first.
“Customers need to decide where their current pain point is, and begin a deployment that branches from the pain point to cover the rest of the lifecycle of product definition.”
When it comes to implementation, Mitchell says there are many rules to keep in mind when deploying any piece of enterprise software. “But the number one rule should be ‘Don’t let your eyes be bigger than your stomach’.
“Too many deployments try to reach too far too fast. Customers need to focus on delivering value quickly, and growing the implementation over time.”
Mitchell says it’s also important to get employees on side.
“That is a new requirement in many ways. In the 1990s PLM was typically chosen by a selection team or the company’s executives without a nod toward the usability required by the end users.
“Those days are mostly gone now. Users have empowered themselves to reject a solution they do not feel meets their needs; either relative to functionality or to usability.
“Companies are well advised to include key end users in the process to ensure that they will buy into the solution, and ease the wider deployment,” Mitchell said.
“A division or aggressive department can begin the deployment of enterprise software, but in order for a company to get value across the full lifecycle, it is rarely achieved without the proper executive sponsorship,” Mitchell said.
PLM compared to ERP
Many manufacturers are still a little confused regarding the differences between PLM and ERP systems. “Why should I invest in PLM software when I already have an ERP system?” is a common question PLM vendors are asked.
Mitchell describes both PLM and ERP as examples of enterprise software, “but are actually quite different”.
“ERP is focused on managing ‘physical assets’ while PLM is focused on managing ‘digital assets’,” he said.
“PLM is clearly intended to match up with the domain of knowledge about the product and to encompass all the functional areas of an organisation. ERP of the other hand does the opposite.
“ERP crosses the various domains of knowledge, product, customer, employee and supplier, but only focuses on the functional areas of production and sales and service. ERP is also primarily transaction-based,” Mitchell said.
However Grieves points out that ERP and PLM do overlap in the areas of production and sales and service.
Grieves also admits, as with all major technological changes, that PLM is not without its issues to be addressed, from technological barriers to social issues.
“PLM is in its infancy, but has the promise of tremendous impact.” According to Grieves, PLM will drive the next generation of lean thinking across organisations and into the supply chain using product information as a replacement for wasted time, energy and material.