PLM: Ugly vs. Cool

April 9, 2012

Do you think PLM software must be cool? More than two years ago, I posted FREE and COOL trends in CAD/PLM. I’m observing an increased amount of discussions about "PLM coolness" in the past few weeks. The release of PLM 360 by Autodesk just amplified the interest to the "cool" side of PLM. In my view, this discussion is related to the following two modern treneds: consumerization and user experience. I will try to speak about that.

Consumerization and BYOD

I’ve been talking about PLM and IT consumerization back in February during PLM innovation in Munich. Navigate here to refresh your memory. The following slide represents the typical "consumer behavior" – simple, easy, fast and DIY.

It is clearly come opposite to all traditions of "enterprise software" that requires planning, installation, training, etc.

User Experience and "Don’t Make Me Think"

This is another topic to discuss. Years (if not decades) people are talking about usability of enterprise software. I remember the pathetic phrase – "you are here to work, not to play", that was said in the context of enterprise software usability. The typical enterprise application doesn’t change much for the last 15 years.

At the same time, I can see that vendors started to pay attention. Navigate here to read one of my previous blogs comparing what PLM vendors are doing to improve user experience. Latest Siemens PLM release of Active Workspace is clear confirmation of the importance of "don’t make me think" concept.

Why you might decide to keep your PLM ugly?

So, why you can consider "ugly PLM" as a good thing? It is easy. Companies are looking how to solve their business problems. IT and business people are working with software vendors providing "value proposition" behind future investment into the software packages. All these processes are complicated, and interplay with the strategies related to the selection of "trusted IT providers", long-term strategies of IT platforms, existing software platforms and replacement cost and many other things.

You can imagine the following speech – "PLM should be ugly and complicated. This is a business system (or even strategic approach) that prevents CEO to go to jail because of manufacturing failures. PLM systems business benefit is to validate manufacturing planning to be smooth and optimal, to satisfy regulatory and compliance needs and follow regulation rules". All what I said before, multiply with the cost optimization. If PLM software does all this stuff, but still NOT COOL, would you care? Now, guess what is the answer?

Why PLM turns to be cool sooner than later?

There are three main aspects why I think PLM software will become COOL – cost of complexity, consumer software trends and people. Let me talk a bit about each of these.

Many IT organizations hide the cost of complexity. It implied in installation, training and many other aspects. What is the main reason why people decided towards Excel and not enterprise software? Easy answer – it is simpler. People don’t like complicated software, and this distrust will just increase. These days enterprise IT will be on fire to compete with services coming from the consumer world. Who will be using complicated FTP services provided by IT at the time dropbox can do the job painlessly? Finally people like what they like in their everyday life. This is actually started to happen. Look on BYOD trend. People will stop tolerating complicated software. The one that makes them think…

What is my conclusion? As the late British advertising guru David Ogilvy said: "The trouble with market research is that people don’t think how they feel, they don’t say what they think and they don’t do what they say." Another fact I recently discovered that despite lots of "business justifications", "ROI calculators", etc. the decision engineering IT is taking with regards to PLM systems is very subconscious. I think, the same subconscious decision will be moving towards COOL stuff sooner than later. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Graphic logo credit to TrustoCorp. It is pretty cool artist. Check out twitter, and see more of the work on Flicker site.

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PLM and Google Enterprise

March 22, 2012

Let’s talk about Google today. I’ve been writing about Google technologies and Google enterprise efforts quite frequently. One of the questions, readers were asking me – when Google develops PLM? The interest was obvious. Many people believe Google technologies can be quite powerful to work for enterprise.

Read the following article – Google and the Enterprise: The Point? Money. Steve Arnold is analyzing Google trajectories in enterprise software. The main conclusion – working with enterprise organization is significantly different from working within consumer internet. Here is my favorite passage:

In one memorable, yet still confidential interaction, Google allegedly informed a procurement manager that Google disagreed with a requirement. Now, if that were true, that is something one hears about a kindergarten teacher scolding a recalcitrant five year old. Well, that may have been a fantasy, but there were enough rumblings about a lack of customer support, a “fluid” approach to partners, and a belief that whatever Google professionals did was the “one true path.” I never confused Google and Buddha, but for some pundits, Google was going to revolutionize the enterprise. Search was just the pointy end of the spear. The problem, of course, is that organizations are not Googley. In fact, Googley-type actions make some top dogs uncomfortable.

Another interesting article related to Google Enterprise on GigaOM. Notice an excellent explanation about what influence Google made on Microsoft. In particular, we can think how Google forced Microsoft to come with MS Office 365in order to compete with a growing competition with Google Apps.

For all Google’s effort, the incumbent powers Microsoft Office and Exchange Server still lead the corporate applications and email market. Last fall, market researcher Gartner estimated that Google Apps for Businessrepresented less than 1 percent of Google’s overall revenue and there is some doubt as to whether the enterprise apps business remains a priority for the company… Still, market share and revenue may never have been Google’s goal. By offering a lower-cost option to the Office/Exchange tandem, Google forced the market leader to respond, and that may have been the point all along.

I share Steve’s assumption about how much focus Google can put behind the enterprise deals. Absence of key execs reporting to Larry Page confirms Google is not planning to make Enterprise PLM Googley in a near future.

What is my conclusion? Good news for PLM companies. If somebody thoughts Google come tomorrow with PLM product, no worry. This is probably won’t happen. No Google PLM 2012. When I think, Google technologies are fascinating, the absence of focus and experience with enterprise companies, makes Google teeth-less in front of large enterprise software dogs. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM and Process Tools: Opportunity or Complication?

January 18, 2012

I’d like to talk about BPM again. I was writing about BPM in the past. Navigate to this link to take a look on few pasts topics related to Business Process Management. Almost four years ago, I asked a question – Should PLM develop its own process tools? I think, the question is still not answered. Here is a quote from my historical article about what is the place PLM can take in the BPM game:

So where does PLM play into this game? I see two possible options: (1) PLM providers will focus on the development of process management tools; (2) PLM providers will allow the integration of PLM information and IP (Intellectual Property) into existing process tools provided by platforms. I believe that option (1) will be very helpful in integrating PLM systems into the enterprise software already available within the vast zoo of software within the organization, option (2) can simplify deployment and and keep the implementation of PLM simple.

I was reading Beth Stackpole Design News article PLM startup targets efficiency. It is a short article. Have a read and make your opinion. Don’t miss also comments to the article too. Based on what Kenesto is saying, manufacturing companies are still looking for good process management solutions. I found the following passage interesting:

…PLM’s tight ties to CAD still limit its use beyond engineering — a fact Kenesto is hoping to avoid with its process-automation-for-anyone approach…. traditional PLM is basically a process automation tool that is too complex to use effectively, prompting many users to circumvent it, using spreadsheets or email to share critical product data….Kenesto isn’t a replacement for PLM systems, but rather a different approach for solving the process automation piece of facilitating engineering workflows. Kenesto, which is cloud-based software, employs conventions that most users understand, like sending and receiving attachments, so it feels in many ways like a familiar email system…

The idea seems to me simple and interesting. Kenesto will be on the cloud, disconnected from CAD, providing graphical DIY tools to engineers to route documents and messages.

BPM and PLM: Integration Complexity

One of the biggest problems of BPM in the past was a problem of integration. Tools like SharePoint, WebSphere, and many others provided quite powerful solution to support processes in your organization. However, when companies tried to implement it, organization faced significant complexity to integrate existing “content oriented” systems (i.e. ERP, CRM, PLM) with process management tools (BPM). Most of BPM tools ended up acquired by large platform tools, and you can find them as part of larger platforms.

What is my conclusion? It seems to me “cloud” is a game changer in Kenesto play. By introducing solution in the cloud, Kenesto will try to simplify the process of integration with existing CAD, PLM and other enterprise tools. DIY approach can simplify IT life in organizing engineering processes. At the same time, it can introduce a challenge for IT trying to rule application and business processes and not interested to give it up to end users. The simplicity claimed by Kenesto can be another game changer. Kenesto is searching for beta customers. You can read more here. You can watch Kenesto in action to prove it right. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Disclosure: I’m serving as an external advisor to Kenesto

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The Enterprise and PLM will rock 2012?

December 18, 2011

As usual, at the end of the year, there is a time for blog posts with predictions, opinions and future trends. Last 2-3 years of technological boom were around consumer applications – social, web, mobile. These are three major application field that developed many technologies of the past years. How it may impact enterprise and PLM?

I was reading thebarefootvc blog earlier today – 10+ trends: recap of 2011 and what’s next… One of the trends mentioned in the context of 2012 was Enterprise. This is my favorite passage:

The Enterprise: The last few years have focused on consumer usage and adoption of technology. However, large companies are recovering from the shock of the 2008 collapse and re-aligning to the New Normal. Technology can play a role through cost reduction and creating efficiencies (virtualization, cloud computing) as well as top line revenue enhancement (utilizing data and social media for better customer service and sales strategies). New financial services and healthcare regulation will also create the need for related IT solutions.

It made me think about PLM in 2012. Few important events happened in the end of 2012. One of them – Autodesk entered PLM. This is an important move. Autodesk means "volume". Consumer market is also about volume. Volume means broader adoption and lower prices. Volume is about Toyota and not about Lexus. Second is a broader adoption of the cloud technologies. For many enterprise organizations now it is a question of "when" and not a question of "why".

What is my conclusion? 2012 has a potential to become a year of PLM rock stars. Cost will be one of the most important factors of PLM in a near future. Cloud technologies and behemoths like Autodesk will be playing a significant role in this process. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM Enterprise App Store: Bad Idea or Future Promise?

September 10, 2011

During the past months, I’ve seen an increased amount of conversations about the future of App Store software model in the enterprise. You, of course, familiar with the App store model. It all started from iTunes and prolifirate to many other places. The question, obviously, raises lots of discussion about pros and cons as well as a discussion about the potential steps software vendors can take to get benefits of app store model in enterprise.

App Store – Next Gen Enterprise?

Dion Hinchcliffe outlined the visionary picture of future Enterprise App Store in his blog already last year. Navigate to the following blog Enterprise App Store and Self-Service IT… to read about how enterprise Apps mixed with the ideas of mashups, SOA and SaaS. Take a look on the following picture to get an idea.

I found this passage interesting.

The premise of an app store model for enterprises is simple: By removing the middleman, the famous bottleneck between the business and IT demand can be reduced in many cases. Application backlogs can shrink, consumption of internal and external IT resources will increase, and fierce competition to provide the best solutions to niches can greatly improve overall quality (the long tail of IT argument), all while reducing costs. At least, that’s what is possible if we look at what’s happening to the non-enterprise software market today.

The idea is to optimize IT by introducing SaaS applications and outsource all IT works to outside providers. At the same time, it can cause significant re-assignment of the work from the internal IT to hosting companies and new class of cloud IT providers.

Why Enterprise App Store is a bad idea?

In parallel, with visionary thoughts about the future next generation of enterprise app stores, I can hear opposite voices. Navigate your browser to the IT World Canada and have a read of Why Enterprise App Stores are Bad Idea?Dilan Persaud is writing about multiple factors that will prevent enterprise app stores to succeed. Here are some of them – the complexity of integration, insufficient level of certification, security and potential hacks in organizations. Here is my favorite quote from this article:

The vendors that have enterprise software App Stores should hopefully have certified each application to integrateseamlessly into the original application and should be an extension of the original application. If support issues do arisewho do you contact for technical support, is there a guarantee of a fix, how will this affect your service level agreementSLA) for downtime and supplier performance, what additional security and IT administration must be set up within thecompany, who does the testing, are employees allowed to try it out on their own, is there a sandbox environment to installthese new apps in, have old project issues been solved to address IT failure, will the new app support a distributedworkforce, will it fit your company strategically, is the vendor viable, how easy it to use, will it require a full changemanagement procedure for adoption, will it require executive buy-in, do existing budget constraints still have to go through project approval process, do you still have to make a valid business case to adopt the new application are some of thequestions that still exist for an enterprise App Store.

PLM App Store Promise

As we can see there are multiple pros and cons for the future model of enterprise app store. Let me try to wear my PLM hat and talk about what I think with the regards to PLM App store. The idea of being able to select an appropriate app from the website and run it inside of a company is an interesting one. PLM vendors may think, it is going to solve their problems related to implementation and future application distribution inside of organizations. However, I have a certain doubt here. In my view, the majority of PLM implementation costs are related to the following two aspects – organizational agreement about future business processes and integration between tools (including CAD tools). It seems to me cloud model proposed today by vendors is not able to solve it. At the same time, CAD and PLM vendors already started to run some implementation of PLM App stores (i.e. Autodesk, Dassault Systemes, etc). Some of them took a decision to develop it by themselves. Others are trying to re-use some existing facilities of consumer apps stores.

What is my conclusion? We are still in a very early beginning with regards to the adoption of cloud and enterprise app store. The current experiments made by vendors are interesting and requires learning and analyzes. However, what is clear to me that rebranding of existing products into App Store won’t solve existing problems of PLM software. I think changes need to happen with regards to how Apps (or product components) are communicating, interacting with people, exchanging data, etc.. In my view, it is too early to say something specific about how fast it will happen. We are going to learn many lessons on that way. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM, Google and Cloud Babysitting…

May 9, 2011

I’m continuing to think about Amazon cloud failure. As you may have noticed, the “cloud” is a frequent topic on my blog. I’ve been talking about the cloud with many people and organizations during the last couple of years and learning what are best practices in delivery of stable cloud solutions with a high level of availability. To avoid failure, the tick is redundancy. When one of your cloud servers fail, you need to make a switch. You would prefer this switch happens automatically. However, in most cases, it is somebody who babysit this service and responding on the alerts of server’s health monitoring.

Photo Courtesy: MichaelMarlatt at Flickr (License)

Google Apps and Enterprises

I read the following article in InformationWeek – Google Urges Enterprises To Go Web 100%. Read the article and make your opinion. If you are in manufacturing business and your company is not Ford, Toyota, Airbus and similar, you can find lots of parallels between the conversation Google’s Enterprise Mid Market Sales Chief has with the audience. You probably tired with running all your business processes using Excel and Email. At the same time, you cannot consider a significant investment into PDM/PLM programs just because your resources are not on the same level as most of PLM vendors demand it should be. Here is my favorite passage from InfoWeek article:

The IT groups at midsize enterprises are often so wrapped up with dealing with the basics of PC and server support and upgrades that they have little attention left over to focus on issues like improved collaboration, Remley said. But business managers at those same organizations see the inefficiency in trying to run too many projects by email, where a dozen people will make edits to the same document and a project manager is forced to reconcile all those versions. With Google Docs, they could instead have all been working with the same document online, he said.

PLM in the cloud?

PLM companies are having mixed experience with the cloud. In my view, all of them (vendors) are having love&hate relationships with the cloud. In my view, all of them are watching what is going, but not committed 100% to the cloud. The exception is maybe only Arena Solution (former bom.com), which was pioneering “on-demand PLM” since early 2000s.

Almost more than a year ago, SolidWorks, during SWW 2010 made some very preliminary announcements with regards to the availability of SolidWorks product on cloud. You can read – Jeff Ray on V6, the Cloud and Killing SolidWorks by SolidSmack. This year SolidWorks presented the promised “Connect” product (new name n!Fuze) – SolidWorks n!Fuze -The Cloud Remake of PLM Collaboration?. For a long period of time, I thought Siemens PLM is very neutral to the “cloud appearance”. Reading Dezignstuff blog during the weekend, I noted Matt’s post – Tony Affuso’s Keynote from Siemens PLM conference that happened last week in Las Vegas. Here is a very interesting passage related to what probably Siemens PLM is thinking with regards to the cloud:

…Affuso said “we like the cloud”. Here’s the thing. After seeing some presentations on what the NX customer does, they are mostly from international organizations with distributed engineering and other product development efforts sharing work from large geographical separation. Cloud makes sense for huge conglomerates sharing data from many sources. In fact, a whole lot of things make sense when seen from a full-on PLM point of view that people like me who develop products in a closet tend to not understand. So if nothing else, I’m getting some perspective from this conference.

What is my conclusion? Cloud is coming. I’d say differently. It is coming with the internet. Web constantly opens new levels of capabilities, cost reduction and optimization. On the other side, it is not a “silver bullet” that will solve all your problems in a single shot. Remember, few very successful companies were born in the end of 1990s / beginning of 2000s when everything related to the .com/internet was considered as absolutely ruined. I think, smart companies will babysit cloud services to provide the functions, delivery model and cost combination that will be winning for manufacturing companies for a long run.

Just my thoughts… I’d be interested to know where are you staying with regards to the cloud planning? Please comment and speak your mind.

Best, Oleg

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PLM and Enterprise Integration Game

August 23, 2010

Manufacturing company enterprise landscape becomes more and more complex every year. Companies are implementing new products and versions of existing products. PLM is one of them. One of the questions asked by any IT organization is how all products can be connected and integrated to support organization’s business processes. Historically, integration business, was considered as a very complicated. To solve a problem of system integrations with significant dependencies is not a simple task. The issue of PLM integration seems to me important. PLM business interest to support product-lifecycle related processes are heavily dependent on how PLM system will be able to maintain multiple integrations with enterprise systems – ERP, CRM, ECM, SRM, etc. The PLM’s rivals in this space is definitely ERP system. Many times, I had a chance to see how PLM – ERP integrations became one of the key topics to be resolved to improve product lifecycle management across the organization.

ERP Integration Challenges

ERP itself experiencing significant challenges in the space of "enterprise integration". As a consequence of multiple diverse integration made by key ERP players in this space, the question of integration becomes an internal ERP problem. The key challenger in this space is Oracle with their multi-year, multi-billion program of Oracle Fusion. However, other players such as SAP and Infor are also deeply in their "integration tasks". I recently read an article -Infor on track to trump Oracle in the integration game. Both, Infor and Oracle are making broad statements with regards to seamless enterprise integrations. Here is Infor’s passage:

“Infor ION services are designed to enable companies of all sizes to benefit from advanced yet simple application integration, business process management and shared data reporting.”

Enterprise Integration and PLM Focus

As part of their enterprise integration initiatives (Fusion Platform), Oracle is trying to bring more value into the PLM offering as well. Navigate your browser on this link to see a glimpse of integration architecture proposed by Oracle. Also, take a look on Oracle blog about Fusion Integration practices and you will learn how Oracle is planning to leverage Fusion platform to integration their Agile PLM. Does it make sense to me? Yes, it does. However it seems to me so 1990s…

What is my conclusion? PLM integration game can get back. I haven’t seen any significant announcement coming out of mindshare PLM vendors related to strengths of their integration capabilities. PLM vendors were too focused on the unification of their internal architectures in the past. At the same time, I can see PLM competition at the high-end customer segment will become stronger in coming years. With an urgent need to deliver results, PLM companies will turn their focus on win backs of big accounts. This is a place where PLM will need their integration technologies to fight against ERP vendors. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Open Source PLM Factoids

June 30, 2010

I’d like to continue discussion of Openness and PLM (see my yesterday post – Closed Thoughts about PLM Openness) with the discussion about Open Source. Open Source is one of the questions that always raised last time when it comes to the discussion of Openness. I got to read an interesting article – Being acquired is the best thing for a FOSS project from Network World Blog. They presented an interesting perspective on a particular niche of Open Source. The following numbers caught my interest – Sourceforge hosts about 7,000 security projects. Daniel says, “From these 7K only 10% will survive; they seem to die quickly.”  I made me think what is the right formula for Open Source in PLM?  Yoann from Prodeos wrote in his post (in French)  PLM=PLM = BPM + ECM + PM + CMII + … (if standards == true). His idea of various component syndication seems to me interesting (I just hope my French was good enough to understand it with the help of Google Translate). All these together made me think about the following aspects of PLM and Open Source:

Open Source Openness
This one is an important. Open Source imposes openness and democracy. I think, a portion of openness will be a good addition to today’s PLM business. Open Source can provide a different flavor of PLM implementations. However, the discussion about what means Open Source and how it will go beyond just providing free licenses.

Open Source Communities
This element is a integral portion of any open source projects. This is what I call “a life indicator” for the open source. If you have a working community, an open source project will have a future. Therefore, wiliness of people to be involved is important. Multiple projects can bring even more interest into development of communities. More projects in this space can create a viral effect on the future development of Open Source options for PLM.

Founding Companies
I think, commercial companies play a significant role in the development of Open Source projects. We all know about the role of IBM, HP and others. I think, role of founding companies is important. However, Open Source needs to be a “development community” project first and only after to become part of the commercial company. Aras, as a company associated with PLM and Open Source, can play an interesting role in this space.

Open Source Enterprise
This is not a simple question. In my view, Open Source was established mostly as “development projects”. Enterprise is different from many aspects- business, support, customer orientation. If a community of people involved into the open source PLM projects will grow, I can see two potential routes for PLM Open Source to enterprises: 1/IT development project; 2/Commercialization by a particular software vendor.

What is my conclusion? Open Source and PLM are still “Terra incognita“. We can see and hear lots of opinions, numbers, prospects. The key question today is how to develop open source community projects in PLM and how to make them connected to other open source projects related to enterprise software. A potenal candidate can be, for example, Drupal. This can be an interesting path for Open Source in the enterprise. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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What Are Demands for “PLM on Demand”?

May 27, 2010

Thanks to David Isenhower  for twittering a very interesting whitepaper from Siemens IT. The name of the paper is Software as a Service (SaaS) with Sample Applications. Yesterday, I was able to get this whitepaper without any registration using this link. One of the sample applications discussed in this paper was Siemens “PLM OnDemand” TeamCenter. I believe, this is a sort of visionary evaluation, since I never heard about existance of “PLM OnDemand” TeamCenter before. However, as it seems to me, author is discussing more demand rather than the available solution and presenting the view of Siemens IT on what should be the future implementation of PLM on demand.

It made me think about how PLM can be delivered on demand. I took the proposed vision of PLM on Demand from the whitepaper mentioned above and compared it to PLM Think Tank visionary proposal.

PLM on Demand: PLM “ready to use” industry solutions.
This is a short vision for Siemen’s IT vision. The white paper defines PLM as one of the conservative areas. Companies are always concerned about investments that need to be done in PLM project. It defines a potential demand for new type of PLM solution.

CIOs may see an opportunity to decrease the overall cost of PLM solution by moving to the cloud as On-Demand Services. “Companies are always less ready and willing to bury valuable developer resources in PLM projects for months. In no other corporate process is the wheel reinvented as often as with PLM, leaving significant potential idle at the same time“. Later, in more detailed way, it explained as “…As a special multi-tenant enabled SaaS solution, PLM on Demand bundles PLM industry solutions with high-quality operation and service in a package with a usage-based price model. Options enable the package to be adapted to individual business requirements. PLM on Demand is not only a new financing and operation model however.  It primarily involves the provisioning of a preconfigured PLM application tailored to the needs of an industry. The “price” for this advantage is that the scope of freedom for individualized customer configurations is limited…“.
In addition, I see the mention that PLM solution needs to have a specific industry orientation: “…the solution offered must also actually cover the typical business requirements of the sector. This depends significantly on the sector and process know-how of the provider…“.

Alternative: PLM Marketplace On Demand
Since, I’m taking a role of “Devil Advocate” on PLM Think Tank, I’d like to introduce an alternative version of how to get into Product Lifecycle Management solution on demand. I have to say that I share Siemens’ vision about demand for low TCO solution that may solve problems of manufacturers. However, I see the future in a different direction. The way the solution can be developed will be as following:

Cloud Based Data Storage
The economy of scale can propose a more efficient solutions to store and manage data online. Design, Bill of Materials and other data can be stored on cloud and easy distributed to customers. When typical corporate email storage varies between 500MB to 1TB, cloud can offer enough data to accumulate product and manufacturing information. Just compare it to 8-10GB of Google Mail storage. I believe very few companies will build new data centers in 2010s, so to move data into the cloud will become more natural.

Application Market Place
One size doesn’t fit all. I believe manufacturing represents a special kind of “long tail” and requires a granular set of solutions to solve their problems. If I’m looking on marketplaces proposed by Saleforce.com, new solution places developed Zoho and vision of Google Market Place, I can see it as a potential way to develop on demand services for manufacturers.

What is my conclusion? The PLM story on demand is still not discovered. I think, Siemens IT made an interesting try to present a potential for PLM on demand. It can be a choice for a big company. However, in this case, I don’t see how it will be different from delivery on premise solutions we have today. I’m looking forward to your comments and thoughts.

Best, Oleg

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PLM and The Collapse Of Complex Societies

April 12, 2010

I had chance to post about the issue of complexity in enterprise systems in general and specifically about the complexity of PLM systems. In my view, the complexity as one of the biggest problems in the development of systems for engineering and manufacturing these days. It comes constantly as a feedback from many customers and professional communities. If you had no chance to read it before, please take a look on one of my previous posts about dependencies between complexity of the systems and user’s adoption (Complexity kills or Three Ways To Improve PLM Adoption).

I came across a very interesting book during this weekend – The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter. It made me think again about the problem of complexity. Some thesis made by Joseph Trainer was the following:

[...societies become more complex as they try to solve problems. Social complexity can include differentiated social and economic roles, reliance on symbolic and abstract communication, and the existence of a class of information producers and analysts who are not involved in primary resource production. Such complexity requires a substantial "energy" subsidy (meaning resources, or other forms of wealth). When a society confronts a "problem," such as a shortage of or difficulty in gaining access to energy, it tends to create new layers of bureaucracy, infrastructure, or social class to address the challenge. Eventually, this cost grows so great that any new challenges such as invasions and crop failures cannot be solved by the acquisition of more territory. At that point, the empire fragments into smaller units...]

I’d like to make an analogy between societies and enterprise and manufacturing systems. What is my take? Current enterprise systems supporting product development (CAD, CAE, PDM, PLM, ERP etc.) went through the long path of integration from early 2D to 3D, from MRP to MRPII and ERP, from EDM to PDM and PLM and finally rich the point where the almost cannot respond to the changes required and will tend to break again to the smaller pieces. Does it mean these systems will disappear? No, I don’t think so. However, I think, the new organization of systems can come to the enterprise and this new organization will have an ability to scale beyond the current level of possible complexity. Some interesting trends on this way:

SOA, Web and SaaS
The architecture of most of the enterprise systems was built 15-20 years ago with the state of mind of operation in the scope of a local department and/or company. They obviously outgrew themselves. To bring web experience including SOA architecture, Services and other technologies allowing operation on the global scale will be an approach that allows to bring large enterprise systems into smaller manageable pieces.

Global Data Models
As we had chance to discuss in the end of the last week, PLM data, PLM data models and identifications are still in the state that fundamentally assumes the possibility to build “unbreakable” standards and “single data models”. The data identification problem is a very complex issue, especially in case of multiple enterprise systems. We had chance to discuss it on the example of Part Numbering. This problem is real, hard and seems to me not resolvable in current systems.

What is my conclusion today? Current product development systems (EDM, PDM, PLM, ERP) are showing signs of over complexity. Following Tainter’s theory, they are trying to create news layers of bureaucracy and infrastructure. Industry best practices and out-of-the-box solutions are great examples of such new “organizations”. The potential solution will be in restructuring of these systems into smaller functional pieces, including the ability to handle globally scaled data and self-organized components.

Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg

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