Vivek Kotru discusses the growing significance and application scope of PLM solutions in the contemporary industrial scenario Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its conception, through design and manufacture, to service and disposal. PLM originated from the product design arena of Computer-Aided Design (CAD), Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM), Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) and Product Data Management (PDM) to facilitate the New Product Development and Introduction (NPDI) process. It is now commonly understood to have a significantly expanded scope that extends across the lifecycle of a product. Currently, PLM has four primary areas which include the following: Computer-aided Technologies (CAx) Product Data Management Manufacturing Process Management (MPM) Product and Portfolio Management (PPM) The contemporary PLM application landscape for engineering and manufacturing organisations has evolved from the conventional CAx and PDM-centric applications, and has extended to manufacturing, thus enabling enterprise-level collaboration and key cross-functional processes. For a majority of industries in India, the key business requirements are associated with global engineering, as their technical resources for product development are dispersed across locations worldwide. Other major requirements of industries include regulatory compliance with a number of product variants, management of a complex mix of mechanical, electrical and electronics elements, and standardisation of manufacturing processes. Amid such a business scenario, PLM no longer remains a choice but is a necessary business enabler for manufacturers with a global outlook. Companies wanting to adopt PLM applications seem to have concerns regarding cost of implementation and ownership as well as timeline for PLM programs. In this concern, the independent software vendors (ISVs) for PLM solutions now also provide products that are more relevant to the needs of Indian manufacturers, helping the cause of PLM adoption and implementation. Quick implementation with minimal customisation An effective implementation approach for a PLM solution is to perform a thorough evaluation of the PLM product to map its Out of the Box (OOTB) features for specific business processes and needs. This limits the customisation requirements during implementation, which in turn, reduces the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of the solution. PLM ISVs are also playing their part in this process by providing industryspecific solutions. In recent times, a trend has been observed that indicated transition of both large and small companies towards the OOTB solutions along with modification of business processes to suit the OOTB solution.
Growth-oriented small and medium businesses (SMBs) also demand OOTB implementations. They typically want quick implementation of PLM, as they either do not have a system or the existing system is not able to meet the requirements of their growing businesses. Needless to say, such companies want to implement PLM in a cost-effective manner. Most of these organisations do not have dedicated IT teams to manage enterprise systems, and hence, they need systems that are lowmaintenance and easily scalable. Implementation for engineering data management As globalisation continues, manufacturers are undertaking research and development (R&D) for product design and development with teams spread across time zones of the world. Different teams are expected to update the models they work on in a central repository. Many of these central repositories are deployed in the country of origin, where other teams find it difficult to merge their information, typically due to the challenges posed by product structure definitions and large data size. Consequently, the engineering and IT teams spend a lot of time resolving such issues and have to deal with latency. To add to the woes, many of these companies use different CAD systems at different locations.
To enable the capability of engineers to work effectively across locations and time zones, such companies require a PLM system to support easy data transfer and synchronisation along with efficient management of collaboration processes. Thus, the need is to implement a PLM solution to enable simple Engineering Data Management, collaboration and visualisation of different CAD formats. Such PLM implementation requirements face all the usual problems of a cross-functional project to introduce a new technology. It leads to a detailed examination of the way the enterprise is organised to work with engineering information, and because it addresses data structures, it leads to questions about product structures.This, in many ways is good, but the simple task of introducing engineering data management soon leads to a series of complex, time-consuming, cross-functional and inter-related issues about products, processes, data, systems, workflows, procedures and organisational structures. Published research shows that companies that have successfully adopted engineering data management have reduced their engineering costs, engineering change time and the number of engineering changes by 15 per cent, 30 per cent and 40 per cent respectively. Comprehensive implementations Complex engineering processes are best addressed through a mix of in-house tools and packaged PLM applications. Globally, many large engineering and manufacturing companies still have multiple systems including legacy PDM applications and inhouse systems to manage data and processes around the product realisation lifecycle.
However, many of these companies are reconsidering the overall landscape of applications and the underlying processes being managed. This is essentially driven by the new PLM application suites being launched by ISVs, such as Dassault Systèmes, Siemens PLM and Oracle. The focus is on enterprise PLM systems that provide more process coverage with industry accelerators to support the process needs of the specific industry. The industry has responded by showing a keen interest in adopting such PLM applications or adding new industry-specific solutions. Industries which are traditionally not high on PLM are trying to adopt enterprise PLM. In such scenarios, PLM implementations are more complex and need thorough planning with top management support, which can extend for a period of well over two years. And finally, the success of PLM system will depend on how fast the users adopt it and start using it effectively. Steps to ensure faster user adoption by involving them earlier in the implementation process through conference room pilots, early testing and training, and change management initiatives are important. The author is Director, Software Services Business Unit, Geometric Ltd |
