PLM Simplification. First drop PLM word…

January 18, 2012

Simplification is a significant trend. I’ve been watching it a lot in consumer space. People got really obsessed by simplification after Apple. And these are all good things. However, I want to come back to something I call "simple PLM". Well, you can tell me it is a joke… maybe. First time I put a word about simplification was in 2008 (Simple PLM Technology). It was more like a question rather than post how to simplify data representation. My second take on "Simple PLM" was last year (Post COFES, Dropbox and PLM Made Simple) – I was talking about how to simplify data sharing. Not sure whether Dropbox will provide a concept for a future PLM, but two keywords out of that conversation were – "usability and simplicity".

First simplify, then automate

I remember one of the conversations that happened to me during the sales meeting with customers. It was about 7-8 years ago. I will not mention names, of course. I was "impressed" by a try of a sales person to convince a potential buyer by saying "Don’t underestimate the complexity of things we can manage". I found it very remarkable, and it took me long time to drive my conclusion about PLM sales. The predominant assumption of PLM sales is that manufacturing world is very complicated. So, we need a really complex system to manage this manufacturing world. Nowadays, I think, this is a mistake.

I found a very interesting quote from the following book: Product lifecycle management: 21st century paradigm for product realisation – First simplify, then automate. In my view, we need to think more how to simplify organizational processes. It will help us a lot to simplify PLM too.

Back to basics – back to BOM?

Here is another interesting observation. It came from Arena Solution. There are two things I like about Arena these days. First – Arena’s blog became one of my favorites. The second is about how Arena is trying to simplify what they do. Historical record – Arena started about a decade ago as a company called bom.com. You can still navigate to Arena vai this url. However, what I wanted to mention is how Arena Solutions changed the definition of what they do. Arena came from "PLM" back to "BOM". Can I call it "back to basics". I think, it will be a valid statement.

What is my conclusion? Few days ago, I wrote about process simplification. We will see more signs of simplification in the world of software for product lifecycle management, manufacturing and engineering. It all starts from the interest of people to simplify the world around them. Drop complicated acronyms and go beyond PLM with simple words – BOM, Change, Part, etc. When this goal is achieved, we will more a clearer picture of what new PLM software need to do. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

* freebie. nobody paid me to write this post.

** picture is courtesy of Arena Solutions blog

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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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PLM Think Tank October Top 5

November 2, 2011

The last week snow in Boston was kind of an event. I think, many of New England residents are still sitting without power and the internet. Which made me think about how dependent we are on the internet supply and how few choices we actually have when it comes to the service interruption. Talking about it, I really want to come to the topic which caused lots of discussion among readers of my blog and also CAD/PLM blogosphere – cloud. Navigate to the following link and read about my discussion with Ralf Grabowski about the future of Cloud. Now, let’s move to my traditional top 5 for October.

1 – PLM Definition and ERP Implementation Patterns

Manufacturing clearly wants to optimize product development processes across the enterprise. The single point of truth is leveraging the simplicity of SQL-database experience for the last 20 years. At the same time, centralization and replication of data are complicated and expensive processes. Managing phased implementation creates a set of new problems related to the ability to maintain the data transformation and synchronization within the time.

2 – Aras, SolidWorks and Disruptive PLM Strategies

Aras is clearly playing a role of a disrupter on PLM market. Back in 2007, Aras disrupted PLM first time by introducing Open Source PLM. It looks like Aras is on the way to make a second disruption among large companies using SolidWorks and taking a role of Enovia V6 in a bundle EPDM / EPLM. Enovia clearly has a technological advantage of having unified development forces in their new Dassault facilities in Waltham, MA to develop “best in class” Enovia V6 / SolidWorks EPDM integration. The speed of customer adoption will be a key factor for Aras.

3 – Cloud and Next Generation of BOM

I think, cloud and other web-based solution can introduce many advantages. One of them is to streamline BOM access by members of the team. Think about BOM as a Google spreadsheet and you probably can get excited by how it may change the way you work. However, cloud technologies introduce new challenges (especially in the field of integration) that need to be solved.

4 – CAD, PLM and Visual Reporting

I think, slowly, but surely, CAD and PLM vendors are starting to understand the value of the ability to present data reports and visualize them nicely. It recognized by many vendors (and just brought examples of Siemens PLM, Dassault Systems and Autodesk). In my view, we are going to see more examples of how reporting capabilities can increase the value of products and make it more usable.

5- PDM Cartoons, Marketing and Unsolved Problems

Few weeks ago, I’ve been interviewed during Autodesk Forum in Moscow. The conversation was about social networks and the question I’ve been asked was – What is next after “Like”? For the sake of the story, my answer was “+”. However, let me shift gears a bit. Thinking about PDM Cartoons I came to the question – “What is next after PLM?”. I found many things marketed as “PLM” functionality presented in these PDM cartoons. Does it mean “PDM” will be the next step after “PLM”. Who knows… The only thing is clear to me – lots of problems in manufacturing organizations cannot be solved by application of yet another “power point deck”. It is time to think what software can do so. The complexity is not in favor these days. Companies are trying to find a different way to solve existing problems.

Best, Oleg

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Cloud and Next Generation of BOM

October 19, 2011

Few days ago, I was talking about some interesting patterns of PLM and ERP implementation. In a nutshell, the integration between PLM and ERP systems presents a significant level of implementation complexity. The need to synchronize between PLM and ERP storage is a complicated process that different among many companies. In many situations, service providers hired to make this implementation.

Earlier, this week, I stumble around Arena Solution website. The following white paper caught my attention – Beyond BOM 101: Next Generation Bill of Materials Management. Take your time and read this 8 pages document. It is worth reading. Despite the fact Arena is bluntly marketing their cloud BOM management tools in this paper, I found it explaining very well all challenges a company can face with regards to the management of Bill of Materials and related activities. According to Arena’s opinion, the following picture represents a very typical situation when BOM created by multiple people involved into the process of the project.

To answer the challenge, Arena presents another picture presenting next-generation bill of materials tool that bridges the design and manufacturing world. I tried to abstract the Arena name on this picture. The picture made me think about how the solution solves the problem.

I found that this architecture contains the same PLM-ERP implementation pattern that creates a high level of implementation complexity and requires a significant effort to be spent in order to be integrated between engineering Bill of Material in PLM and manufacturing BOM in ERP.

Now, let me get back to the Arena tools. Arena is suggesting “cloud BOM” solution. Does it mean the integration between BOM in Arena and manufacturing BOM in ERP will be different? Frankly, saying, I don’t know the real answer. Arena’s white paper didn’t say a word about how to integrate Arena BOM with ERP.

What is my conclusion? I think, cloud and other web-based solution can introduce many advantages. One of them is to streamline BOM access by members of the team. Think about BOM as a Google spreadsheet and you probably can get excited by how it may change the way you work. However, cloud technologies introduce new challenges (especially in the field of integration) that need to be solved. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM, ERP and Managing of Effectivity

May 3, 2011

One of my blog readers asked me few questions about managing of effectivity. I decided to share this information. In my view, the conversation about Effectivity is always complicated. There are lots of opinions about how you need to manage effectivity, what system serves the best the purpose of effectivity management and how to solve potential complication when dealing with effectivity management.

Effectivity in ERP vs. PDM/PLM

Effectivity definition originally comes from MRP/ERP environment. The most typical example is "date effectivity" which defines the available to a particular Part/Item. The "effectivity" term is not specific for manufacturing environment. However, I found it useful in many related to manufacturing systems. PDM/PLM originally was created without effectivity in mind. Most of engineering systems are "revision" oriented rather than "effectivity" oriented. It means PDM/PLM is managing different revision of objects (i.e. Parts, Documents, etc.) rather than defines their effectivites. However, with the increased need of integration between PDM and ERP as well as the introduction of PLM systmes on the market, the need to manage effectivity on multiple Bill of Materials int the environment different from manufacturing increased significantly. Effectivity might be defined as a date, serial number or, in a more complex way, as a "unit" (think about a particular car configuration / model).

Effectivity: Part vs. BOM

The difference between effectivity in the context of a Part and the effectivity in the context of a BOM is often getting misunderstood. These two effectivities can be managed independently. Part effectivity scope is only Part itself. An example is a manufacturing part effective from 1-June until 31-August. At the same time, you can define effectivity of a particular part in the context of the assembly. In the case of assembly, a Part can be used in different assemblies /BOMs with a different effectivity.

Effectivity Management

What means management of effectivity? Some of the elements of effectivity management related to the definition of effectivity dates, S/N, units, etc. They are coming as an information from suppliers (in case of standard parts), subcontractors, manufacturing planners, etc. At the same time, there is another aspect of efectivity management related to proliferation of effectivity during the management of Bill of Materials and ECO. One of the examples can be a change of Bill of Material related to the ECO implementation. There are many other situations. They can be very specific and depend on company practices and development/manufacturing processes.

Effecitivity and Different Industries.

Some elements of effectivity management can be different, depends on the industry. Development practices in discrete manufacturing are from electronic and others. In addition, different effectivity types can be applied in case of managing highly configured equipment (i.e. cars, airplanes, etc.)en. The diversity between industry are caused by differences in product development methodologies as well as by differences in data modeling.

What is my conclusion? Effectivity management can be complicated. It can be especially complicated, in the case of multiple environments – PDM, PLM, ERP. The synchronization between systems as well as effectivities updates can be challenging to be implemented. To maintain a consistent system is a crucial part of implementation from the standpoint of a standalone system as well as multiple connected environments. I hope this summary provided you with the basics of the effectvity management. At the same time, I would be interested to hear about your practices in how you manage effectivity in different environments.

Best, Oleg

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PLM Philosophies Collide

September 29, 2010

Somebody asked me last week about how I see th future of PLM… Does it look like-BOM or like-Workflow? I found this question very interesting. Bill of Materials and Workflow (or process management) are fundamentally two most important pieces of PDM and PLM systems for many years. So, we have them already in place. However, thinking about the future – what will be a dominant solution? Do we need re-invent the wheel? Is there any conflict here? I want to elaborate about both to see what future PLM looks like.

Bill of Material World

BOM is considered as a foundation of design, engineering and manufacturing. You can see it everywhere – design BOM in CAD system, Engineering BOM, Manufacturing BOM, Support and Service BOM. You can follow a product lifecycle by discovering different bill of materials. You can find lots of methodologies and systems that help you to handle your Bill of Material world. These things are really complicated. Bill of Materials represents many issues related to product development and in the end of the day you can think about a virtual Bill of Material representing everything.

Workflow World

Processes (or how we can simply call them Workflows) are very important for an organization too. They are a life blood of every manufacturing organization. Organization is running business processes and making overall execution of the business. We can classify them as local and global cross-department. Local are mostly focusing on departmental processes. The more interesting and challenging thing are cross-departmental processes. These processes are connected people working in different departments. Cross-departmental processes are very important if you think about the overall product lifecycle.

PLM Philosophies Difference

So, why I put BOM world against Workflow world? You can draw your organization in terms of Bill of Material and, at the same time, in terms of organizational processes. Is it about philosophy or about real development practices? In the early days of PDM and PLM, the main focus was absolutely on files, data management, revisions, Bill of Materials. Later, PLM system discovered “process world”. This “discovery” was part of the competition between PLM and ERP world. PLM systems made an upscale to compete in the high society. The “process approach” presented organic change to fit product development processes in organizations.

What is my conclusion?

I think, this question represents one of the biggest philosophical collide in engineering and manufacturing software. What will be the winning behavior in the future? It is hard to say. In my view, the end-game solution will need to provide answers to both sides of the problem. BOM and Worklow need to be equaly included into PLM solutions. Only together they can keep an organization to manage efficiently product lifecycle. Just my thoughts. What is your take?

Best, Oleg

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PLM Basics: Reference Designator and Find Numbers

September 24, 2010

Some time ago, one of my readers wrote me a comment with the question about Reference Designators and Find Numbers. With all our interest to talk about modern technological trends, mobile, social software, understanding and clarification of basics is very important too. In the past, I wrote few posts tagged PLM Basics. If you haven’t seen it before, navigate your brower to the following link.

Online Reference Information
You are pretty much out of lack if you are trying to find this information online. Here is short info from Wikipedia.

A reference designator unambiguously identifies a component in an electrical schematic (circuit diagram) or on a printed circuitboard (PCB). The reference designator usually consists of one or two letters followed by a number, e.g. R13, C1002. Thenumber is sometimes followed by a letter, indicating that components are grouped or matched with each other, e.g. R17A, R17B.

Another source of information, which is probably less known – PLMPedia. This is an online project of created byLEDAS. Unfortunately, PLMPedia has no information about what is a reference designator.

Reference Designator (RD)
RD is normally a text field that belongs to Component in Bill of Material, that helps you to specify what this component does and how to find this component. In most cases, used when more than one component with the same Part Number need to appear in BOM. Reference designators can be used in various reports and Bill of Material views. The most of Reference Designator usages is to simplify your access to a specific Component / Part Number. The usage of Reference designators can be different between various systems in the industry. Normally, the information about Reference Designator usage belongs to BOM module.

Find Number (FN)
FN is a number that usualy set by Bill of Material management module when create line item in BOM. For most cases, I’ve seen, Find Number usually set automatically or manually as the incremental number for every row in Bill of Material. Find Number is a simple way to search, sort and organize lines in Bill of Material module.

I found usage of Reference Designator sometimes overlaps with usage of Find Number. I’m looking forward to hearing about your experience and common practices. I didn’t find much online information about terms and practices in product development and engineering. The usage of Reference Designators can be different in electronic industry compared to mechanical engineering.

Best, Oleg

*** photo in this blog post was imported from Flickr user Dano. The original file is located here.

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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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CAD-BOM Missing Links

August 19, 2010

One of the interesting trends in PLM is growing amount of vertical integrations between components of PLM portfolio. The following Razorleaf blog cough my attention earlier this week- Dassault Published V6R2011. Here is the quote from Razorleaf blog pointing on the specific feature that, in my view, requires additional discussion:

Generative Drafting Associative EBOM – The BOM on the face of the CATIA drawing may now be configured to reflect the EBOM in ENOVIA. It seems the tight coupling of CAD and PDM are bringing interesting features to the table.

You can find full CATIA V6R2011 facts sheet navigating your browser on the following location. This CATIA V6R11 BOM in CAD feature made me think about various aspects related to vertical integration between CAD and PDM components.

CAD-BOM missing links
Design and Bill of Materials are two entities that are representing important dependencies in product development. If you realize an importance of a link between CAD and Bill of Material managed by PLM or ERP system, you have a huge potential in optimization of your development processes. An appropriated access to engineering and manufacturing bill of materials from the designer standpoint and vice-versa can be used to synchronize multi-discipline design processes (i.e. Mechanical and electrical), development and manufacturing processes, etc. The value of this CAD-BOM link is hard to underestimate. However, this link needs to be established in multi-CAD environment too, which represent a next challenge to PLM software vendors and implementations.

CAD in BOM or BOM in CAD?
This is one of the questions on the working table of CAD, PDM and PLM developers already many years. Do we need to integrate CAD data into Bill of Material Management environment? Alternatively, maybe we need to integrated BOM environment and data into CAD system. This is kind of "eggs and chicken" problem. Both parts are equally important. However, to support integration balance between them is not a simple task. Many PLM systems stand-up and failed around this problem. My intuitive preference is to allow to the system managing Bill of Material to be connected to multiple CAD systems and absorb it under single BOM umbrella.

What is my conclusion? The integration of BOM and CAD components and data is old, but still un-resolved. At the same time, the potential of optimization of design, engineering and manufacturing processes around CAD-BOM missing link can be significant. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM, BOM, Excel – How To Make It Right?

July 30, 2010

The following blog article caught my attention last week – “Four recommendations for better Excel BOMs” in Arena Solutions blog by Jennifer Bomze. I found it interesting. Arena Solution is a PLM outfit that started about ten years ago as a company named bom.com. After few years, bom.com was re-branded and expanded to provide PLM on demand solution. I remember I was impressed by what Arena was doing with their web-based Bill Of Material product. I was following Arena activities over the past few years. They grew up in their functional PLM scope. However, my hunch is that the main competition is going between PLM offering and plain Microsoft Excel product.

PLM vs. Excel: Apple-to-Apple?
I had chance to write about PLM and Excel multiple times in the past. You can track my previous articles on my blog. Few of them are here:
Do we need chief excel officer to manage BOM?
Why Do I like my PLM Excel Spreadsheet?
PLM Excel Spreadsheet: From odes to woes.

Of course, Excel cannot be compared to PLM. Nevertheless, I guess, MS Excel is successfully outperforming PLM systems from the simplicity, implementation cost and data openness. So, even if you will never see PLM vendors comparing their product portfolios with Excel, they are struggling with Excel competition.

How To Make Excel In a Right Way?
Despite the fact Excel cannot replace broad set of PLM system functionality, I can see PLM companies are thinking more and more into “Excel-friendship” direction. To confirm this you can see multiple expanded MS Office and Microsoft SharePoint offerings coming from TeamCenter and Windchill. However, current proposal by Arena make it even more interesting. You can take a look on the full article here. In short, what Arena proposes – 4 recommendations how to use Excel if you decided NOT to purchase PLM system, for the moment:

  1. Be consistent. Use the same columns in the same order in every Excel bill of materials. Use a standard format for part numbers, manufacturer names, file titles and other types of data.
  2. Use standard templates. Get in the habit of hiding (not deleting) columns that aren’t needed in a particular BOM and creating separate spreadsheets for doing analyses that require additional columns. Give each column a single purpose, and label every piece of data in your Excel BOM spreadsheet.
  3. Have part numbering and part naming conventions – and a single location to store them. Develop and document a standard way to number and name ALL parts, and then manage those part numbers and names in a single location, like an item master or master parts list.
  4. Minimize repeated data. Include only as much data as is needed for each BOM to perform its core function of capturing the relationships between parts and assemblies. Store additional part data in the item master instead of multiple Excel BOMs, so updates only need to be made in one place.

In addition to that, Arena proposed free Excel templates to manage Bill of Materials.

PLM Excel Trojan Horse?
I can see where Excel PLM templates may be going in the future. By helping customers to optimize their Excels, PLM creates the foundation of a future PLM expansion. Of course, there is a danger in helping customer to keep going with Excel. However, there is a chance for being able to connect Excel data to Arena PLM and to import excel-based data into Arena PLM. It seems to me a step in the right direction.

What is my conclusion today? I think, MS Excel is a big deal for PLM companies. Customers are voting for Excels. PLM vendors may understand that their previous “Export To Excel” strategy was wrong, and they need to change it now. The competition with Excel will be growing as much as PLM vendors will be trying to expand their solutions to be used by more people in companies. So, give away some Excel templates can be a very good idea.

Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg

PS. Freebie. Arena Solution didn’t pay me to write this post.

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