How Amazon helps cloud PLM to connect to enterprise data?

April 16, 2013

Face it, even cloud is trending and growing fast, on enterprise premise systems are representing a major part of engineering and manufacturing systems in organizations. It includes ERP, CRM, PDM, PLM systems as well as zillions of Excels and CAD files. I’ve been thinking how to optimize cloud/on-premise data co-existance. My attention was caught by the news about Amazon Storage Gateway. Amazon, in its push to draw more enterprise customers, had to make sure the Amazon Storage Gateway will run in Microsoft Hyper-v virtualized shops. Which expands the ability of Amazon to synchronize data between cloud and on premise environment.

For those of you not familiar with ASG (Amazon Storage Gateway), navigate to the following link to learn more. The AWS Storage Gateway supports two configurations:

1/ Gateway-Cached Volumes: You can store your primary data in Amazon S3, and retain your frequently accessed data locally. Gateway-Cached volumes provide substantial cost savings on primary storage, minimize the need to scale your storage on-premises, and retain low-latency access to your frequently accessed data.

2/ Gateway-Stored Volumes: In the event you need low-latency access to your entire data set, you can configure your on-premises gateway to store your primary data locally, and asynchronously back up point-in-time snapshots of this data to Amazon S3. Gateway-Stored volumes provide durable and inexpensive off-site backups that you can recover locally or from Amazon EC2 if, for example, you need replacement capacity for disaster recovery.

The two options are representing an interesting option on how enterprise data can co-exist between cloud and on-premise environments. I can see mid-size companies are doing it to optimize their file storages. Larger companies can use it for extended value chain communication.

What is my conclusion? As cloud systems will expand in organizations, the demand for hybrid environment will grow as well. Companies won’t be able to migrate enterprise data assets outside of organizations fast, therefore cloud PLM solutions that will be able to communicate and co-exist in hybrid deployments will grow. The ability to connect existing enterprise data assets and cloud apps is a key to make future cloud expansion. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM focus on metadata management

March 6, 2013

I want to touch a topic called "metadata" today. You probably heard "metadata" term many times. However, if your roots are with CAD and PDM, most of the time you touched "metada" it was related to managing of metadata as "data about CAD models". I want to take wider definition of metadata. Wikipedia provides the following definition to Metadata Management:

Meta-data management (also known as metadata management, without the hyphen) involves storing information about other information. With different types of media being used, references to the location of the data can allow management of diverse repositories.

Metadata management can be defined as the end-to-end process and governance framework for creating, controlling, enhancing, attributing, defining and managing a metadata schema, model or other structured aggregation system, either independently or within a repository and the associated supporting processes (often to enable the management of content).

With specific knowledge domains, the boundaries of the metadata for each must be managed, since a general ontology is not useful to experts in one field whose language is knowledge-domain specific.

One of the conferences, I’m following already few years – Enterprise Data World provides quite good coverage to metadata topic. The next EDW 2013 is in San Diego coming April. I’ve been previewing sessions and found the following one interesting – Demystifying Metadata: A Practical Approach to Solving Critical Business Problems through Effective Metadata Management. Navigate to the following link to read more and see the preview. Here is the important passage about the role of metadata, in my view:

Although metadata management is one of the core components of the Enterprise Data Management discipline, many organizations have difficulty justifying an Enterprise Metadata Management program. In many instances, metadata is viewed narrowly as a technical issue.”

I think, PLM is missing the point of metadata management. The idea of building common business vocabulary and data traceability are two things that I found missed very often in large organizations working on PLM implementations. Companies are implementing specific PLM packages. At the same time, additional focus on metadata management can help organizations to get beyond specific PLM databases and see the business of product information lifecycle.

What is my conclusion? To get beyond single PLM databases. Metadata management can help to build product information lifecycle on the level of organization and not to stuck inside of a specific PLM package. With growing amount of relationships and dependencies in product development, I’d be defining metadata management as one of the most important goals for PLM in coming years. Just my thoughts… How your organization is dealing with metadata? Speak up. I’d like to discuss it.

Best, Oleg

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PDM and Data Sharing Changing Paradigm

January 15, 2013

I would like to speak about PDM today. You can hardly find engineers that like data management. For many years, Product Data Management (PDM) kept the score of inevitable evil in engineering and manufacturing software. Everybody wants data, but nobody want to manage it. At the same time, even if PDM is quite challenging in terms of implementation, it brings a lot of benefits. Navigate to the following link to read Jim Browns’ Best Practices for Managing Data. Data sharing is one of the most important aspects PDM is supposed to solve. Difficulties to share data with internal and external colleagues is one of the most critical aspects of data management.

However, the problem of files sharing is relevant outside of PDM too. Consumerization is one of the strongest technological trends these days. Few days ago, the following CMSwire article and infographic caught my attention – The evolution of file sharing. The article speaks about mobility and mobile access. Take a look on the picture – it is self explaining.

It is interesting to see how data security was one of the key important aspects related to enabling of data sharing even back in 1950s. The following passage was my favorite:

Concern over who is accessing what files is not unique to the use of mobile devices. In the Mad Men era of the 1960s, sensitive files were kept under lock and key in cabinets. Only people with physical keys could access those files and information, and careful lists of those with access were kept. However, the widespread use of inventions like the copier by the 1950s and the fax machine by the 1960s introduced new security threats as these documents could then be replicated.

Mobile and cloud technologies are revolutionizing data sharing paradigms. One of examples I specially like is Chrome tabs access across devices. If you are using Chrome browser, you can share the information open between different browsers in different devices.

What is my conclusion? Technological landscape is changing very fast these days. The fundamentals of PDM were invented 15-20 years ago. I don’t think these fundamental assumptions will survive under new requirements coming with mobile access revolution. Technology and shift in workforce will be driving a new wave of innovation in manufacturing. The technology will become more transparent for users and more sophisticated internally. It is a time to re-think paradigm. Files and data need to be shared, but technology should be invisible. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Infographic credit to CMSWire article.

2 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM and Information Strategy Focus

October 2, 2012

Nobody is not surprised how important information nowadays. Actually, maybe it is not true. What we usually do was called "data management" – CAD,Engineering Document / Data Management, Product Data Management, Product Lifecycle Management. Data played an important role in this process of "management". However, the biggest confusion was created by the CAD/PLM industry was about losing the point of information importance.

Information in Google Age

I think, we learned lesson or two during the last ten years of Google Age. The ultimate focus of Google was about how to create an information consumption culture. It doesn’t matter where information resides, but it does matter and very important how effectively we can get an access to the information and consume it.

Information and the business impact

The business systems eco system is different. People didn’t pay much attention to the importance of information culture and information awareness. Recently, I can see an increased awareness about the role of information companies. I was reading Forester blog couple of days ago – Focus Your Information Strategy On Business Impact by Gene Leganza. Have a read and make your opinion. However, I found the follow quote very important in the context of what PLM companies are doing these days:

Getting the right information to the right people at the right time.There’s little more frustrating than knowing that somewhere, inaccessible to you, your firm has collected the data that can inform the decision you’re trying to make. Does the loyalty of the customer on the phone warrant waiving your standard policy on returns? Is there a pattern to the process errors you’re experiencing in part of your operation? Is there conflicting information in the forms you’ve collected to comply with regulations before launching an expensive initiative? A well-defined information architecture tells you where that information is, and a well-executed information strategy provides the tools to access it to the staff that needs them, when it needs them.

Companies in PLM eco-systems are focusing more on the information. It is not "a database can do everything" story anymore. There are many examples – Dassault acquired Exalead, TeamCenter released Active Workspace, Autodesk acquired Inforbix technologies. I’m sure we are going to see more examples in the future.

What is my conclusion? Long time we’ve been focusing on data – how to produce it, how to control it, how to change it. However, we missed to importance of how to consume data. To me it means the creation of "information awareness". It is an important shift. I think vendors and customers will need to pay attention to that. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image courtesy of [Stuart Miles] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

2 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM Think Tank Top 5 – August. Thoughts about Pink Lady Apples.

August 27, 2012

I screw up my promise to stop blogging during my vacation. I’m in Israel these days with my family. You are probably asking what this picture of Pink Lady apple does on my blog. I made yesterday evening in the hotel in Tel-Aviv where I’m staying. Of course, I appreciate the hotel for complimentary welcome service. At the same time, what struck me is that this apple was absolutely identical to the apple from local Costco store in Brookline, Mass I ate just before leaving home. Amazing example of global supply channels. What potentially can make apple made in USA travels all the way down to Middle East. I found hard to find the answer on this question. Is there a chance future PLM data services will be able to answer these questions? If you have an idea of explanation, speak your mind. Now, let me turn it back to a traditional top 5 post.

What is the right data model for PLM?

Many of the technologies used by PLM companies these days are outdated and came from the past 20-25 years. There is nothing wrong in these technologies. They are proven and successfully used for many applications. However, in order to achieve the next level of efficiency and embrace future of PLM, new horizons need to be explored. Data flexibility, openness and interoperability – these elements are absolutely important in the future of PLM. Options to use future data models coming from past 10 years of web experience need to be explored. Important.

What is the future of PLM databases?

The complexity of product lifecycle problems brings the need of new concepts in data modeling and data management. One of the main questions – how to break the boundary of a single database? This is a key question, in my view. It will solve the problem of logical scalability and provide a platform for future information discovery.

PLM Supply Chain – Go Big Data or Go Home

Big data is one of the big things PLM can use to optimize supply chain, in my view. PLM vendors need to switch gears from supply data exchange towards supply chain optimization. In order to do so, PLM vendors need to bring additional capabilities to analyze supply chain, related information. It is an important topic to for coming years.

How to Shift from Noisy PLM to Calm Technologies?

In Designing Calm Technology, Weiser and John Seely Brown describe calm technology as “that which informs but doesn’t demand our focus or attention.” I want collaborative software to stop to behave as a noisy monster and move to state of “an invisible quite servant”. I don’t think, there is a simple recipe how to do so. PLM vendors can look for examples in consumer devices, web and mobile application behaviors and other consumer-oriented technologies and companies. I see it quite possible.

Will DoD Strategy Change Cloud PLM Future?

Speaking about future cloud systems, I think the keyword “optimization” is the most important one. Everybody is looking towards efficiency these days. It is equally important to small companies and large institution. In my view, larger companies will come soon to PLM providers with questions about how PLM environment can be optimized towards cloud computing. And this is just a matter of time when it happens. PLM vendors have some time for preparation. However, not too much time.

Best, Oleg

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

Part numbers and External Classification Schemas

February 8, 2012

fingerprint-253x300.jpgI 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:

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…

Best, Oleg

2 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM and Data Model Pyramid

January 10, 2012

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…

Best, Oleg

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

Autodesk, Data Management and “Why PLM?” Question

August 26, 2010

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…

Best, Oleg

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank, Future Trends | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM And Management Of CAD Files

April 23, 2010

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.

Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg

Share

8 Comments | CAD, Daily PLM Think Tank, PDM | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

Is PLM Customization a Data Management Titanic?

February 26, 2010

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.

Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg

Share

29 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank, PLM Implementation, Technology | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

« Previous Entries
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 123 other followers