Comments on: How to Simplify My Next PLM Implementation?

By: Auto Glass Shop

Auto Glass Shop — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:19:05 +0000

Brilliant ! I would like to insert a video to illustate your article, but I don’t see how to do ? Can someone help me ?

By: Auto Glass Shop

Auto Glass Shop — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:17:34 +0000

Magnificent ! I would like to pose a video to illustate your fantabulous article, but I don’t see how to do ? Can someone help me ?

By: olegshilovitsky

olegshilovitsky — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 04:38:08 +0000

Graham, Thanks for your point and articulating of what you called “a company competitive advantage to deliver”. This is an important in the context of PLM. If companies will use “standard PLM”, they probably will deliver “standard competitive advantage”. I know, what will be said in the opposite is that PLM platform assumed to deliver flexible processes. However, before, there is an issue with configuration. In my view, PLM best practices is the best invention for marketing and demo environment to show to customers what system can do… After this step, the most important is system’s flexibility. Best, Oleg

By: Graham McCall

Graham McCall — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 09:42:43 +0000

Just picking up on the earlier point about so-called OOTB Best Practise Templates not being a cure-all.. Couldn’t agree more..
No two companies have the exact same process needs (nor should they ever…otherwise where would competitive advantage be derived) so templates should only ever play a limited role.. However, promoted by PLM marketing departments as ends in themselves, OOTB Best Practise Templates are disingenuous and too often mask PLM systems (usually older systems that have been around a while) that are difficult to configure..Don’t get me wrong, templates can be fine as a place to start as long as they are built on modern, flexible PLM architectures and can be easily built upon and changed..companies should test the reason the OOTB templates exists and demand some pretty complex ‘on the fly’ configuration as part of the selection..

By: olegshilovitsky

olegshilovitsky — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 12:14:13 +0000

Nambi, I see a major difference between how I see it and the way you proposed. You cannot have “the standard” data model. The effort to have a standard model is a dead end. This way is extensive and cannot scale up. You probably can agree on something common in a team of 10 engineers, but when you have 100, it will be a voluntary decision. When it comes to a big organization, it becomes a nightmare and when you are talking about a multiple organization it looks how it looks now. 30% of OOTB product and 50-70% of services. After all, the cost to move to the next implementation is huge $$$. Of course, the reasonable effort in creating of industry standards can be very beneficial, however it will not resolve problem. The right solution is to develop flexible and self adaptable systems. Think about power supplier for your laptop, that (I’m sure, like mine) works for both 110V and 220V-240V when needed….Best, Oleg

By: olegshilovitsky

olegshilovitsky — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 12:05:07 +0000

Dan, I didn’t want to take it so deep to the problems of code development. My take on flexibility was mostly about the fact that data models, business rules, user interface, customization and configuration capabilities need to be on the adequate level to make a customer to deploy a system in the way they are working in the organization first. After, you must have an ability to use the same tools – modeling, customization, configuration – to change system behavior in order to improve processes in your organization. Once done, system need to be consistent backward on capabilities introduced before. Best, Oleg

By: Nambi C

Nambi C — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 06:40:30 +0000

Oleg,

Nice article and I agree with many of your recommendations. The problem also is PLM vendors havent been able to converge quickly on systems and show customers the roadmap. There is still a lot of “fog on windshield” when it comes to that. SOme progressive suctomers have taken it upin themsleve sto standardise on data model and build it as a shared service for their differnet groups, therbey driving down teh cost and challenge associated with upgrades or transition.

By: Dan P

Dan P — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:45:22 +0000

Thanks Oleg, Prashant,

You’re right, I should have been clearer. I’m approaching this as a grunt software engineer. When I said “high quality base” I was referring to the code base and, to a lesser extent, the data model. What I want from a code base is modular and maintainable code (e.g. no cut-and-paste coding), consistently formatted with sensible comments. If this is lacking a merge of customized code with upgraded code can require more effort than re-implementing the cuztomization from scratch on the upgraded code! Oleg, I feel that this has parallels to your concept of ‘flexibility’?

Prashant, my concern with outsourcing development to third parties is that it is easy to lose control of the quality of the code base. Once that occurs you can quickly find yourself in the situation I described above.

Thanks,
Dan

By: Prashant

Prashant — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 03:22:01 +0000

Dan, could you please enlighten us what is the relation between outsourcing and customization which is totally dependant on the technology that the vendor is using? Have the vendors outsourced their decision making process too? If you are using technology that is 25 years old no matter where the development team is from, they will never be able to achieve what today’s customers want. PLM vendors need to be more innovative and invest more in research, new technologies insted of keep packaging old wine in new bottles.

By: olegshilovitsky

olegshilovitsky — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 03:15:36 +0000

Dan, Thanks for your comment! Could you, please clarify what do you mean by “solid foundation” and “outsourcing” in this specific case? Thanks, Oleg