Daily PLM Think Tank Blog

You are probably familiar with the following statements “beavers do what beavers do“. I’ve got the confirmation of that last month whenvisited PTC HQ in Waltham, MA. It was amazing to see how PTC is focused on moving PLM story to the higher level of maturity. At the same time, one of the PTC main competitors- Dassault Systems is actually preparing to the world after PLM. Yes… after PLM – you’ve heard this right!

Earlier this month during SolidWorks World 2012, Bernard Charles, President and CEO of Dassault Systems presented his vision of 3D Experience. Bernard, again, made it very clear – Dassault is a “vision” type company. In my view, Dassault is following Apple’s and Henry Ford’s paradigm not to ask customers what they actually need, but invent it in their new products. Dassault is coming to the world “after PLM”. What does it mean? Josh Mings of SolidSmack made his usual sharp catch – Dassault launches strange new 3D experience platform. Navigate to this link to read more.

Dassault new 3D Experience vision

Dassault put a new website providing more information about 3D Experience platform. Here are some updated explanations about what 3D experience means for Dassault:

DS considers ?3D Experience? as the ?after-PLM? stage. The more complex the underlying software is, the simpler the user experience should be. It’s all about optimizing products and designs in the virtual, 3D world to enable better product delivery. Some DS brands make the 3D, some enrich the experience. The image is meant as a description of the key components of 3D Experience as DS sees it: 3D modeling, content and simulation, search, social innovation, real time 3D experience.

You can get an information about Dassault’s vision by watching the following video.

But, this video was contained too much marketing and I was looking for some additional information about DS future plans. I found some interesting writeups available on UpFrontezine by Ralph Grabowski. Navigate to the following link to read more – Bernard Charles talks strategy. I found it very interesting. You can see important keywords used to explain where Dassault is going – 3D, Digital Mockup, Data reuse, Open Architecture and Affordable. This is pretty cool set of buzzwords. However, the last passage in Ralph’s post is my favorite:

“The reason why high tech is adopting V6 is because they never leave the data alone. They can ask the suppliers to connect to the system and go and access to the data where they are without moving them.”

What is my conclusion? The story of 3D Experience is inspiring. I think, Bernard got inspired by Apple story. Experience is what getting more importance these days. I’m sure you know Apple example. But anyway… MP3 players were around quite few years, but only iPod/iTunes experience turned it into what we see now. It was about “music”, and Steve Jobs created closed eco-system of “music experience”. So, Bernard Charles is probably thinking about “future design experience eco-system”. It is cool! However, here is the problem I can see. The consumer audience is different from business one. When it comes to business of the companies, IP assets, IT and many other things, companies are getting concerned about “closed eco-systems”. The last passage about V6 and data got me concerned about future Dassault openness strategy too. In the past, V6 was criticized because it locked CATIA and Enovia behaviors. Dassault “after PLM” party seems to me as a story how to create an ecosystem supporting full cycle of innovation. Very visionary… Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Collaboration is one of the most overused words in Product Lifecycle Management. Even outside of PLM world, this term creates confusing. You never know what stands behind the next big thing in software for collaboration. In the past, software vendors in CAD, PDM, PLM, Supply chain, etc. made multiple efforts to develop “collaborative solutions”. However, “collaboration” is absolutely not only about CAD, PDM and PLM. Even opposite, if you will take a look on how many software vendors rushed to deliver solutions for collaboration, you will be amazed. Take a look on this Collaborative Software page in Wikipedia. You can see multiple examples of software.

Simplification is another interesting trend I’m watching these days. The ability to delivery “simpler user experience” becomes absolutely important to success in software. Few days ago, Google introduced “Structured Discussion” feature. You can read more about this feature in Google’s blog or the following TechCrunch publication. Watch this video and make your conclusion.

Google Structured discussion made me think about how similar functionality can be embedded into PLM software. More specifically it can be a nice feature to appear in engineering software. CAD and Viewers probably would be my first priority choice. I can easily find more examples. I found evidence vendors in PLM and around are actually also thinking about near the similar features.

Dassault 3DLive
Back in 2007 Dassault, released a new product called 3DLive. Navigate to Dassault website to learn more about this. When in 3DLive, users can communicate with other users via something called “buddy list”. Take a look on this picture below (thanks DE for this picture) Similar to IM, you can catch a conversation with people related to a particular assembly or part. I think, 3DLive provided some original ideas in communication, but was too complicated to implement and, in the beginning, had some limited to CATIA based environment only.

Vuuch

I found few publications about Vuuch Design Discussions from early 2009. The term “design discussion” is actually interesting. Vuuch provides to engineers the ability to make comments and communicate in a more efficient way by combining of discussion treads and design snapshot. The next picture is evidence of this feature. You can read more about this experience from Josh on his SolidSmack blog – Slapping Discussion Across the face of Design. I actually liked the way Vuuch presented it in the past. I tried to follow the “design discussion” term on Vuuch blog and actually found the new name for “collaboration” is “interaction“.

Siemens HD PLM

This is a bit about the future. Last year, Siemens PLM introduced the concept of HD PLM (High Definition PLM). I’m not familiar in details with what HD PLM can delivery, but learning from the website and videos, I found evidence of “discussion elements” in the HD PLM solution as well. You can see it in the following picture.

What is my conclusion? To help people to work together is extremely important. Software that makes it simple and intuitive can catch up very fast. Design and engineering environment in manufacturing companies is still a place where you need to read lots of user manuals before you start to understand to operate with the software. Even if I found evidence of the user interaction features in specialized software created for manufacturing, I found Google Structured Discussion features much cleaner and simpler to use. Simplification is a key. Just remember – MP3 player was available for years, but was replaced by iPod. This is probably the best example of simplification.

Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg

What is the most genius invention I’ve heard during the last week? What is your guess? Right! The cover of iPad 2. It was magically simple as everything in Apple. And after it happened it becomes so obvious.What can be simpler than to switch off device after you close the device cover? Ha!… Now try to do it on your PC laptop. I think, you understand what I’m talking about. iPad 2, even before it came to Apple stores, is creating a bigsecondary market of the existing iPad.

Think about existing PLM systems. They are getting older… What about PLM 2.0? Is it something that can come and leverage extensive experience of Google, the internet, Web 2.0 and the power of social networking? Then everybody will run to re-sell existing PLM apps to buy a new stuff. Dreams… I know. PLM vendors are coming with new stuff. PTC Windchill 10, Enovia V6, TeamCenter… New platforms, new apps, new dreams. Now, let’s talk about PLM Think Tank February Top 5.

Integrated PDM and PLM: Wrong Question?
Software has a long lifecycle in manufacturing companies. I found the lifecycle of PDM/PLM software systems is very complicated. Actually, it is as complicated as the product lifecycle they are managing. To change existing systems in a company can be a very costly decision. To re-use existing systems can be a complicated from the technical standpoint, but can lead to a faster ROI. It makes sense to me. The cost of integration can be a key in this story. So, a potentially “wrong question” can lead to the right answer.

PLM Platform Wars: Who is Right or Who is Left?
I wanted to remind wise and relevant words of Bertrand Russell: “War does not determine who is right – only who is left”. The war between PLM platforms can become a disaster for customers. Customers are spending million of dollars investing money in “unbreakable closed platforms”. Each of these systems contains lots of data, which has much bigger value compared to the software that eventually will be re-written every 5-10 years. I think, openness wins for a long run. In my view, PLM companies are only playing with openness. Who will take it seriously first? This might be a company that is left after the battle?

CAD, PLM and Product Cost
Costing is a very important topic, in my view. It is another place where MS Excel has huge market dominance. Software vendors slowly, but started to understand the importance of vertical cost integration. The solution in this space is not obvious and requires significant effort in data integration. So far, I’ve seen little activity in this space.

PLM Standard: From Formats to Frameworks
PLM need to move from the file formats battles to a place where the communication and process framework can be used to control data handsoff and decision making. This will become a new way in development of standards. Used by multiple companies frameworks can evolve into mechanism to realize PLM company roadmap. However, I don’t see one process template fits all companies needs. To have flexible communication and process management tools is absolutely important to make PLM framework successful.

Search Based Application and PLM Innovation
Search technologies are providing a clear advantage in future development of product lifecycle management. I can see a good chance for DS to improve their V6 platform by injecting Exalead stuff inside. At the same time, I don’t see SBA solving key problems of PLM such as complexity and implementation cost. Ownership of these technologies can provide some competitive advantages to Dassault. Other vendors can move to expanding partnership with other search vendors or using open source search technologies such as Lucene/Solr. Manufacturing companies of all sizes will be still interested in how to simplify products and make their next implementation for lower cost.

Best, Oleg