Out-Of-The-Box PLM and Open Source Option

May 21, 2010

I had chance to read the story “Is PLM software OOTB Functionality a Red Herring?” by Marc Lind on Aras’ community website. I definitely can see a growing amount of debates around PLM Out-the-box story or how software vendors call it very often – Best Practices.

History
Do you remember the name “turnkey solution”? This is one of the previous names for out-of-the-box. Welcome! You can buy a system, turn a key on, and you are done :) … The definition of “turnkey” solution was different and changed within a time. In the beginning, it was about how to not to “rebuild” the system for every customer. Then it moved to installation option that not required 10 people work for few months to install and configured system. Finally, it comes to the point when “a turnkey” started to focus on engineering and business problems.

Engineering Foundation of Out-of-the-Box (OOTB)
The invention of OOTB system as a system that can solve engineering and business problems had very good roots. A majority of engineering and manufactures software companies were started by engineers. Engineers tried to solve problems for engineers and definitely could find a solution. After the problem was solved for more than one customer, the obvious question was how to scale up?  There are few possible ways to move forward – to create a configurable and modular system or to open system to be modified and adjusted by customers themselves and partners. Vendors tried to solve both. The first seems to be complicated. The second was expensive and long in time.

Marketing Damage
At the time engineering tried to solve a problem of how to configure systems to fit needs of different customers, marketing came with a nice proposal to re-sell existing customer implementation packed as best practice solutions . Basically, it was a good idea – why not to re-use existing experience with customers? The implementations done by many of them represented state of the art and considered as best in their class. However, here the problem- engineers are not running their shops in the say ways. They strongly believe in their uniqueness and specific manufacturing practices. The marketing story becomes a story of long implementation cycles after deals were closed and money paid.

Open Source Option?
There are two important aspects of open source that can give a potential chance to PLM open source to grow in a current situation. The first is emotional – you are not paying upfront, and you pay for maintenance and support. Even if everybody understood that the same or comparable amount of money can be paid in different ways, it creates a social empathy to the solution. Second one is real – you can have a wider distribution of software. By doing so, open source creates the situation where the effect of scale can be significant and crowd sourcing will become a real option.  So, I see community building as a top factor that can make PLM open source real. In the case engineers will start to collaborate, it can create a potential network effect.

What is my conclusion? Selling Enterprise Software is a hard job these days. People stopped buying marketing stories. They need software to solve problems today and not tomorrow. Out-of-the-box started as an initiative to compensate long, complicated and expensive implementation cycle. The fundamental idea was simple- you pay more, but you can take a system and work now. One of the reasons it wasn’t successful is in the nature of manufacturing organization. If you talk to PLM vendors, they will give you PDM CAD document management as an example of the successful out-of-the-box functionality. However, when it is probably easy to agree on check-in/check-out/release commands, it won’t be so easy to produce “the universal change management module”. In my view, PLM needs to run a recovery mode now to get back from spectacular marketing presentation to nuts and bolts of engineering and manufacturing implementations.

Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg

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Do We Need PLM To Manage Changes?

May 13, 2010

One of the areas that is always in the focus of people related to Product Lifecycle Management is how to manage changes in the organization. It sounds obvious – product lifecycle is all about changes. So, it seems to me, change management need to be a sweet spot of PLM. In my view, companies are very often struggling with the implementation of change management practices. I will try to figure what are the elements of the change management and what are potential bottlenecks.

Change Process

When you speak with people about change management, this change process normally comes first. The reason is simple. Changes cannot be done by a single person. It requires multiple person communication. In most of the situations, it requires to communicate across organizational divisions. The bottom line – it is not easy to communicate between people, and it requires good collaboration and communication skills. Software used by an engineering department is not always used by other departments. From the PLM product standpoint, process is a diagram. Simple? I’m not sure it is simple. The most complicated part of this diagram is to draw one in the real organization. I think this process is hard and requires lots of communications with people in the organization.

Referenced Data

The topic of data is underestimated, in my view. You need to have an efficient access to all data related to a change. Models, Drawings, Requirements, Manufacturing, Customers, etc. This is not always possible and this information is rarely located only inside of the PLM system. This is a time when the value of PLM solution becomes lower in customer’s eyes. From the PLM product standpoint, data managed by PLM system can be efficiently used for change process needs. I see it as a chicken-egg problem.

Implementation

Change implementation is another important piece of change management. When a change is approved, the next step is to implement all required modifications in multiple systems – Bill of Materials, Models, Drawings, Manufacturing instructions, etc .. What is very valuable for this stage is to provide a tool to control the overall implementation process. Because of distributed character of operation and many people involved it is always complicated to provide a complete picture of implementation status and control of it. From the PLM product standpoint, everything can be controlled until it management by PLM system. However, this is not always a reality in the organization.

What is my conclusion today? Management of changes is a complex topic. There are multiple dimensions of complexity – process in the organization, people involved and referenced data. To get them together is not a simple task and hardly can be managed by a single system. To have multiple systems coordinated between them, involving people under the stress of the overall product development and manufacturing process makes is even more complicated. If I’m back to my first question about PLM system, I think, a PLM system can provide a significant help in managing changes. The most important characteristic of this system will be an ability to organized process and giving an access to relevant product and organizational data.

Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg

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My Trip In The PLM Time Machine 1987

May 7, 2010

You can find this post as something unusual. I decided to jump in my PLM Think Tank Time Machine in… 1987 and see what people were thinking about PLM 25 years ago. In order to accomplish this trip, I took the following book: How To Integrate CAD/CAM Systems by William D Engelke at General Motors and EDS Corporation.

Well, in 1987 Product Lifecycle Management has a different name. ICC (Integrated CAD/CAM)… I’m not sure, this is the only name used 25 years ago. However, in my view it reflected lots of the terms and ideas we are discussing today during our PLM strategy’s talks.

Databases Types
The problem of different databases (or how we call it now – data repositories or silos) are explained very clear. Geometric library /databases, Attribute Database, Released Design, Manufacturing Design. If you can see the association with today’s systems is very clear, in my view. CAD, PDM, ERP fits into this space. The biggest PLM discussion about EBOM vs. MBOM sees to me straightforward. It is just different databases. The importance of the access to multiple type of the product, engineering and manufacturing data stated very clear already on the front page:

Change Cost Implication

This problem is one of the most important we are discussing these days. The early change will cost less in production. Therefore, early availability of manufacturing BOM as well as parallel design and manufacturing work are simply ‘must do’ for the efficient process management and overall cost control.

Turnkey Systems

I found a very interesting summary related to Turnkey Systems (in my view, this is what we call today – Out-of-the-box solutions). It seems to me the position was very clear back in 1987: “Nobody runs shop quite the same way you do, and it would be unreasonable in most cases, to expect your company to change its design sequence, communication flows, design release methods, and so forth, to conform to the requirements of a turnkey system“. I found this statement very interesting, and I think, creators of Best Practices, Industry Solutions and Out-of-the box systems need to complete their homework before rushing market with a next wave of ready-to-go solutions.

What is my conclusion after the trip in PLM time machine? I found 1987 years ICC (Integrated CAD CAD) as a very decent PLM. Lots of core PLM ideas such as design to manufacturing, early cost evaluation, integration of product design and manufacturing information flow, lead time impact and analyzes are sounds like completely up to date. Marketing did a great job adding lots of bells and whistles during last years, so I found PLM Time Machine learning very interesting and remarkable.

If you don’t want to buy old book, you can take a deeper look on PLM model 1987 using Google Books. It gives you an access to almost 1/3 of the book content.

Best, Oleg

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PLM and Heterogeneous Product Development

May 6, 2010

The issue of heterogeneous is really complicated. I think PLM vision and strategies are heavily missing this point. Most of PLM strategies are talking about a single source of truth, single data sources, single… However, in practice, companies are running multiple systems to accomplish their business goals. The following writeup about Parker Hannifin experience made by Jim Brown of Tech Clarity made me think again about options to manage heterogeneous product development.

CAD and Interoperability
The first phase in the list is an ability to exchange information between different CAD systems. I think, industry is discussing this topic for years (if not decades). There are many solutions for this problem and multiple companies are providing a different type of utilities. My last favorite in the discussion about CAD interoperability is the presentation made by Mike Payne at COFES 2010. You can see my write up here-  How to Liberate data?

PLM and Federation
The early version of interoperability between different PLM systems came with the ideas of Federation. These ideas weren’t introduced exclusively for PLM and actually discussed in the context of ERP and, in general, related to databases. The trial of PLM to establish a federated environment was very interesting one. I think, it really worked for few big customers. However, the cost to establish this environment is huge. The biggest problem is the amount of hand-wiring things you need to. I can see IBM is investing a lot in this direction discussing their PDIF program.

Single PLM Database Dreams
I can hear voices of PLM vendors to establish a single repository for all PLM information. It sounds very promising and interesting for customers. I think, currently, we are about to experience multiple tries to make these system’s works. It comes in the announcement and publications from all mindshare PLM vendors – TeamCenter Unified, ENOVIA V6,  Windchill… I see customers are actively searching for a solution in this space.

Future of PLM and Internet of Things
What do you think come next? I think, the future answer about solving problems of Heterogeneous Product Development need to come from the side of Internet technologies. All previous trials were “files and database oriented”. I think, the internet today demonstrates the capabilities of a big, single and self balanced system. Will it provide an answer to enterprise organizations and heterogeneous product development is a good question? We are going to learn it in the future.

One of the things I’m continuously thinking is the fact, you cannot change your product development systems and practices in a very short period of time (i.e. months). Even more, I think it is very hard to make a change in several years. So, companies proposing today a singe bulk of software will have a very tough time soon. I’m coming back to multiple thoughts about flexibility and granularity. In my view, it becomes a key.

What is my conclusion today? I think, future cloud-based solutions and the internet should impact product development strategies in the organizations. The connectivity, mobility, collaboration, data access – all these terms are going to impact product development practices in enterprise organizations. I think it is not simple to see it happen in the short term. However, I do see a cost of change in the existing systems as a major factor to make a movement towards a different set of systems.

Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg

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Cloud and PLM Solution Evaluation

April 15, 2010

I think, Enterprise Software is not simple. And Product Lifecycle Management is not an exception and even one of the most complicated pieces of enterprise software. I had chance to discuss how to simplify PLM. However, today, I want to talk about how possible to evaluate PLM solution. Cloud computing, in my view, can change a lot of things in how enterprise software can be development, implemented and deployed. In addition, it made me think about cloud as a possible “evaluation” option for PLM.

Few weeks ago, I came across the publication by Lawson software availability on Amazon EC2. You can take a look on details here. The interesting piece of announcement is the following:

[...Lawson External Cloud Services also features Lawson Test Drive, which begins to change the way Lawson demonstrates its products and how customers purchase ERP software. Lawson Test Drive allows Lawson customers to test real products for up to 14 days using their own business processes and data before committing to the actual software purchase. Lawson Test Drive increases enterprise customers’ confidence that a demonstrated product will match the eventual installed product. Lawson Test Drive is being launched with two of Lawson’s newest, most innovative products...]

In my view, providing possible test drive in the virtual testing environment can be an easy option for customers to evaluate PLM software. I can see the following advantages:

1. Customer doesn’t need to invest into local infrastructure and  IT work
2. Environment can be tuned and optimized by software vendor
3. Evaluation can be shorter and more efficient.

A big question is how to load such a testing system with customer data? This can be complicated task. However, if you think about a pilot project it can be possible, in my view.

What is my conclusion? Evaluation of enterprise software is a very interesting space. Cloud solutions are probably in the beginning of their development in the such areas like CAD/PDM/PLM. However, to use cloud for evaluation can be an interesting option to make an evaluation simpler and in the end to improve customer’s adoption rate. It is always easy when you can test and see how it works…

Just my thoughts..
Best, Oleg

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What Are The Metrics For PLM Innovation?

April 14, 2010

A couple of weeks ago I had healthy debates about PLM and Innovation with Jim Brown of TechClarity. If you haven’t had chance to be part of this discussion you can check out the following post – PLM vs. ERP: Don’t Manage Innovation. During the last couple of days, I had chance to have an additional discussion on the “innovation” topic with some of my readers off line and online, and I came to the conclusion that I need to refresh this topic. I want to take the notion of “management” and “innovation” as starting points. The combination of them together made me think about the fact I need to bring some metrics in this “innovation management” process. Since, if you don’t know how to measure it, you hardly be able to “manage it”.

PLM and Product Innovation
I think, that PLM-minded people think about the innovation in the context of product development. Since, the  goal of CAD/CAE/PDM/PLM and other system related to engineering is about how to create products, this is the only innovation that counted for product development. Obviously, other areas of business such as manufacturing planning, supply chain, business accounting also may contain innovative aspects, but they are not in the scope of PLM vision. So, I came to the conclusion that development of new, innovative products is the ultimate goal of PLM innovation.

Innovation and Golden Eggs
When I think about an innovation process, the best association I can bring is the idea of golden eggs. Each new idea or product can be actually considered as the potential golden egg. However, the biggest problem with golden eggs is that they can crack. To decrease the risk of having cracked egg, I can potentially think about having more than one egg in my innovation bag. So, when I think about innovation management, I’d like to think about how to turn my innovation process to goose that will lay down golden eggs. As soon as I can do that, I can manage this process to produce as many eggs as I can and choose the appropriated ones applying specific metrics.

PLM Innovation Metrics
When I think about potential measures of product innovation, I can come with set of criteria related to the different aspects of organization and product performance performances. I’d like to put below some of the ideas about possible metrics.

Organization Performance
- Revenues from new product
- Customer satisfactions from new product
- ROI from new product

Product Characteristics
- Cost
- Performance
- Usability
- Novelty

Innovation Process
- Number of new ideas in the pipeline
- Number of new ideas comes from outside of the organization
- Time from the idea to the realization
- % of the ideas materialized as a new product or new development.

I’m sure this is an incomplete list and may be different for the specific organization. However, I hope gives an idea about what can be considered as a metrics for PLM (product) innovation.

Just my thoughts… I’m very interested to know your opinion and get your feedback.
Best, Oleg

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PLM and The Collapse Of Complex Societies

April 12, 2010

I had chance to post about the issue of complexity in enterprise systems in general and specifically about the complexity of PLM systems. In my view, the complexity as one of the biggest problems in the development of systems for engineering and manufacturing these days. It comes constantly as a feedback from many customers and professional communities. If you had no chance to read it before, please take a look on one of my previous posts about dependencies between complexity of the systems and user’s adoption (Complexity kills or Three Ways To Improve PLM Adoption).

I came across a very interesting book during this weekend – The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter. It made me think again about the problem of complexity. Some thesis made by Joseph Trainer was the following:

[...societies become more complex as they try to solve problems. Social complexity can include differentiated social and economic roles, reliance on symbolic and abstract communication, and the existence of a class of information producers and analysts who are not involved in primary resource production. Such complexity requires a substantial "energy" subsidy (meaning resources, or other forms of wealth). When a society confronts a "problem," such as a shortage of or difficulty in gaining access to energy, it tends to create new layers of bureaucracy, infrastructure, or social class to address the challenge. Eventually, this cost grows so great that any new challenges such as invasions and crop failures cannot be solved by the acquisition of more territory. At that point, the empire fragments into smaller units...]

I’d like to make an analogy between societies and enterprise and manufacturing systems. What is my take? Current enterprise systems supporting product development (CAD, CAE, PDM, PLM, ERP etc.) went through the long path of integration from early 2D to 3D, from MRP to MRPII and ERP, from EDM to PDM and PLM and finally rich the point where the almost cannot respond to the changes required and will tend to break again to the smaller pieces. Does it mean these systems will disappear? No, I don’t think so. However, I think, the new organization of systems can come to the enterprise and this new organization will have an ability to scale beyond the current level of possible complexity. Some interesting trends on this way:

SOA, Web and SaaS
The architecture of most of the enterprise systems was built 15-20 years ago with the state of mind of operation in the scope of a local department and/or company. They obviously outgrew themselves. To bring web experience including SOA architecture, Services and other technologies allowing operation on the global scale will be an approach that allows to bring large enterprise systems into smaller manageable pieces.

Global Data Models
As we had chance to discuss in the end of the last week, PLM data, PLM data models and identifications are still in the state that fundamentally assumes the possibility to build “unbreakable” standards and “single data models”. The data identification problem is a very complex issue, especially in case of multiple enterprise systems. We had chance to discuss it on the example of Part Numbering. This problem is real, hard and seems to me not resolvable in current systems.

What is my conclusion today? Current product development systems (EDM, PDM, PLM, ERP) are showing signs of over complexity. Following Tainter’s theory, they are trying to create news layers of bureaucracy and infrastructure. Industry best practices and out-of-the-box solutions are great examples of such new “organizations”. The potential solution will be in restructuring of these systems into smaller functional pieces, including the ability to handle globally scaled data and self-organized components.

Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg

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PLM Data, Identification and Part Numbers

April 9, 2010

I’d like to follow my yesterday post about PLM data modeling and talk about one of the issues that in my view are very important in PLM systems and implementations. The issue of identification or how it sometimes called “numbering system” is fundamental when you start thinking how to organize you product data. This is not a new problem, in my view. It comes all the time in the beginning of each implementation, when you start thinking about how to identify literally everything in your system. It normally starts from Part Numbers but spread out later.

The identification is a very complex problem. In the beginning, you can easy underestimate the size of this issue. However, as much you will be going forward you can easy come to the conclusion that this is one of the most important issues to decide before doing any implementation. I’d like to put few of the challenges that I think important to mention when you think about identification.

Multiple Systems
In the situation when you run many systems, you need to synchronize numbering and identification schema between them. This can be a not simple task and require significant effort and time.

Global Design and Manufacturing
Product development is going global these days. You want to design, build and support your system on a global scale. Product design and manufacturing are often happening in different countries and locations. In many cases, your local manufacturing facilities will be using local ERP system with local numbering and identification schema. At the same time, global product design will be interested to rely on the single identification worldwide.

Manufacturing and Supply Chain
The product development activity can be split between different parties – OEM’s and suppliers. OEM and suppliers are using separate and often different systems. To synchronize or coordinate numbering systems between them is another challenge on a global scale.

Company Mergers and Acquisitions
This is another type of the activities when you will face identification problems. Mergers and acquisitions happen and, in this case, you need to make an effort to create a single common identification schema from two or more separate systems.

This is not a full list, but figure out the most critical aspects that need to be taken into account. Recently, I came across a very interesting write-up about Part Numbering on the ZeroWait State blog. I think you can get some ideas about possible Part Numbering options such as – intelligent, semi-intelligent, automatic.

What is my conclusion today? I think the problem of the identification will become more urgent very soon. Most of the systems in product development and manufacturing were designed 15-20 years ago and considered problem of the identification as a number in a local database. Growing exchange in design and manufacturing information on a global scale will introduce new types of identification problems. In my view, enterprise systems in general, but PLM specifically will need to learn some lessons from internet systems development to find a right solution to this problem.

I’m interested to hear about your practice and experience with implementation of identification systems in your organization and during the implementation you made.

Best, Oleg

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PLM Challenges In The Global Product Development

April 7, 2010

I had chance to read The Practice of Global Product Development at MIT Sloan Management Review. You can find  the link to this article here. The original research was published back in 2006. The current article is dated November 2009. In this new work author Steven D. Eppinger and Anil R. Chitkara, examined state-of-the-art and emerging best practices in global product development (GPD). I think Global Product Development has a very co-planar vectors of development with PLM. In my view, in the global organization, PLM has an opportunity to become “the backbone” system. Since in many cases, ERP deployment is country specific, PLM will have an advantage to integrate product development activity on the global scale.

I’d like to figure out some essential key success factors of GPD that need to be in the focus of PLM-minded people.

[...
2. Process Modularity To enable PD activities to be carried out in different locations, there must be a methodology to segregate the work packages for global distribution. For example, where a remote center will be handling tasks in a process that continues to be owned by the “central” PD location, a modular process is needed. The process must be broken down into clear steps, the steps distributed to different locations and the process reconfigured to allow for the necessary handoffs, reviews and approvals.

3. Product Modularity Modular product architecture is very helpful for GPD in which development of complete subsystems or components is to be carried out by teams in different locations. Clearly defined interfaces between modules facilitate their separate development and eventual integration into the product. Without such modularity, more intense collaboration across design interfaces is necessary.

5. Intellectual Property As critical product data, designs and technologies are shared more widely outside the company, protection of IP becomes more difficult. Defining products and processes in a modular structure not only can help with the distribution of activities, but also can help protect IP.

6. Data Quality The availability, accessibility and auditability of data become key challenges when many locations contribute to the PD process, often using different tools and databases. Teams may be working on different aspects of the product with similar “source data.” As these data change during the process, all users of the data must be aware of the changes and the implications for their work. One system or database must be used as the “source of truth.”
...]

In my view, these success factors present important challenges to any PLM implementation for the organization during deployment and implementation of Global Product Development practices. Below is my take on the top PLM challenges in GPD.

Global Product Data Modeling
The big organization has their own rules in organization product data. Most of the global organizations already have a product development process which organizes product data in a certain way. When it comes to implementing PLM vision, the question of “how to model product data” is one of the first questions that implementing team is going to discover. Despite the fact PLM vendors developed and acquired technologies and tools for flexible data modeling, in my view, this is still not a simple task. The biggest challenge is to get people in the global organization to agree on a meaningful way to represent and model data. These are current PLM practices, and unfortunately they require significant investment from the organization to make it happen.

Distributed Data and File Share
Data in a global organization need to be distributed between multiple locations. This simple statement means very not trivial implementation. How to plan your data location globally, how to move files and other pieces of data, how to protect IP when you work offshore? All these questions need to be answered by PLM implementation. I believe each organization is going through their own path in the organization of their distributed data and file management practices.

Change Management
This is last, but definitely not least. At the time that job done and system is up and running, the next step is… change! Global organization will be requesting on going changes in the way data need to be managed, located, accessed, etc. All this to support organizational business performance. To be able to support on going changes timely and without product development is a huge challenge for PLM deployment.

Just my thoughts… I’m sure, I didn’t cover all challenges, and I’m awaiting your comments. I’m very interested if you can share your experience and practices related to global product development and PLM deployment.

Best, Oleg

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What Is The Future of Integrated PLM Systems?

April 2, 2010

Few weeks ago I had chance to attend WTG Webinar Evolving from PDM to an Integrated PLM system at BAE Military Air Systems. The presentation was quite interesting and outlined main points of single integrated PLM system creation for the big organization as BAE. Large enterprise rganization has his own rules and this webinar outlined it very well – complex data models, huge chunks of legacy data, staged phases of the development (concept, design, release, service). The bottom line (seminar quote) - this is the most complex PLM implementation in Europe (or even may be in the world). Two things impressed me the most from the overall presentation: 1/ complexity of the overall data systems; 2/ integration efforts and data flow between different components.

These two things made me think about what is the future of Integrated PLM systems? What will be the evolution path of PLM systems? When I’m looking on successful PLM implementation, I see the extreme fit in how all components work together. Design, Engineering, Manufacturing – everything seems to be fit and work as a Swiss watch. However, I believe, the significant amount of work, requires to make this job done. For me, such complexity is always reflected in the overall cost. Every organization is different. So, if you plan to make such level of the integration for every organization, you need to be prepared for the same level of effort. Now, the next one – integration data flow. There are different stages, multiple data elements, components, statuses, exchange of information. To make it work requires fine tuning on a scale. This is impressive and scare. What if something doesn’t work or requires changes? Unfortunately, I didn’t find the answer on these questions. These are the future questions PLM implementations need to tackle with. How to replicate the success and maintain existing systems in the operational mode?

So, what is my conclusion today? There are two main factors that will define the future of PLM as an integrated enterprise system: 1/Cost of change; 2/ Mass adoption. The cost of change is very important, in my view. You can craft system on whatever level you want, but the moment of change comes very fast. I hope PLM vendors understand it and drive their strategic developments to these horizons. Modern manufacturing is very dynamic and will be even more in the future. The second factor is mass adoption. The large, unique and complex PLM systems need to learn how to replicate themselves into a smaller organization. I think, “integrated PLM” are not ready yet for this type of replication. This is another challenger for the future of the integrated PLM.

Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg

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