PLM and Virtualization Technologies

August 19, 2009

top-virtual-providersI’m constantly looking for new technologies and perspectives of PLM improvement. For the last time, we discussed many products and technological trends such as a cloud and cloud software social software, simplicity, open source software etc. However, I found one was not touched by myself at all. So, I’d like to open new discussion related to Virtualization Trend. In my view, virtualization becomes a strong trend during past few years. Below is my short test on Google Trend regarding virtualization.

virtualization-trend

So, I’d like to start with some definition and introduction. Virtualization is a very broad term and, in computer software, it related to abstraction of computer resources. You can take a look on Virtualization definition in Wikipedia to see a long list of specific virtualization topics – a platform, application, storage, network, desktop etc. In addition I’d recommend you the following video as well, as 101 in virtualization:

Some of the virtualization technologies are very popular and used by us every day, such as virtual desktops, full virtualization platforms such as VMWare etc. Some of them becomes popular during the last time with emerging of cloud technologies (possible example is Amazon EC2). Another interesting and detailed video about virtualization technologies from Dell’s CTO:

So, what is my initial take on virtualization and PLM? I’d define three dimensions of virtualization and will try to provide my assessment of how PLM uses it today as well as what is potential in my view.

1. Platform Virtualization

I think platform virtualization becomes mature and popular in IT as significant cost saver. On a server side, I see more and more virtual servers instead of physical machines in organizations. Coupled with cloud computing, hardware virtualization provide very strong offering an impressive ROI. PLM (as well as other enterprise systems) can use hardware virtualization and run in this environment. On a client side, VMWare and other “full virtualization” environment could provide efficient way to decrease IT cost and manage client workstation with heavy CAD/PLM environments.

2. Application Virtualization

This type of virtualization often applied to software to become disconnected from a specific platform. Most of the application focus on ability to create virtual environment that can encapsulate desktop environment or stream application from remote server. In my view, PLM software didn’t make a lot to encapsulate “PLM servers”, but support for widely accepted HW and OS allowing to commercial software like Citrix and some others to support PLM application virtualization.

3. Data Virtualization

This is last, but not least and very important in my view. There is no agreed clear definition of data virtualization. However, I see Data Virtualization as next logical step after Platform and Applications. There is on-going discussion about data virtualization. Some of the opinion makers claim data virtualization as a solution for data integration. Some of the companies implied data availability as way to present data virtualization. For me, PDM/PLM provides a major place where company stores and manages their IP and Knowledge about a product. Data virtualization in context of PDM/PLM can become powerful technology to improve data scalability, modeling and change management. However, this is mostly open question these days.

This is my short intro in Virtualization and PLM. I’m looking forward to next thoughts and discussion.

Best, Oleg.

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PLM Prompt: Oracle looks to planning apps for next billions – will PLM be on the plate too?

August 18, 2009

Another prompt today. Oracle is devoting two full days and 70 sessions at the upcoming OpenWorld conference to its Primavera PPM (project portfolio management) software, which is used to track and manage the torrent of people, assets, timelines and expenses associated with projects and services engagements.

For me, this is clear message about Oracle’s long term strategy related to PPM, and it will wave into other enterprise application Oracle keeps in the portfolio. PLM is one of them. So, I’d expect impact on long term Oracle PLM strategy too.

Don’t forget Siemens PLM announcement two months ago with regards to their OEM plans with Planview.

So, how do you see PLM and PPM strategy? Do you think enterprise PLM and ERP vendors will try to deliver more PPM business functions adjusted to their PLM Offering and create wide business process coverage between PLM and PPM?

Thanks, Oleg

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PLM Prompt: 3D on the cloud thoughts

August 18, 2009

Short Prompt- what will take 3D on the cloud? I was reading interesting paper Pictures in the Cloud by Kenneth Wong.

pictures-on-the-cloud

My conclusion is as following:

1. Traditional CAD will be transformed when move on the cloud.

2. Multiple 3D /CAD related services can be introduced in parallel with traditional CAD systems we have in use today.

3. 3D/CAD cloud services today can leverage unlimited computing capabilities cloud services can provide for different purposes (CAE, Visualization etc.)

So, what are your thoughts about it? Who will rule 3D /CAD services on a cloud? How proprietary CAD models and formats will be transformed as a consequence of this change? Do you think today’s CAD/PLM providers will keep leadership in this business?

Just my thoughts. Best, Oleg.

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PLM and MDM – How to start right?

August 18, 2009

Product Lifecycle Management and Master Data Management. I had chance to raise this issue few months ago in my post Will Master Data Management Work for PLM? Few days ago, interesting publication from Gartner about their research in area of MDM and, more specifically, about overlap between MDM and PLM. Andrew White together with Marc Halpern published paper called “Interfacing of PLM and MDM for cross enterprise needs”. The conclusion made by Andrew in his blog article is simple – use a right tool for the right job.
In more detailed way, they explained PLM itself as a not mature software category in comparison to ERP, SCM, CRM etc. With lack of maturity and unclear agreed position and usage of MDM, PDM, PLM prevented earlier exploration of intersection between these domains.

gartner-mdm-white

Now, I’d like to come back to my initial question – how to start right? What is my concern about approach “right tool for right job”? As soon as we speak about corporate and enterprise data and product IP/Knowledge, I think this approach may not work. Today’s enterprise is very siloed, information span across multiple systems – engineering, manufacturing, procurement, supply chain. As soon as a system identify in the particular functional domain, it will not create major conflicts. I see relatively simple approach to position PDM as a system to manage design and engineering data only together with Master Data Management. However, when we come to PLM approach, I see definitely conflict of interest. In my view PLM and MDM strategy has similarity in their approaches to create “single point of truth” in organization.

So, what I see as a possible PLM/MDM strategy? I think, MDM strategy and infrastructure, can provide possible foundation for managing of non-transactional data for product development. This data can be accumulated by MDM and saved for future usage. Today’s PLM implementations are mostly focused around product development, so such MDM infrastructure can be good asset PLM can use to achieve long term data retention and other data management needs. At the same time, such approach can bring significant investment into both PLM and MDM systems and probably can be acceptable only by large enterprises.

I’m interested in discussion, if you had any experience with MDM and PLM system co-existence.
Best regards,
Oleg

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How PLM can help me to share product secrets in organization?

August 17, 2009

social-product-toolsI’d like to follow few very interesting discussions that happened last week. Few blog posts you probably want to read before you will continue with today’s post: Should I keep secrets from my PLM system?,  Yes, Oleg, You Should Keep Secrets from Your PLM System, People Centric PLM – A New PLM age is born.

So, why I decided to get back to this topic again this week? Back to my original Should I keep secrets from my PLM system? PLM introduced a concept of “single point of truth” and, even if this concept intent was good, I was afraid to see how this concept made many PLM implementations unsuccessful. In my view, it created perception of PLM to control all product’s data in organization. And this task is very complicated. Meantime, PLM can provide many additional benefits. So how to leverage them? These are my original thoughts – keep secrets from your PLM! Don’t allow “multi-year PLM project” to start in your organization. You should be lean and efficient in the way you will plan your PLM deployment.

However, I got very interesting post-answer PTC Robin Saitz. Here, what Robin is saying:

“There are authoring tools, such as CAD/CAM/CAE, which are focused on making the individual engineer or designer more productive. There are enterprise applications, such as PLM, that are focused on governance and control of product information. PLM is dedicated to shepherding a promising product idea through design development, sourcing, change and configuration management, manufacturing planning, production, service, and retirement. But there’s another set of activities that hasn’t been suitably addressed by either PLM or Desktop apps…

…new social product development capabilities (those leveraging social computing technology) can significantly improve this type of idea exchange. It’s a more flexible and natural way of interacting, and doesn’t carry the constraints inherent in a governance system. Not every idea exchanged, considered, commented on, discarded or every question asked and answered needs to be in the PLM system. But having the freedom to spawn and discuss ideas and spontaneously ask questions or help out your colleague can make the process of getting the best ideas into the PLM system easier. Then the PLM system is tasked with managing the processes needed to bring that great idea to market”.

And this is a completely different angle on what PLM is doing in organization. From my side, I see PLM as a force to integrated product development processes. The biggest PLM strength is ability to manage collaborative business processes in order not to become an only execution system. My initial though about PTC Product Point back to announcement last year was – it step to cover additional processes and re-use some SharePoint Platform Social Network capabilities? According to the PTC announcement:

“Windchill ProductPoint will give SharePoint reach into the world of Product Development. Windows SharePoint Services, Microsoft’s technology infrastructure for collaboration, has been well adopted across manufacturing companies as a backbone for Office applications, primarily for document sharing and management. With Windchill ProductPoint, PTC will enable SharePoint to understand CAD (computer-aided-design) data, increasing the reach of the familiar SharePoint user experience, and enhancing its usage across broader product development teams. For OEMs and suppliers, a future release of Windchill ProductPoint is planned to support the sharing of information among other Windchill-based systems”.

So, big question I have now – will today’s PLM expand their capabilities to provide connecting forces and enable social product collaboration within organization? I’d say this is will be smart step. Should PLM limit to process governance and control of product information? I’d say we did it in the past, but new people centric PLM age is born, and we need to move forward!

And I’m looking forward to future discussions on plmtwine during this week. Best, Oleg

15 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank, PLM and organization, Social Media and Tools | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
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PLM SOA – how to mix integrations and business processes?

August 14, 2009

soa-dangerSOA is a very oversold article these days. Even if, I think, social media and cloud successfully over hyped SOA during last one-two years, on the technological horizons SOA is still a topic that raises discussions and questions.

Wikipedia: In computing, service-oriented architecture (SOA) provides a set of principles of governing concepts used during phases of systems development and integration. Such an architecture will package functionality as interoperable services: functions provided as a service are available to be used from systems created by other organizations

So, a topic I want to touch today - what could be important components of SOA implementation in PLM. On the ground, Product Lifecycle Management should be yet another enterprise system. Why should we try to understand specific SOA topics? But, if we would take deeper look on what is going behind the scene in PLM, you probably will see what I mean.

One of the very important characteristics of PLM implementation is flexibility. Since almost every manufacturing enterprise organization is different, in the end of the days, you will find yourself making changes in your PLM environment. So, you better will be prepared and have all tools to do so. Another reason is integration with multiple external systems – design, engineering, manufacturing, supply chain. All these systems need to be somehow connected together since they provide ultimate input for PLM. Last, but not least – processes. Processes are flowing across organizational domains and boundaries. To be able to handle them, you need to have an ability to be connected to process oriented environment. It is normally, PLM environment or environment that comes from IT systems (depends on what you have in organization).

So, what is my conclusion? SOA is ultimate answer to provide PLM system configured and flexible. Two most important components of PLM SOA environment are to be able to integration with external systems and manage business processes. I think, PLM SOA having such characteristics will have very good chance to success these days.

Best, Oleg.

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PLM, don’t fight processes – focus on people!

August 13, 2009

social-softwareDo you think PLM is about a process, right? Reading last buzz about social networking and product development I actually came to the conclusion, there is a significant change in PLM software eco-system toward understanding of the role of people in Product Lifecycle Management. Few interesting discussions about social networking came from PTC’s Tom Shoemaker in this cadalyst article, Jim Brown Clarity on PLM blog as well as some others.

Based on all discussions and conversation I’d like to propose 3 step recipe for methodology  how to approach process transformation in the organization and successfully implement Product Lifecycle Management strategies. These are my three steps:

1. Capture existing business processes. This is significant and important step in implementation. You need to capture the most significant processes in organization- processes that happen now. Whatever they do for good and for bad, these are processes that drive your organization now. So, this is a starting point for your implementation. As soon as you have it done, you can make analyses how you can improve it.

2. Establish Social Communities. What is the best way to analyze processes and think about their improvement? Yes,you are right – social networking. You need to connect people in different departments of your organization and present them a system with captured and functioning processes. As soon as you will be able to do so, people will come separately and in groups and will discuss it. The role of social innovation here is very important.

3. Plan process improvements and transformation. And, finally, this is your time! You have processes captured, you established communities and got people involved. Now start your transformation. Based on what people considered as the most important for your organization. Don’t fight to change processes that work, focus on processes that require improvements. Those’s processes were mentioned by people in communities.

I’d be very interested in listen to your opinion and feedback. This is just my opinion. YMMV.

Best, Oleg

7 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank, PLM and organization, PLM and Social Environment | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
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Should I keep secrets from my PLM system?

August 12, 2009

Product Lifecycle Management pretend to manage everything in the organization that related to product, information about product, development IP etc . So far, a pretty long list. The ultimate PLM goal, is to manage product lifecycle from an initial idea until disposal. When I’m thinking about such as goal is always sounding big and ambitious. However, do we really need it to success with PLM?

Maybe we can learn from people experience in non-PLM areas. I was reading interesting post on New Com Biz related to people notebooks. I discover some interesting observations related to notebook (paper, not computer :) ) management. You can see below a picture of weekly pages separated into four zones – Work, Projects, Personal, Misc. You can consider it as a weekly lifecycle. So far, this approach will not manage all your tasks, but will provide you quite good control on what is going on.

My experience in the area of digital control is related to my own implementation of GTD (Getting Things Done) in my Outlook system. If you are not familiar with GTD approach, take a look on this book. Take a look on the picture. You can see a stream of incoming messages, contextual folders, next actions, projects etc. This is an ultimate system to control your digital life.

My Getting Things Done Folders

My Getting Things Done Folders

Now, back to PLM. Should we take “total approach” and manage everything related to a product with PLM? The answer probably yes, but the long term. For the short term, please keep secrets from PLM. Don’t give PLM system power to make your life complex. You better keep your PLM implementation simple and get your things done on time.

Best, Oleg

11 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank, PLM and organization, Productivity | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
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Why PLM Scares Me?

August 11, 2009

Following my previous post about how PLM can go to mainstream, I had chance to discuss this topic with some of my colleagues. We came to some initial conclusions that I’d like to share with my blog readers. Let me put upfront some assumption with regards to main trends I see happens in computer industry and enterprise software.

One of them is a trend for “simplicity”.  This is the biggest trend I see across many of the software systems during the past years. In my view, Google is staying first in the line and promoting the most simple user experience ever – single line. Following Google, I can mention Apple with their multiple products, also promoting simple approach. Almost in an enterprise software world, I can mention Microsoft SharePoint approach, as something maybe not very simple, but definitely less complex comparing to everything else you see around. So, my conclusion is that simplicity created strong trend toward user acceptance and understanding.

At the same time, Product Lifecycle Management became mature and prove success in companies and industries. The strategy of PLM was to move toward ability to support overall product lifecycle and because of that, PLM wanted to gather more and more processes, information, connection with other systems and people interaction. As a consequence of this PLM came to “maturity phase” and… overcomplicating. We got a system that can be deployed in global organizations, manage complex product structures, organization processes, supply chain and more. However, obvious price was big and complicated environment.

So, what happened as a result. Two trends “simplicity” and “PLM maturity” had actually different directions. User demands for simple and elegant solutions came in conflict with mature and complicated PLM deployments. What solution do I see for this situation? In my view, PLM providers understood situation and their immediate answer for short term was as following: 1/best practices; 2/industry approach; 3/education. We had chance to see these trends in strategies of all PLM providers. Would you ask me – is it enough? No, I don’t think so. I think a current “state of the art PLMs” are scaring users and prevent PLM from mainstream deployment.

Just my opinion.

Best, Oleg.

17 Comments | PLM User Experience, PLM and organization, Daily PLM Think Tank, PLM Implementation | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
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The pains of file management, will PDM be popular again?

August 10, 2009

file-pain-pdmTime ago, I had chance to discuss second mover innovation. For me, second movers are perfect example to learn from experience, talk to customers and introduce something breakthrough in the place of something we have today. So far, I came to my old friend, PDM system. Actually, the perfect trigger for my thoughts was SolidWorks’s “pain of the file management” campaign. Actually, SolidWorks people raised a very good point – after decades of PDM and later PLM, how many people still have “file management pains”? My conclusion – still many…

If I will go back 10 years and analyzes what was the “value proposition” for PDM systems in the middle of 90s, my short list will be simple – 1/ability to control documents; 2/ getting right revision of my work; 3/collaborate with co-workers. So, what we learned since that time. My assumption is that lots of experience with different PDM approaches can be concluded as following.

  1. Successful PDM system should rely on a design system (CAD etc.)
  2. Designers and Engineers normally tries to put all possible and impossible information to PDM system.
  3. Complexity kills.

So, where we are after all these years? I think one of the main PDM trends these days is to have PDM capability combined with CAD system. When it makes a lot of sense in context of functionality, the reality is to have multiple CAD systems in organization. The second point is related to information PDM is trying to manage. Simple in the beginning, any PDM systems become very complex as soon as we stretch it to support additional information.

So, what will be PDM trends in nowadays? SolidWorks proposal sounds very right – there are still lots of people having “file pain”. SolidWorks PDM these days is a good example simplicity in managing of SolidWorks files and document. Is it new? Probably not. So, I just wonder what future PDM system will look like?

Best, Oleg

5 Comments | CAD, Daily PLM Think Tank, PDM, SolidWorks, Technology | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
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