The “New Normal” Wake Up Call for Enterprise PLM

March 23, 2010

I came across the interesting blog article in CIO online “Why the New Normal Could Kill IT?” by Thomas Weilgum earlier this month. The article filled some of my niches related to thinking about future disruption of PLM I had with Jim Brown. If you had no chance to read my previous posts related to my and Jim’s discussion you can take a look on the following links - Will Google App Disrupt PLM? and  Is PLM Customization a Data Management Titanic?

I made some write up when reading CIO article.

Look at ERP systems, for instance. These are the financial, administrative and procurement backbone of every organization. ERP spend gobbles up huge chunks of the corporate allocation pie. So how are ERP software suites viewed today? With about as much love as Toyota execs have for “unintended acceleration.” In a recent survey, 214 business executives stated the inability to easily modify their ERP system deployments is disrupting their businesses by delaying product launches, slowing decision making, and delaying acquisitions and other activities that ultimately cost some up to $500 million in lost opportunities.

Complexity Hinders Software Success. “Two-thirds of survey respondents say the enterprise IT environment is more complex than it was five years ago,” notes the survey report. “The proliferation of technology combined with intricate organizational dynamics has raised the level of business IT complexity to the point of holding back software success.”

Just before he left Sun Microsystems (JAVA), Tim Bray, the former director of Web technologies, had this to say (in a blog post) about the current state of enterprise systems: “Doing it wrong. Enterprise systems, I mean. And not just a little bit, either. Orders of magnitude wrong. Billions and billions of dollars worth of wrong. Hang-our-heads-in-shame wrong. It’s time to stop the madness.”

With regards to the last one made by Tim Bray, remember Tim’s move from Oracle to Google and his intro notes here.

It made me think about some of PLM problems, their position inside of the overall enterprise apps forest and potential future steps. There are two fundamental problems in enterprise software that fits very well Thomas’ analyzes – absence of flexibility and huge cost of change. Actually, I see them very complementary. The overall enterprise PLM strategies moved into the direction to expand PLM in the additional domains for PLM by focusing on multiple business processes. However, enterprise PLM stacks in my view with implementation of the technological platform they made. Moving between multiple legacy apps, changing data models, adapting new features and apps to the latest releases of the software – this is my short list of the most common PLM problems in the enterprise.

So, what is next? What is the chance that the enterprise PLM apps will be covered by volcanic lava of existing enterprise problems. What will be enterprise PLM silver bullet on the way to become “new normal” and not “old legacy?”.  My take on this in the following three areas:

1. Invest into flexibility of PLM platforms.
This is probably sounding crazy for enterprise PLM techies. PLM vendors invested  a lot in the platform work during the last 3-5 years. However, I think, life around moves much faster than re-engineering of enterprise PLM platforms. New enterprise and cloud platform players are coming with very disruptive proposals about how to provide a new type of the apps for enterprise organization. And, the top on the list is cost of change in the existing enterprise PLM/PDM data backbones.

2. Focus on Games and 3D.
Think about cool. 3D and Games are cool, and we are experiencing it in our everyday life in consumer space. Why it should be different in product development, design and manufacturing?. So, move to the new apps and technologies in this domain.

3. Validate new business models.
The current enterprise licensing models need to change. Companies are dissatisfied with high upfront license cost and value, they are getting from enterprise apps. Investment into subscription and other busienss models (like freemium) can be an interesting turn for enterprise PLM.

Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg

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The Future of PLM User Interface

March 8, 2010

Old, but very interesting blog post by Thomas Otter from Gartner made me think more about the future of PLM user interfaces. The perspective of multiple cockpits from early models of cars and late models of Boeing 747 was accomplished thoughts about the future trends and recommendation related to the enterprise UIs.

I think this post is still very relevant. I personally liked this one:

[...For those delivering enterprise apps, understanding and using the newer technologies is important. They have the potential to make the UI more compelling and more pleasant to use...]

I made quick search in the archive of PLM Think Tank. I found the old post with thoughts about user interface trends that seem to me going more towards “list” orientation. My examples of UIs coming from different places just confirmed, in my view, this trend. SharePoint, iPhone, Twitter, Facebook… This is the short list of apps that present clear flat strategy in UI building.

So, what I see as the future technological options for PLM User Interface? I’d like to outline few below and will be very interested to hear your opinion and thoughts on that.

1. Diversification. In my view, PLM will soon become more diversified. The “one size fits all” approach is going to end, in my view. Single UI Apps are going to die and will be replaced by multiple composite elements that can be arranged in different ways.

2. 3D. This is a continuation of what was done until now around CAD and 3D models. Things that are 3D today will be focusing on how to make downstream PLM apps more visual.

3. List Everything. It seems to me, list becomes the major user abstraction for everything. Used by multiple apps, list is so simple. You can contextually present any type of information.

4. Visualization. Picture worth thousand words. In many cases if you can visualize something by using charts, pipes, maps and many others, we are making our UI simpler. There is still lots of work to do to make it happen.

So, what do you think will happen in the next couple of years with regards to enterprise UIs and specifically to PLM? Will users convince vendors to diversify UI to make it simpler and social? I think, there is very good chance that those dreams will come true. UIs become hot. People are more and more concerned about user experience and PLM need to stay in focus to deliver the best in the class…

What are your thoughts on this?
Best, Oleg

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Social PLM Enterprise and Federated Identity

February 18, 2010

I’d like to put some thoughts about user identity management in the enterprise. In the beginning, you may think the topic is obvious. Enterprises already solved this problem long time ago. Even if your need to login into the specific enterprise system was significantly decreased, it sounds like a problem disappeared. You can think that directory management systems solved the problem. However, is it really true? I’d like to propose to review this problem with a different angle – social.

My guess is that next big competition in the enterprise will be around a user. I think, very soon, enterprise software vendors will learn lesson or two from web and social software. They will discover that the key to know who are your users, how they use systems, how they navigate between different tools and environments. And, of course how they connected between them. All social relationships in the enterprise became very interesting.

I hope you got my point… This is the effect of social networks and communities. For the moment, this information belongs to IT organization. Most of the enterprise vendors are seamlessly agreed to synchronize this information with the available LDAP or similar directory management tool. But, I think this situation can become different soon. My hunch is that first to discover this will be enterprise software companies pushing their social platforms to the enterprise. They will try to take ownership on directory services and expand it to the level of social networks. Another interesting problem is what technologies can be used to do that? My guess that possible candidates can be open standards, like FOAF, and future integration of them into enterprise systems. I think, very soon, we are going to discovered need in the federated identity management for enterprise social nets.

Now let me ask you, what about PLM? My assumption is that PLM is one of the potential originators of the federated identity management for enterprise social networks. Running processes around almost everything in the enterprise, can be a good reason to acquire enterprise social networking. If this task can be accomplished, PLM can drive significant advantages from managing people relationships, product and project belonging, etc. Who are alternative owners? My guess, ERP is a good candidate. They already own a big portion of enterprise cake, so they can do the same for identity management.

Take a look on long, but interesting video on digital identity.

Just my thoughts… I’d be interested to know your opinion on that.
Best, Oleg

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PLM and BIM Interplay in Enterprise Data

February 17, 2010
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.

Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg

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How Many Social Platforms We Need for Enterprise?

November 23, 2009

I think, we are all crazy about a “social computing” topic. Social marketing, social communication, social platform, social content… Few latest announcements last week drove me to some thoughts about Social Platforms in enterprise. Salesforce.com announced Chatter – new social platform for enterprise on their Dreamforce 2009 conference. Almost at the same time, Dassault Systems presentated Social Innovation on European Customer Conference in Paris.

The question I asked myself what is going on around social platforms? How many of such we need? We thrilled by Facebook and Twetter. In parallel, we can see attempts like Yammer to replicate Twitter’s success for the enterprise place. At the same time, big platform providers like IBM and Microsoft are playing with social collaborative musculature of their offering. Finally enterprise vendors get involved and introduced their social platforms. I see Chatter and DS Social innovation are only two examples from last week.

Salesforce.com Chatter Product

Dassault Social Innovation in Plain English.

So, where we are going? Multi-platform social chaos?  I figured out few issues that in my view important to keep in mind looking on multiple social platform efforts.

1. Personal Identification in social networks. We have accounts everywhere – Facebook, twitter, corporate networks etc. As soon as we move towards multiple platforms personal identification becomes more and more important. Interesting directions could be adoption of FOAF or any other potential standardization in this area. How many of you have Google Profile? I created one, but still looking how I can benefit that outside of Google’s world.

2. Content security. Share content in social networks is important and dangerous at the same time. How we can control content shared in social networks? What will be a possible solution for content sharing in enterprise social networks as well as in mixed social networks?

3. Productivity. No doubt social networks brought a lot of advantages. However, how efficiently balance between benefits and disturbing? How I can measure productivity impact from social networks. This is another “interesting problem” in my view.

I’m sure, you enjoyed videos and looking forward to your comments.

Best, Oleg

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Google Wave in Design and Process Collaboration

November 9, 2009

Picture 40In the past, I had chance to write about Google Wave (GW). Lots of interest coming around everything related to Google Wave. You can read some of my previous posts about Google Wave to get up to speed with my way to think about Google Wave.

Google Wave – Is it the Next Collaborative Process Engine for PLM?
6 reasons Why Google Wave will Change PLM Collaboration

So, the following interesting project from SAP drove my attention during the weekend, so I decided to share my thoughts about SAP Gravity project. However, before, take a look on video produced by SAP.

From the earlier beginning of Google Wave, it was clear that we could expect an impact of Google Wave on the enterprise software world. Despite the fact enterprises are using a big amount of unique and valuable enterprise systems, all of them are heavily relying on email to collaborate. Therefore, GW offering updated email collaboration paradigm will become an attractive guest in enterprise eco-system.

You can read more about Google Wave SAP Web 2.0 Blog.

So, what are my thoughts about Google Wave in the context of SAP demo project? I have to say that I’m experimenting with Google Wave too and my thoughts, of course, affected by my own experience with Google Wave.

Pros:
1. Collaboration between the unstructured communication world and structured business process definition is notable
2. Google Wave integration capabilities
3. Very powerful history representation
3. There is a huge potential for additional developments – Gadgets and Robots

Cons:
1. Keep of track of all your Waves is as complicated as emails- no big surprise in this space.
2. The way Google Wave will manage store of integrated information is not clear (i.e. BPMN for SAP Gravity, but future thinking about 3D models etc.)
3. Wave to Wave merges and communication can create additional complexity.

What is the future perspective for Google Wave in PLM space in my view? The most perspective direction is collaboration around 3D and other design-related situational collaboration. This is space that today occupied by mail. This is not an empty space – innovative products like 3DLive as well as other CAD / Viewers -related products are also targeting this space. However, I see a potential to embed live 3D model or drawing into Wave and provide an ability to participants to collaborate, similar to how BPMN process was created by SAP Gravity.

I would be interested to hear your opinion and thoughts.
Best, Oleg

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Can We Improve Usability of PLM Software?

October 13, 2009

First of all, I’m sorry about such a topic. Yes, Usability! I think we have been talking about usability for last 20 or maybe even more years. Why this is very important today? In my view, we are going to achieve an interesting point of intersection between consumer software and enterprise software. From my standpoint, there are few consumer-oriented or general enterprise software are getting very close to some of the functional capabilities provided by PDM/PLM providers.

1. Management and sharing on documents
2. Messages and Flow
3. Content collaboration

Few interesting blog posts got to my attentions related to the topic of usability in enterprise software. One is Enterprise Software Can NoLonger Remain Unusable. What was very cool is to see a fresh user experience of IFS- nice, and I’d say iPhone like.

One more observation came out of the following post by Scott Monty. I found the following comparison between Apple, Google and Enterprise Software pretty smart and make sense. I’d say PLM (and not only PLM) vendors need to think about that seriously.

apple-productgoogle-productenterprise-product

I will continue with  more posts related to usability. But, what is my conclusion for today? Despite the fact, I see a very significant level of improvement in specific product in the market and some very nice and fresh UIs, on the broad range, change is demanded.

What do you think?
Best, Oleg

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PLM Prompt: Enterprise Buzzwords or How Many Applications Do We Need?

September 28, 2009

Picture 2Interesting post few days ago. What is very annoying is the number of buzzwords growing in the enterprise system world. Do we really need all of them? Is there overlap? How many times you faced situation when you and your colleagues are using different words for the same thing?

Here is the short list (thanks to Improve Process Blog)

• CAD (Computer aided design) to support modeling of hardware and electrical/electronics
• PDM (Product data management) systems to support data management
• PLM (Product lifecycle management) systems to support workflow, engineering change, bill of material management, release to manufacturing etc.
• MES (Manufacturing execution systems) to manage work in progress on the manufacturing floor
• CRM (Customer relationship management) systems manage, track and organize its data / contacts with its current and prospective customers
• BPM (Business process management) systems provide process management capability with workflows
• SCM (Supply chain management) systems provide the ability to manage the entire supply chain and support planning, sourcing, manufacturing, delivery and return logistics.
• KM (Knowledge management) to support knowledge sharing of best practices and lessons learned.
• SRM (Supplier relationship management) to support managing vendor relations and lifecycle.
• PPM (Project Portfolio Management) systems used for analyzing and collectively managing a group of current or proposed projects.
• BI (Business intelligence) systems help the business acquire a better understanding of its commercial context.
• EMM (Enterprise Marketing Management) systems manage marketing’s end-to-end internal processes including Web Analytics, Campaign Management, Digital Asset Management, Web Content Management, Marketing Resource Management, Marketing Dashboards, Lead Management, Event-driven Marketing, Predictive Modeling etc.
• HRMS (Human resource management system) or HRIS (Human resource information system) manage all processes within human resources.

Best, Oleg

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Big-Bang PLM Dreams – should we move away from monolith approach?

September 4, 2009

For years, PLM and not only PLM, but also other enterprise systems like ERP supported idea of a single backbone system that can solve all problems. Enterprise PLM platform, in general, follow this approach by proposing platforms and systems focusing on supporting concept of single point of truth, common view and unified modeling. This approach clearly stated in all last major releases of PLM systems coming from both CAD-based and ERP-based origins.

So, discussion I want to have is quite opportunistic. I want simply put – is it really good and beneficial to follow “a centralized approach” and believe a single system will solve all problems business have around Product Lifecycle Management? Let me explain what I have in my mind by figuring out few important trends:

1. Modern enterprises have tendencies to agile organization and outsourcing for product development and manufacturing.
2. Single vendor platform will be “a functional compromise” in terms of specific niche application and services.
3. Establishment of a single system is a source of very significant investment and business organization.

In addition to these organizational trends, there are few important technological trends I want to mention.

1. Development of OnDemand services and applications
2. Usage of Internet as a platform for social and organizational communication

All these trends together bring me to the point to ask – what will be next platform for PLM? How this platform will be able to adopt to fast changed word of business and communication? How future enterprise and PLM platforms will be able to manage “change” concept and become transportable for changed organizational and technological landscape?

I don’t think I have all answers to state how change will happen, but I see PLM system  different from monoliths applications and platforms we’ve built today.

What do you think? How do you see future agile enterprise PLM platforms and applications?

Best, Oleg

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PLM Prompt: Why Excel is not Enterprise System yet?

August 28, 2009

I was reading the following article “Why Excel is not Enterprise BI Solution Yet. What I liked is the way author presented the anti-Excel case in BI. I thought, this is very co-sounded with my Excel-PLM discussions. Everybody like Excel, but Excel have hidden cost and complexity you won’t be able to manage.

What is my conclusion? There are two possible ways:

1. To transform Excel into Enterprise Platform. Microsoft is trying to do so by introducing Excel Services and marriage of Excel and SharePoint.
2. To think about how to improve usability of enterprise solutions.

Just my thoughts… Best, Oleg

8 Comments | Business Intelligence, PLM Prompt, PLM User Experience, User Experience | Tagged: , , | Permalink
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