PLM, Bill of Materials and Silo Syndrome

April 26, 2013

PLM-info-silos.png

Are you familiar with term “silo”. When it comes to enterprises and large organizations, we often can hear about different silos of information. Here is the definition of information silo as it appears in Wikipedia.

An information silo is a management system incapable of reciprocal operation with other, related information systems. For example, a bank’s management system is considered a silo if it cannot exchange information with other related systems within its own organization, or with the management systems of its customers, vendors, or business partners. “Information silo” is a pejorativeexpression that is useful for describing the absence of operational reciprocity. In Information Technology, the absence of operational reciprocity is between disparate systems also commonly referred to as disparate data systems. Derived variants are “silo thinking”, “silo vision”, and “silo mentality”.

Very often, you can hear about “information silos” in a very negative context. Here are typical reasons why silos are bad – productivity killer, bad information transparency, etc. Recently published by PR Newswire article defines a new term called silo syndrome. Navigate to the following link to read Thousands of Companies Diagnosed with Dreaded ‘Silo Syndrome’. Article defines list of so called “silo syndrome symptoms”:

- An inability to immediately access business information
- Searching for answers but never really finding them
- Problems processing terms like “unstructured content”
- A penchant to unnecessarily flatten relational data
- Inability to join concepts together in real-time
- Needlessly accessing multiple systems for “what” and “why” answers

PLM propaganda very often use the value of PLM in overcoming the problem of organizational silos. Here is one of many marketing examples of PLM value connected to org silos coming from Oracle Agile PLM article on IT Toolbox article.

PLM by definition is concerned with tracking and controlling product-related business processes that span multiple departments across an extended period of time. Each of these departments may utilize differing systems. Tracking a products lifecycle will often present the need to gather and share information with ERP, CRM, inventory, manufacturing, supply chain, logistics and other systems. While some off the shelf integration may be available, current PLM users often find themselves faced with a frustrating level of manual re-entry or poor visibility of information and processes trapped in so-called silos. Overcoming these integration challenges can mean that an organization is liberated to find the true value of PLM: more innovative, market-responsive products, faster-time-to-market, faster time-to-volume, more efficient change management, better customer care, and superior obsolescence strategies. These benefits can be achieved by both process and discrete manufacturers.

The reality of PLM and silos are difficult. The main place where PLM is facing organizational silos is Bill of Materials (BOM) management. For manufacturing organizations, to create and manintain multiple Bill of Materials is a straightforward way to split responsibilities and control. Requirements, Engineering, Manufacturing, Sales, Support, Supply… you name it. Every department and organization is requesting to have “my BOM”, which will allow them to control and manage the information in the way they want. The real challenge come after when people demand PLM system to take care of multiple BOMs and information transformation between these BOM-silos.

What is my conclusion? Today, PLM has a limited success in eliminating organizational silos by introducing support for multiple Bill of Materials. In many situations PLM is not eliminating the needs to re-creating information. The demand of customers is to have sophisticated BOM management tools that allows to maintain multiple BOM silos in organization. In practice, manufacturing organizations are not interested to eliminate BOM silos. People want to keep information silos, but have PLM system that can help them to manage silos. Result is skyrockeing complexity of the PLM systems and implementation. So, do we need to preserve silos? It is a good question you can ask before approaching you next PLM BOM implementation. What is your take? Speak up.

Best, Oleg

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BOM 101: 5 “Don’ts” for Bill of Materials Management

January 21, 2013

BOM is fascinating. After posting 3 Modern BOM Management Challenges a week ago, I keep getting back to Bill of Materials management topic. If you missed my previous BOM 101 posts, here are links to get up to speed: BOM 101- The four pillars of every BOM management solution, BOM 101- How to optimize Bil of Materials. You can also take a look on this post as well – Single BOM in 6 steps. Today, I’d like to take a bit different angle by stating my 5 top most important "don’ts" you need to follow when designing and implementing bill of materials solution in your company. These topics are not necessarily reflecting PLM system. You can face the same problems when implementing BOM solutions using Excel spreadsheets, homegrown DIY data management and large ERP solution.

1. Don’t use significant numbers for Part Numbers – Use Classification

The discussion about "significant" vs. "non-significant" part numbers is probably endless. If you are new in this discussion (or just came out of computer science college), a significant Part Number looks like this 60-44-FN400587-60-NM-40-DWG-CHI. The information in this number is coded and different groups of this number are representing different meaning. Is there something wrong here? No, it is absolutely fine to have significant part number. Even more, if you are still using Excel spreadsheets or legacy data management system, this is probably the only way you can do it. However, it is complicated and eventually will lead you to mistakes. These days, most of PLM systems will provide you with the easy way to use insignificant part numbers. One of the features of good data management system is advanced classification mechanism. Such type of mechanism will help you to define all meaningful terms and characteristics of your Parts, Assemblies and Materials.

2. Don’t use supplier’s part number – use your own Item Master number

When working with suppliers, you may decide to use supplier’s part numbering schema. Especially if you are small company, it sounds very reasonable and it can simplify the communication with suppliers. However, this is a wrong thing to do, in my view. Again, PDM / PLM system maintaining item master record with cross-reference mechanism between parts and supplier part numbers can easy solve this problem and simplify your life in the future. What will happen with your system and processes if supplier will decide to change their number schema one day? it will be probably a very complicated day for you. So, use your own item master numbering schema and don’t rely on suppliers.

3. Don’t use the same ID for Part Numbers and Drawing Numbers

This is another question often asked during implementations. To use the same number for items and for drawings as well as process sheets, specification documents, etc. Initially sounds like something that could be simple enough to support and manage, can potentially lead to significant complexity and limitation in managing of change processes. The same drawing can be used for different part numbers. At the same time, changes of part numbers related to materials, stock, etc. won’t require drawing changes. Keep separate numbers and manage relationships between them is a good data management practice to follow.

4. Don’t be afraid to use extra part numbers

Identification is a very important mechanism. Sometimes, the assembly process is quite complicated and requires some temporarily pre assembled elements of the equipment to be maintained separately. In addition, you might have materials such as service parts, replacements, process result chemicals, etc. Bottom line – you don’t want materials in your bill to fly without identification. Everything needs to be included into the bill. Today’s data management systems are powerful enough to manage "extra Part Numbers" to identify everything you need in your bill.

5. Don’t put Bill of Materials on the drawings

Another topic coming from historical usage of paper drawing. In the past, it was the only way to share information. Obvious decision back that days was to put Bill of Materials on the drawing list. In modern digital life, such practice can create a lot of complications and additional procedures (such as updates of drawing when only part list will be changed). The good practice today is to keep cross reference links between drawings and bill of materials. It will allow you to manage your changes process efficiently and optimize your and your company time.

What is my conclusion? Control and efficiency. These are two important words to remember when you deal with Parts, BOMs and Documents. Many processes in this space were developed in the past and can trail lots of complexity if you not update them to "digital era". To streamline processes and make change management simple are important goals to following when creating the foundation of your BOM management solutions. Just my thoughts. I’m sure missed some issues and useful tips. Speak your mind and share your experience….

Best, Oleg

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Single Bill of Materials in 6 Steps

January 16, 2013

Last week I started the discussion about about modern BOM challenges. That discussion made me think more about the idea of unified and consistent Bill of Materials that can be shared across the company (single BOM). In my view, this is a clear paradigm shift from what we know today as "multiple BOMs". How to move from well-known multiple BOM paradigm to single BOM? If you are PLM manager, IT or implementation service company, you need to be prepared for the discussion that will involve all organizational stakeholders. In the post, I’m trying to identify steps in this discussion. I identified 6 steps – structure, part numbers, extensions, end items, ECO and BOM sharing with some comments.

1. Structure: Phantoms, Modularization, Planning Bills

The "beauty" of multiple BOM strategy is in segmentation. In your silo, you decide how to organize Bill of Material. Historically it gave a lot of advantages. By trying to combine it together, you can face discussions about how to create BOM compartment to fill a particular process and/or organization needs.

2. Part Numbering

One of the fundamental conversation about BOM is related to Part Numbers. In the past, discussion about part numbering schema raised lots of controversy. Many companies historically tied to using so-called intelligent part numbers. Be prepared to switch towards something more easy and straightforward. The process of Part Number assignment is also very important.

3. Specific extensions to the BOM

Each company has their own little secrets about what to add/exclude items to BOM. In most of the companies, this is a place that will be very hard to transform. The discussion about adding "nuts and bolts" as well as some other specific materials to BOMs can be endless. Be prepared.

4. End items

Large amount of end items can make your BOM strategy very cumbersome. The sales and business people need to take a part in this discussion. In most of the cases, you can delete end items and switch to the strategy to use options for the same purpose.

5. How to deal with ECO?

The question of dealing with engineering changes is critical. You need to have an ability to make a change easy without restructuring of BOMs (or, at least, with a very small effort). The ability to find a way to present ECO process will be critical. Another critical process to clear is new product introduction.

6. BOM sharing

The effort to create a single BOM experience is useless if you cannot share BOM holistically in an organization. If people are not accessing the same model, the same data at the same time it will destroy the idea of a single BOM.

What is the conclusion? Depends on the nature of your business, one of these topics can become a key and showstopper for your organization to transform into the single BOM. Some of you will disagree of structures and some you will not have a system to share BOM across the organization. The multi-BOM paradigm evolved during many years as a result of fundamental organization silos. However, these days, the efficiency how organization can resolve the problem of connected cross department processes is a dominant one. BOM is a lifeblood in these cross-department processes. If you switch to a single BOM, you have an opportunity to optimize processes. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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BOM 101: How to optimize Bill of Materials

January 14, 2013

Last week, I started the conversation about Bill of Materials and modern challenges. BOM is a heavy topic. Previous blog made me think about few additional things related to BOM management and I decided to share it with you too. One of the concepts I see as important in modern PLM and other enterprise systems is to maintain the idea and implementation of single BOM. For many years, I’ve seen multiple-BOM concept as one of the fundamental ideas to implement BOM management in many enterprise systems – PDM, PLM, MRP, ERP, etc. However, I believe, we need to start revising BOM management systems towards usage of one consistent BOM.

Function oriented BOM

The simple definition of BOM is not functional. The wikipedia article about BOM defines it a list of raw materials, parts, components and sub-assemblies required to build a product. In my view, you can see many BOMs in organizations reflecting "product structure" as a main driving behind how BOM organized. As a result of this, many companies are experiencing difficulties with operations and processes that involve these BOMs. Opposite to that, you should think about BOM from a functional standpoint. Form of BOM follows functions. The final form of the BOM or structure of the BOM is a reflection of what we want the BOM to do.

Wide Company Usage

Very often BOM starts in a single department. The compartmental organization logic made BOM separation very natural. When it is done, you feel pain relief, since you think it removes cross department conflicts about BOM structure. However, it is not true. It hits you back immediately when you start planning your cross functional processes. BOM needs to be structured to support the way product will be manufactured. Also important to include business view by structuring BOM around end items that imply some business view on a product you are creating.

Part numbers and Documentation

Don’t mess with these two main groups of identification parameters. Don’t try to combine them. Build BOM around part numbers and think about how to simplify the relationships between Parts and Drawings. The complexity of these relationships will make your future change process messy and complicated. Traditionally, BOM ends up in the drawing sheet. It was in the past. With massive adoption of 3D CAD systems and computer automation, you can re-think it. Managing part numbers is a separate topic that I will address in another post.

Modules and Flattening

Use grouping techniques to create part of BOM that can be easy handled and replaced. Use logically combined parts that belongs to specific configurations. It will help you to simplify your ordering system. Modern tools allows you to deal with hierarchies much easier. However, think twice before you introduce an additional level in BOM hierarchy. Flat BOM is much easy to handle. It is very important to create a BOM structure that allows you to run change processes as easy as possible. Analyze your change processes upfront.

What is my conclusion? The simplicity is an ultimate sophistication. It is very easy to create a complex, hierarchical BOM structure trailing all 3D CAD structures as well as engineering structures. However, to make a simple BOM that can be used by all department is not a simple task. Think bottom up – first about function of your BOM in terms of what you are manufacturing, second about change processes and only after about BOM structure (form). Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image courtesy of [just2shutter] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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BOM and CAD-PDM-PLM-ERP Integration Challenges

November 3, 2011

I want to talk about Bill of Material and integration today. The reason why I’m coming to this topic is largely because I have a feeling "integration" will play a significant role in the future of product lifecycle management and enterprise systems in general. Two days ago, I’ve been writing about two approaches "unification" and "integration" in PLM. One of the main reasons why, I think, CAD/PLM companies decided to focus on "unification" is a struggle with integration. Time ago it started from integration between CAD and PDM. Since then, multiple other topics were added to the story of integration between multiple systems. So, one of the objectives companies put in front of them investing into unification was to simplify deployment of integrated systems.

BOM and Integrations

What I learned from multiple integration projects I’ve been involved for the last 10 years? Bill of Materials is the central piece of every integration story. The majority of integration topics are around how to handle BOM during all scenarios. The processes and implementation practices related to Bill of Materials are impacting in a significant way how a company will operate multiple systems (CAD, PDM, PLM, ERP).

Interesting enough, Bill of Material is also a centerpiece of all battles around how manage product data in various forms in multiple systems. It comes in a form of BOM synchronization between systems, definition of multiple BOM views, Product representations and many others. After thinking about possible integration scenarios, I’d like to come with three main challenges that exist in most of the integration projects (in most of the cases regardless on what systems are involved) – BOM Transfer, Item Data Synchronization and Single Bill of Material representation.

Integration Challenges

Challenge 1: BOM Transfer

This is a very complicated topic. Bill of Materials are everywhere. Drawings, CAD Systems, Engineering databases, ERP and Manufacturing systems. Even sales configurations requires a certain representation of BOM. The top waste, people want to eliminate is a need to entering information manually from one system to another system. Therefore, to automate the transfer is No.1 priority for many integration projects. However, it requires mapping of data and a lot of "hand-wiring".

Challenge 2: How to keep Item Data in Sync

Item information (or how ERP-related people saying Item Master) is a second important topic for the integration. In most of the companies, it is originated and maintained by ERP/MRP systems. However, when company is moving more towards cross-functional processes, the need to have item master information replicated and, sometime originated outside of ERP system, is growing.

Challenge 3: Where is my single BOM?

This is of the most challenging topic. Lots of companies are spending tons of time trying to decide how to maintain different flavors of BOMs in multiple systems, how to synchronize it and how to define what is the "ultimate single BOM". Some of the companies are taking a different approach and starting to manage so called "multiple BOM". Time ago, I spent some time discussing these topics. Read the following two blog post I published before: Is it a time for synchronized BOM? and Non-linear BOM perspective. Companies are spending lots of resources trying to find what is the right BOM management strategy. Lots of tools (including customized tools) are focusing on how to maintain bill of materials handling across multiple representations (aka systems).

What is my conclusion? BOM is a centerpiece of everything. You may lose control of 3D drawings’ versions and do everything in 2D. You can maintain change tracking manually. You may decide not to manage requirements. However, in my view, you cannot lose the control of items and bill of materials. As the number of systems involved into this process is growing, the complexity of keeping BOM under control becomes and more complicated. Many companies are avoiding management of Bill of Materials in multiple systems just because of this reason. As, one of my readers mentioned earlier this week – "you rarely can satisfy all your needs with a single system". So, I’m expecting more "integration challenges" in coming years from implementing CAD, PDM, PLM, ERP in various flavors and combinations. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Not-Linear BOM Perspectives

September 2, 2010

Summer is finally over. This is a good reason to stop talking about fancy social software and cool Apple’s features. Let’s move back to the core of design, engineering and manufacturing. Yes, I’d like to talk about Bill of Materials. The following blog article drove my attention earlier this week – BOM: An ENOVIA V6 Perspective. Vik Paranjpe of Razorleaf is discussing details about V6 BOM specifics. I found his initial passage very interesting:

By now companies have accepted the reality that product creation is not a linear task going from Design department to manufacturing and beyond. All the departments (including Design, Development, Quality, and Manufacturing) provide input to the product development process, e.g. Quality might have an opinion on the types of components to be used which in turn will impact the design being produced. This increases the need for a centralized BOM management solution that provides a single source of truth for the bill of materials with different “views” of the BOM for each department.

What I specially like is a definition of product creation as “not linear task“. It fits my perspective on the need to consolidate Bill of Material management effort. My last take on this was about a year ago in my post – Seven Rules Towards Single Bill of Materials. Since then, I had a chance to discuss a concept of Bill of Material consolidation with customers and experts. I think, companies need to make an effort in consolidating their Bill of Materials related tasks. However, the software available today on the market contains multiple gaps that can make implementation very complicated.

Single BOM vs. Multiple BOMs
This is one of the key questions people is asking when trying to analyze the capability of BOM Tools. In my view, this question is very misleading. The real question should be related to the ability of software to handle the complexity of tasks related to product structure modeling for all users in the organization. Designers, Engineers, Manufacturing planners and all other relevant people need to have an ability to access the product structure and BOM Information.

Automatic vs. Manual
I can see a “not-linear” product creation as the ability of Bill of Material tools to handle multiple synchronization and change steps related to performing various tasks in design, engineering and manufacturing planning. BOM provides you with the ability to consolidate it. One of the usual mistakes is trying to provide a fully automated process of Bill Material synchronization rules. The appropriated balance of automatic and manual tasks is absolutely important to make BOM tool fit the needs.

BOM Tools – Devil in Details
In order to perform BOM-related tasks successfully, BOM software needs to provide a diverse set of tools. The granularity of these tools is a key, in my view. You need to be able to perform a variety of BOM slice&dice, changes and reviews. The usability and availability of rich set of functions is the key.

What is my conclusion? Despite a long history, Bill of Material management is a still very challenging task. PDM/PLM vendors are working for decades to provide improved software modules to satisfy user demands. Each time, we see new modules and approaches in Bill of Material management. Lately, I can see a trend to provide better vertical integration in PLM tools. BOM management is a central part of this vertical integration. However, implementation of complex PLM suites is an expensive task. A good question could be what is the potential alternative of vertical integration?

Best, Oleg

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Do we need multi-faceted BOM compare?

July 10, 2009

bom-compareThe following blog article by Anurag Batra drove my attention today – “Comparing BOM Structures: a multi-faceted need”. Author is asking if “BOM comparison” is needed function in PLM system and especially interested about “multi-faceted” Bill of Material comparison. He is asking these questions in context of enhancements made in new Agile 9.3. He wrote – “Most PDM, PLM and ERP systems offer the ability to compare Bills of Material structures side by side. Agile have had a BOM Comparison report for many years – it allowed for comparison of multiple BOM structures side by side. With 9.3, we’ve enhanced the report greatly – focusing on the use case of deep multi-level comparison between two BOM structures”. Later in this article Anurag explains new features, how possible to compare multiple levels of multiple release changes etc. According to him Agile 9.3 version provides excellent features that improve capability to compare Bill of Materials in multiple ways. I’ve been a bit confused in the end of Anurag’s post by his question to readers, how they actually compare BOMs and what can be possible use cases for new introduced reports…

Here is my Think Tank question… Do we really want to compare Bill of Materials? Except the fact that we always excited by features and capabilities of our software, I guess comparison is a very complex task. Each time I’m trying to compare structures, I feel unsecured. To compare multi-level structures that include multiple changes is very complicated, in my view. I’d be very interested in see examples of multi-faceted BOM comparison Anurag is talking about…

Here is my view:
1.  Bill of Material comparison is very complicated task.

2. Designers and Engineers are less interesting “to compare”, but more interesting to find difference between two versions of designs of product structures.

3. May be we need to think about functions in our software that provide “results” and not put users in complicated scenarios of comparing multiple structures?

I’m looking forward your responses and open discussion…

Best, Oleg

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