Choosing a part numbering scheme is one of the more important decisions you make as you move toward production… Once you commit to a part numbering scheme, you are married to it for a long time to come, so you need to be 100% sure it is nimble enough to evolve and scale right along with you...
It sounded like a Catholic marriage. Once you decided about part numbering, you are done for many years. The same Arena’s blog post mentioned some external tools you can use to generate part numbers – part-numbering.com and partnumber.com.
The idea that stroke me earlier today is that most of the companies are using “smart Part Numbers” in order to simplify part search, re-use and, even more fundamentally, classification. Type of part, organization, suppliers – these are only small elements of “an intelligent part number”. What if some “smart applications” are available that can add classification information to existing part numbers in order to enrich (actually to annotate) Part Number identification. These tools can be web-based and even applied to existing data in the company.
What is my conclusion? We need to re-think some very fundamental elements and concepts of product development, PDM and PLM. The ability to enrich data without building lots of sophistication in the Part Numbering is something that can make PDM / PLM systems more flexible and drive cost of changes down. I’d be interested how to support it in existing PDM/PLM systems. Not sure if it is a simple task. However, I’m curious if new PLM software coming tomorrow to market from companies like Autodesk will have a different set of capabilities to solve the problem of Part Numbering and identification. Just my thoughts…
There is a lot going on in database space these days. Few days ago I posted – PLM, RDBMS and Future Data Management Challenges and I’ve got quite a few comments discussing multiple data management and modeling topics. My main point in that post was an alert to PLM to wake up and check how new technological development in database and data management can provide a competitive advantage or improve existing PLM solutions.
Today, I want to continue this conversation with discussion about different levels of data management and data models. I was reading dataversity blog post – The Data Model Pyramid. Take your time and read this post. In addition, you can navigate here to read related blog post by Steve Huberman – Key features needed in data modeling tools.
First take a look on the pyramid.
Clearly, two top levels – Business Subject Area model and Application Subject area model represent a specific set of data models required for any database driven solution. PLM is not an exception from the rule. However, high level of diversity in product development and manufacturing brought software vendor to develop their own tools for data modeling, which relies on the set of private data-management tools and abstractions. I found the following passage from Steve Huberman post interesting:
There are dependencies between the different types of data models shown in the pyramid, between data models and other artifacts or models that represent other aspects of business and requirements, the enterprise and solutions architecture, and application design. The activities required when producing and managing data models are only part of a wider set of business and technology activities; integration with associated activities is key to the success of data modeling.Without a tool that provides specialized support for data modeling, the data modeler cannot hope to work effectively in this environment.
Later in the article, Steve defines the set of features required from data modeling tools from different standpoints – core modeling, usability, integration, collaboration, management and communication. It made me think about what will happen tomorrow with PLM data modeling tools. It will be interesting to see if many years of private data modeling tools will come to sort of unification and standardization (yes!) on tools to deliver a variety of BSAMs and ASAMs. The key unsolved problem, from my perspective is the ability to populate and maintain multiple BSAMs tailored to specific business needs.
What is my conclusion? PLM was long time relying on private tools to manage and operate with data modeling delivered by vendors. I believe future of data modeling will provide a shift towards more openness in tools and, as a result of that, a shift towards faster data model tailoring, customization and efficiency. Just my thoughts…
I read one of the latest VEKTORRUM re-posts about Autodesk and PLM. Navigate your browser to the following link and read the original article from 2007. According to the article - ” There are “more pragmatic, more digestible approaches” to solving engineering data management issues than PLM, he [Carl Bass] said”. It made me think more about Autodesk, data management and PLM strategies.
History
Let’s start from the history. Autodesk has a long history of data management solutions. It contains multiple products. Some of them were developed by Autodesk and for some of them Autodesk partnering with other companies. The most notable Document and Workflow Management system in early 1990s was Autodesk Workcenter (Google is tracking the following link on Autodesk Workcenter). I had a chance to work on few Autodesk Workcenter implementations, so I had my own Workcenter implementation memories going back in 1994-1995. The next big Autodesk data management project was Motiva PDM. Autodesk made a significant investment into Motiva project in the end of 1990s. You can track the following KMWord article – Autodesk and Motiva to Collaborate for PDM. Both, Workcenter and Motiva development were discontinued.
In the beginning of 2000s Autodesk acquired company truEInnovation. The original product truEVault was a foundation of existing Autodesk Vault. This is the Wikipedia quote:
Autodesk Vault was initially known as truEVault; part of an acquisition from a company called truEInnovations, Inc. based in Eagan, Minnesota. truEInnovations was started by two entrepreneurs, Brian Roepke and Dean Brisson in 1999. The company was founded on the basis of bringing a more affordable tool for managing engineering data to the market.
After the asset acquisition of truEInnovations by Autodesk in 2003, Autodesk began to further the integration of the product into the manufacturing product line, starting with Autodesk Inventor.
Autodesk’s Data Management Foundation
For the moment, Autodesk Vault is the foundation of all Autodesk Data Management products. After latest re-branding, Autodesk Vault is a family of PDM products providing a wide range of capabilities started from files vaulting and expanded into areas of Bill of Material Management and Engineering Change Management.
Autodesk is intensively working to provide additional data management features and functions. You can see a shortvideo of Brian Roepke about Autodesk Vault 2011:.
In the following video you can see a new Autodesk Vault 2011 integration with Inventor.
In my view, some of them are very similar to features presented by DS 3DLive and Siemens 3DHD products. See my post - 3DLive, 3DHD, 3D and UI efficiency.
Autodesk and PLM
Steve Wolf of Cyon Research recently published an article on COFES Blog - Who Needs PLM? (). In this article, Steve discussing the latest Autodesk financial results and
The following quote represents Steve’s comparison between Autodesk and other PLM-associated companies.
What’s interesting about Autodesk’s success is that the company’s products consist almost entirely of single-user desktop tools that engineers use to do their jobs faster. Relatively little of Autodesk’s income comes from what its rivals call “product lifecycle management” (PLM) software that combines engineering applications with fiendishly complex enterprise-level software for managing engineering data.
A different opinion presented by CIMData in their latest research paper focusing on how Autodesk will evolve into full-scope PLM provider. I had a chance to discuss this CIMData research before on my blog. This is the PLM think tank link. Take a look on the interesting quote from CIMData website:
... perspective on the transition that Autodesk is executing to transform itself from a supplier of individual PLM-focused point solutions to a supplier of industry-focused solutions that can be the fundamental platform for a company’s overall PLM strategy.
What is my conclusion? I think, Autodesk is going on a very narrow bridge and trying to connect customer’s demands to have a rich scope of data management functions and integration with design tools like Autodesk Inventor. At the same time, Autodesk is trying to avoid getting into positioning data management as a “PLM strategy”. The ugly truth, in my view, is that users are less interested in the TLAs these days and more thinking about products, functions and usability. Just my thoughts…
One of the questions that disturbs me when I’m thinking about PLM is a complexity. In a modern enterprise manufacturing organization, complexity kills. When I’m thinking about the way data management passed since the first introduction in PDM systems, I see a huge amount of blocks built on top of basic PDM functions. In the beginning, PDM was about managing of data records about file. After, additional silos of data were added to represent various aspects of products – Bill of Materials, ECO, Requirements, Projects, Supply, etc. Then we got a mess… I’d compare it to the situation happened with MRP/ERP industry about 15-20 years ago. Started at the early beginning as MRP and lately a MRP-II, it comes long way to acquire all possible and impossible islands of enterprise data to become, finally, ERP. We are facing a very similar situation these days in PLM.
CAD Files Control Dilemma
For every PLM system, the management of CAD files is a fundamental question that needs to be answered at the early beginning. This is Shakespeare’s “to be or not to be” question of all PLM vendors. Touch CAD files or do not touch CAD files? I see a lot of advantages in management of CAD files: you are getting control on valuable design and engineering information, there is an ability to have a system that has deep and tight connections to the daily life of people in the organization via CAD system operation and many others. On the other side, control of CAD files put a lot of restrictions on users, increase the overall system complexity and in the end create dependencies on vendors of CAD products.
Invisible CAD Data Management
There are two examples I want to talk about in the context of CAD data management: CATIA V6 and Google Apps. Do you see something in common between them? Yes, I do. In both systems, data management and version control are embedded parts of products. You have a built in mechanism to manage version of CAD models as well as Google Apps document. You still need to take care about next version, lock and un-lock operations in CATIA. However, you shouldn’t care about version of your files in Google Apps. The idea I had is a notion of “invisible CAD data management”. It happens, but users should not care about that.
What is my conclusion today? I think, dependencies on CAD were born in the beginning of PDM. We need to revise our technological decisions came from early days on how we can keep control of CAD files and management their revision. The connection between the CAD version management and overall product development (PLM) processes need to become less restrictive and more flexible.
PLM implementations are not simple. At the time when PLM vendors are working how to improve their out-of-the-box product offerings, PLM customization plays a very significant role. According to the analysts, customizations and services can be estimated as about 40-50% of total revenues in PDM/PLM domain.
What is behind these numbers and why it happens? In order to understand it, I think, we need to get short round-trip in the history of Product Lifecycle Management. The roots of PLM are in the first implementations made by large aerospace, defense and automotive manufacturers. This is the birth place of PLM and origin of PLM ideas. Since then, PLM started their journey downstream by proliferating ideas, software products and implementations. I can identify the following three trends in Product Lifecycle Management these days:
Maturity of the basic product offering
The PLM core functionality came to the stable form and mostly represented by product data management, lifecycle components and additional modules related to the business process activities – requirements, program, project, services and other processes. Interesting is that PDM and Lifecycle are considered as the most mature components of these portfolios.
Industry specialization
Initially, PLM started in aero/auto domains. However, nowadays it is moving towards all industries. In order to play industry game well, PLM vendors decided to invest into industry orientation. This trend can be characterized by a wide range of options starting from industry marketing and ending by providing packaged PLM solutions for the specific industries (i.e. Apparel, CPG, Food and Beverage, etc.)
Emerging trends
I can identify two main emerging trends – SaaS / OnDemand and Open Sources. Both are focused on how to satisfy needs of customers differently utilizing new software technologies and deployment as well as by investing in the alternative form of business models.
When PLM industry focused mostly on providing out-of-the-box functionality, I didn’t find any technological trends focused on core data management capabilities of existing and future PLM systems. This is a very bad sign, in my view. Looking backwards, I can see significant improvements that were made in PLM software by the introduction of flexible data modeling. It allowed to decrease cost of PLM implementations, but created the huge amount of today’s customizations and implementations based on existing PDM/PLM platforms. And this is a growing conflict between customized PLM software and upgrades to the coming releases of PLM portfolios.
I found the following Develop3D’s article as a very interesting. Al Dean is writing about replacement of highly customizable instance of MatrixOne by Open Source PLM Aras. There is more information about this event on Aras website. Read it. It looks like customer made the decision in favor of Open Source because of absence of alternatives to move to the next version of out-of-the-box MatrixOne version. I want to point out on the discussion about PLM software upgrades – PLM, Cloud, SaaS and Software Upgrades. My conclusion was simple – technology and architecture matter. If PLM data management capabilities could manage the upgrade event from highly customizable solution, I doubt the customer’s decision was to dump out existing vendors. Does it mean Aras has such technology? I don’t know. However, coupled with Open Source business model it crushed existing PLM implementation.
So, what is my conclusion? My hunch is that PLM vendors forgot to invest into data management technologies. PLM data management technologies were created 10-15 years ago. Since then, industry developed huge amounts of customized implementations. I see these implementations as Titanic pushing forward… Do you think they will be able to achieve port of destination or will die in front of icebergs of upgrades? I see it as a real and dangerous problem.
Interesting news drove my attention yesterday. Bentley System made an acquisition of the company called Enterprise Informatics. When I was reading press release, my guess was that Bentley decided to expand their capabilities in data management. Especially, this expansion can be very interesting when working in construction and power process industry for asset management. So, that was the exact target for acquisition.
Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for the infrastructure that sustains our world, today announced that it has acquired Enterprise Informatics, Incorporated (www.enterpriseinformatics.com) and Exor Corporation (www.exorcorp.com). The Enterprise Informatics eB Insight software provides configuration and change management capabilities for mission-critical infrastructure asset operations for the energy, nuclear, rail, and government sectors.
I think, this is an interesting move.We are starting to see potential convergence of two initially separate segments – PLM and BIM. Each of them has different origins. PLM started in the large aerospace and defense companies. BIM came from need to manage complex construction processes. However, my hunch was that both need to use very similar underlined data management technologies. First, I wrote about that last year in my post – PLM and BIM: Common Roots or Common Future.
Looking on eB product from Enterprise Informatics, I figured out a significant similarity with core concepts between what was called Information Models for Enterprise and Product Lifecycle Business Processes. The marketing slogans are different. However, data management, change management, process orchestration are very similar. I put few slides from eB presentation (you can watch 5-minutes video on this link).
So, what is my conclusion? This is a very interesting potential interplay between construction industry and traditional PLM implementations. Technologies used on both sides are very similar. My assumption back that time was that PLM and BIM will come to the certain point of commonality in their ability to manage complex data models, changes and processes. And this is what happens now. I’d expect potential movement from both PLM and BIM towards interesting projects in industries where they have no sole proprietary ownership as leading solution providers.
I want to discuss CAE today. CAE is considered as a technology to support engineers in tasks such as analysis, simulation, design, manufacture, planning, diagnosis, and repair. CAE considered as a mainstream technology applied for design and manufacturing. In my view, CAE is one of the major sources of engineering information in the organization.
CAE coverage includes:
Stress analyzes
FEA
CDF
Kinematics
Event simulations
Process simulations
However, the topic I want to discuss today is an intersection of CAE and PLM. To be more specific about what system supposed to manage CAE related data? In my view, this topic is heavily missed in most of PDM and PLM systems. Most of them are completely focused on CAD models, drawings and, lately Bill of Materials. At the same time, CAE, as a massive producer of engineering information about a product is not covered. What I found that high-end CAD systems have a more dedication to this topic, but still not enough, in my view.
What are the aspects of CAE that need to be covered by PLM as a data management platform:
Keep references on results of calculations and analyze. It will allow to have all relevant product records in one place.
To support variation of product data in case of work on alternative designs, configurations, etc.
Keep the historical record of analyzes for audit, regulatory and solving customer’s critical situations.
I found these capabilities undervalued and will be interested to hear about your experience and opinion.
Do you remember the time before PLM? Time, when our focus was about CAD and Product Data Management? With all latest developments around Product Lifecycle Management and collaborative business processes, I think we lost some important grounds related to the critical data management issues related to engineering and product development.
CAD and related Design solutions is the biggest source of engineering data produced in the organization. For the last decades CAD and other design-related systems produced huge amount of engineering data – models, drawings, bill of materials, analyzes and more… These pieces of data are very critical to the organization from the standpoint of making product related decisions.
On the other side, product lifecycle management is running forward and shifting focus on how to optimize business processes in the organization. The new PLM solutions is very focused on how to define and run organizational processes related to product design, manufacturing, support, disposal, etc.
But here is the point. I think these two pieces become more and more disconnected. By shifting focus on the process-oriented environment vendors are losing their grounds in data management. Today design and related product knowledge is pretty locked in the systems that used to produce this information. PLM systems are not focusing on how to make this information managed and available inside of the enterprise. The solutions like 3DVIA composer, PTC Arbotext, Autodesk Inventor Publisher are good initial signs, but they are too much focused on geometry and very little on data.
What is my conclusion today? PLM is too much focused on how to capture processes and make it visible on CIO level. It obviously comes from the interest to compete with existing ERP and other solutions. However, on that way PLM is losing some core business related to the ability properly manage product and design data. We need to get back to product management roots and analyze what we still need to accomplish there.
One of the ambitious goals PLM puts in front of strategists, implementors and developers is to manage a product lifecycle from early on (requirements, initial product designs) and until the end of product lifecycle towards manufacturing, supply chain and disposal processes. At first glance, it sounds like a great idea, as it looks like PLM is on a fundamentally unique track of providing this solution to a customer…. but, here is the problem. I think that PLM is not really unique when it comes to the company’s landscape, and there are many different systems in organization claim to manage product data.
So, I decided to cluster a few tools from different areas to outline who are these “PLM” competitors to data in an organization. So far, I found five fundamental product domains.
Content Management. This is company document storage. Most of the companies in this area are working primarily on documents, the ability to put them on the shelf, manage their access and lifecycles. Since most of product lifecycle information in the end becomes a “document” I’d put this companies on ‘Red Alert J…
ERP /MRP. This is a traditional neighbor and competitor. PLM and ERP/MRP have been “competing” against each other for many years. I discussed this issue many times on blog. I don’t predict a “system expansion”. Many ERP vendors have a solution with a specific PLM flavor. We can see them and what they offer on the market. These systems can evolve and claim to manage even more product data in the future.
Business Process Management. This is a newly emerged trend. In my view, the BPM market is relatively small in manufacturing, and therefore BPM tools will feel they need to work out their potential in PLM cases as well.
MDM– Master Data Management has a relatively good adoption rate by big enterprise customers. In my view, as MDM cannot scale down, I’d provide limited importance to being able to compete with PLM. Indeed, we need to pay specific attention when we plan for enterprise PLM.
Collaboration Tools and Applications. Hot topic. People are looking how to collaborate better. Various collaboration tools are looking at how to improve data management solutions too. With the introduction of Google Wave and the expanded future offering of MS SharePoint 2010, collaboration tools definitely can expand their offering to a more specific PLM space. There is a potential danger from the low end.
So, how will PLM be able to compete with these systems successfully? This is a big question – which is why I’m asking for your advice and feedback here, as well as find out what else you have in mind.
For many years, data management was considered as something that burdens the activity of designers and engineers focused on CAD system work as their daily activities. I believe many people will say that this is still true. On the other hand, with the growing amount of information many users have started to ask questions such as: Where did I save my files?, Which is the latest revision of my work? Who is working on these product files now? etc. Additional changes have arisen with the shifted perception related to the place of search technologies in our life. You can hear from many people phrases like “you can Google it!”… and sometimes this seems to have become the most reliable way to find answers or information.
I definitely see a growing needs for the adoption of PDM, or simply data management, becoming part of the standard function set of the Designer’s and Engineer’s environments. For example, the latest releases of SolidWorks PDMs presented consolidation on a short list of data management functionality and user experience related to this function set, embedded in SolidWorks User Interface. Major changes in SolidWorks Enterprise PDM task pane shows the need to integrate data management tasks into the regular daily work of users.
Another example is the CATIA V6 release. Starting from V6, CATIA data management functionality is completely integrated. Together with lifelike experience introduced in V6 and previewed last year in the Dassault Systemes 3DLive product, this environment does not differentiate completely between CAD functions and data management.
Both examples show that data management has become a standard function of the environment of CAD and Engineers. So, what we can see in the future of CAD/PDM? In my view, standardization of CAD data management will allow better use of design and engineering data in downstream environments, as well as improved usability in general. Data interfaces behind CAD systems will make the development of new technologies possible, based on data availability and reuse.
I want to talk about Part Numbers. Yes, Part Numbers, again… My previous blog -Part Numbering and the future of identification raised few interesting conversations. So, I decided to open a Pandora box of part numbering. The formal trigger for this conversation was Arena Solutions blog – Three consideration when choosing Part Numbering schema for you. Here is passage that actually made me think about the fact we are doing something wrong:
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