GrabCAD, New Openness and Future Business Models

February 1, 2012

The world is changing fast. What was near to impossible 10 years ago tomorrow, becomes a reality today. It related to the field of engineers as well as to the software that used by people and manufacturing companies. One of the factors impacting everything around us is the internet. It brings unknown before opportunities and new problems. An example of creating a different way to work is a community website for mechanical engineers GrabCAD. Earlier, this week, I was following an interesting discussion on various aspects of GrabCAD development on Matt Lombard’s Dezignsuff blog. Take few minutes to follow the discussion and opinions on Matt’s blog. This discussion made me think about the internet, new openness and future of business models.

Non-systematic definition of GrabCAD

I had a chance to look over what GrabCAD is doing and posted about them on my blog before – The Future of Engineering Communities and Manufacturing Crowdsourcing and Cloud PLM opportunities. Take few minutes to read and make your opinion. Deelip Menezes was describing what his opinion about the future of GrabCAD. He was consulting GrabCAD back in 2010. Here is an interesting passage from Deelip’s blog:

To put it simply, GrabCAD is a free online CAD library, not very different from other online CAD libraries. But the CAD library is only a first step. Pretty soon, GrabCAD will evolve into an online Engineering marketplace where members will be able to post Engineering projects and other members will be able to bid on them…GrabCAD will have an eBay style rating system where a member can start building his “reputation” by fulfilling projects, uploading his personal models for others to download and use, etc.

Hardi Meybaum explains GrabCAD using words “Crowdsourcing and Open-Engineering”. Navigate to the following presentation to learn more. In my view, it confirms plans of GrabCAD to develop future online applications in the field of engineering and manufacturing. You can think about Facebook apps applied to CAD domain. It obviously brings lots of questions related to IP – copyright, reuse and many others that needs to be handled on time.

DMCA and Engineering IP

I can see Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is one of the fundamentals of online business when it comes to Copyright protection. History already created few examples when companies protected their work using DMCA. Among them, there is a famous Google-Viacom and some other cases. At the same time, I never heard about application of DMCA to the field of CAD models, engineering IP and some cases discussed in Dezignstuff blog.

Respect Engineering Community

From my experience, engineers are special kind of people. In the past, SolidWorks developed a very successful community that respects engineers and their work. That’s why we had a chance to see so many SolidWorks works online – blogs and shared online materials. You cannot see such amount of online work related to other CAD systems. GrabCAD is actually proven in GrabCAD’s infographic:

To respect engineers is one of the fundamental thing that can create a successful engineering and manufacturing community. Last changes in GrabCAD that allows you toreport this model and upload notification shows that GrabCAD is listening. At the same time, in my view, it happened very reactively.

What is my conclusion? Future engineering environment will be different from what we see now. It will be driven by new technologies and business opportunities. It will take time to develop them as well as to adjust existing legal definitions. Clearly, GrabCAD is trying to innovate in this space. Future development of GrabCAD depends on many factors and events. It looks like a fast drive on a narrow path between IP of engineers and manufacturing companies, legal rules and business interests. As we know from the history of the internet, driving fast can bring you a speed ticket :) . Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Freebie. GrabCAD didn’t pay me to write this post.

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PLM, RDBMS and Future Data Management Challenges

January 5, 2012

It is not unusual to hear about problems with PLM systems. It is costly, complicated, hard to implement and non-intuitive. However, I want to raise a voice and speak about data management (yes, data management). Most of PDM/PLM software is running on top of data-management technologies developed and invented 30-40 years ago. The RDBM history is going back to the invention made by Edgar Codd at IBM back in 1970.

I was reading Design News article – Top automotive trends to watch in 2012. Have a read and make your opinion. One of trends was about growing complexity of electrical control units. Here is the quote:

As consumers demand more features and engineers comply, automakers face a dilemma: The number of electronic control units is reaching the point of unmanageability. Vehicles now employ 35 to 80 microcontrollers and 45 to 70 pounds of onboard wiring. And there’s more on the horizon as cameras, vision sensors, radar systems, lanekeeping, and collision avoidance systems creep into the vehicle.

It made me think about potential alternatives. Even if I cannot see any technology these days that can compete on the level of cost, maturity and availability with RDBMS, in my view, now it is a right time to think about future challenges and possible options.

Key-Value Store

These types of stores became popular over the past few years. Navigate to the following article by Read Write Enterprise -Is the Relational Database Doomed? Have a read. The article (even if it a bit dated) provides a good review of key-value stores as a technological alternative to RDBMS. It obviously includes pros and cons. One of the biggest "pro" to use key-value store is scalability. Obvious bad is an absence of a good integrity control.

NoSQL (Graph databases)

Another interesting example of RDBMS alternative is so-called noSQL databases. The definition and classification of noSQL databases is not stable. Before jumping into noSQL bandwagon, analyze the potential impact of immaturity, complexity and absence of standards. However, over the last 1-2 year, I can see a growing interest into this type of technology. Neo4j is a good example you can experiment with in case you are interested.

Semantic Web

Semantic web (or web of data) is not a database technology. Opposite to RDBMS, Key-value stores and graph databases, semantic web is more about how to provide a logical and scalable way to represent data (I wanted to say in "semantic way", but understand the potential of tautology :) ). Semantic web relies on a set of W3C standard and combines set of specification describing ways to represent and model data such as RDF and OWL. You can read more by navigating to the following link.

What is my conclusion? I think, the weak point of existing RDBMS technologies in the context of PLM is a growing complexity of data – both from structural and unstructured aspects. The amount of data will raise lots of questions in front of enterprise IT in manufacturing companies and PLM vendors. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Autodesk: CAD is done. Now PLM. The moment before AU…

November 29, 2011

As you know, I’m in Las Vegas these days attending AU 2011. Autodesk is preparing some big messages these years, and I hope to share my opinion about that with you very soon. Yesterday, I was attending media and press meeting with Autodesk execs, including Autodesk CEO Carl Bass, Manufacturing division VP Robert (Buzz) Kross and Autodesk Labs Director Brian Mathews. Below few pictures that can give you in impression of what I’ve seen in connection to manufacturing and PLM.

CAD is done. Cloud is coming.

There is only one company in the world, I know that use word “cloud” more extensively than  Autodesk these days. This company is Salesforce.com. Autodesk is aggressively coming with large amount of solutions that use cloud. PLM will be one of them.

Manufacturing: Global and Faster

It seems to me Autodesk is understanding the challenges of manufacturing these days. Global, Complex, Fast. You can see it from the slide presented by Robert (Buzz) Kross.

Q&A with Carl Bass

Carl Bass made his long Q&A with press and media. His appearance was very friendly. You can see a picture of Carl I made during the Q&A. I processed photo with “hipster” filter on my Camera+ app In my view, it reflect Carl’s mood during this Q&A. Carl answered on multiple questions about design, modern technological and industrial trends, software, cloud, etc.

What is my conclusion? I’m trying to make my conclusion about what I’ve heard in the connection with PLM. Autodesk is definitely recognizing PLM as a future opportunity. After what was done in PLM by Dassault, Siemens PLM and PTC, to democratize PLM will be probably a biggest challenge for Autodesk. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Dynamics AX Hybrid Cloud. Should PLM Vendors Care?

September 14, 2011

I have a feeling "cloud" topic got some dominance for the last days and week. However, the following article about Dynamics AX 2012 and cloud was something I considered important enough to mention. Navigate your browser and read – Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Dips Its Toes In the Cloud, Carefully. Microsoft is pushing their Dynamics AX to the cloud and trying to keep it on the ground at the same time. Here is how it happens:

With this morning’s release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, the company’s long-standing enterprise resource planning suite, the company is rolling out a new set of Windows Azure-based services that are leveraged on top of local deployments. The newest of these services is a deployment assistance tool called RapidStart that gives new customers a wizard-like questionnaire system for configuring Dynamics AX.

Microsoft is trying to blend tools and introduce Azure services. Some of them already here. The choice of "Rapid Start" is interesting too. Deployment, configuration and service – these are most painful topics in every implementation. To have an assistant coming from the cloud is kinda cool…

Dynamics AX and PLM

What PLM vendors can learn from Dynamics AX? AX never been very focused on PLM and PDM options. However, Dynamics AX kept PLM/PDM in the scope of Manufacturing solutions. Take a look on the following chartrepresenting Industrial Equipment solutions based on AX.

What is my conclusion? Microsoft is trying to push their new Azure development into existing business applications. AX is one of them. The idea of cloud services to leverage existing system is an important point. It is not unique to Microsoft, but probably can fit very well. This is something that can take care of existing investment made by a customer and prevent immediate "migration" development. Azure cloud can be a good technology option for such type of solution. PLM vendors need to notice how to re-use existing assets with the cloud option. This is can be an important strategy for coming years. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Why Apple isn’t cool for engineers? Or you are here to work…

July 9, 2011

Apple isn’t cool.. Got your attention? Okay… Today is two years, since I switched my everyday life to MacBook. It is enough time to make some conclusion. I was almost ready to write my next blog post as some kind of "My last two years with MacBook Pro", but I stumbled on the following article – Keep it in your pants – Pet Peeve#1 in CAD Insider, written by Roopinder Tara. Spend few minutes to read that blog. The following passage is my lovely one:

I don’t have any Apple computers. Nor am I yearning for one. My daughter is. She is way cooler than me. But when I look around, I don’t see any engineer using them. Not for production work. Just writing this will ensure that I will be pelted by Mac enthusiasts, but like mysterious forces others insist upon, I still deny their existence without visual proof.

So, despite the fact I can be classified as "a blogger going on rants", I decided to put few stories related to what, in my view, is going around PC/Windows, Apple and engineers working in manufacturing companies.

You are here to work, not to play.

Does anybody remember this phrase? Actually, I do… very well. It was a very common answer on the complains about software that (to say politely) "less usable" than expected. Business software was built for business and not for a game. So, everybody supposed to RTFM and work with the software purchased by a company. I think it was very acceptable 10 years ago. However, voices of people that started to ask about usable software becomes more and more louder. Companies like SolidWorks proved that user experience does matter. Finally, I can see more and more engineers looking how to use cool software.

This is such a useless device…

This statement belongs to the engineering manager of one of the very respectful manufacturing company in US. And the device is "iPad 1". The conversation actually happened a year ago, and it was about few months after iPad was released to the market. When we are still waiting for evidence of a massive migration of manufacturing companies to iPad, I think this event is not as far somebody can image. I found the following example interesting (even if it comes from non-manufacturing domain). The article from NYT says the story about the legal firm migrating a few hundreds attorneys to iPad.

This week, Proskauer Rose, one of the nation’s largest law firms, began making iPad 2s available to all its lawyers. So far, 500 of the firm’s 700 lawyers have requested an iPad and a desktop computer over a laptop.

Btw, Few weeks ago, I got an email from the same engineering manager saying – "I’m starting to believe that you may be on to something with iPads…". Since the last time, we talked the same manufacturing company he is working for, switched completely from Blackberries to iPhones.

Visual Proof

Now let me talk about "visual proof". When I switched my life to MacBook pro, two years ago, very few of my closest friends and colleagues were running on Apple. However, going back in 2007 and 2008, I noticed a growing number of Apple computers around me on conferences and in public places. Back that time, my corporate laptop was IBM/Thinkpad. Two years later, I can see many people around me switched their lives to Apple computers. Enterprises and manufacturing companies are moving much slower, but it is just a matter of time.

What is my conclusion? Let me think about a computer as a device with its own lifecycle. It was a time computer was big, bulky and took a whole room in your company. These big computers proved their existence by solving particular unsolved problems. Microsoft made computers smaller and affordable. Thinking about post-PC era, I can see people considering computers a device that helps them to get an everyday job done. And it should take fewer hassle, problems, calling specialists or IT. So, criteria changes and it will definitely change the landscape of computer devices we are using. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Design To Manufacturing Process: Bumpy Road?

June 12, 2011

Integration between design and manufacturing is one of the topics that normally hits a lot of discussion in the product development and PLM space. To support this process becomes more and more important in a modern enterprise manufacturing organization. You can ask me why? Let me put is simple – this is one of the most important processes that can drive cost optimization in the companies. Everything a company is making need to be first designed and later manufacturing. If it breaks – nothing can help.

Design to Manufacturing Connection

One of the numbers that always amazed me is what percentage of product cost is defined actually early in the design process. Do you want to guess this number? Well, it is around 70%. I think, this is an amazing number. At the same time, the initial cost planning is something that poorly can be done without getting information about manufacturing, supply and other related elements. Efficient transferring of the information between a design system (CAD, PLM) and manufacturing system (MRP/ERP) is an important element of streamlining of manufacturing processes.

Integration Challenges

Despite the high importance of the integration between design and manufacturing, the reality of many companies shows that few of them can show successfully implemented integrations. There are several reasons for that. The top three, in my view, are as following: 1/ high diversity of engineering and manufacturing processes; 2/dependencies on CAD, PLM, ERP and other home grown systems; and 3/ significant cost of implementation and changes. Each vendor develops his own strategies and relies on multiple technologies and partners to deliver that.

Design to Manufacturing Integration Examples

To illustrate the need and the level of complexity, I decided to pull together few videos that present some elements of integration solutions. The first one is the integration solution between Autodesk Inventor and SAP. The solution developed by Autodesk partner – CIDEON Software.

The next one is the solution developed by CORDYS, Holland based company, which focuses on the development of business process management middleware and tools. What is interesting in this solution is complete Independence of CORDYS from both software vendors manufacturing solution CORDYS integrates.

The following video presents TeamCenter 8 integration with Microsoft Dynamics AX developed by Microsoft’s partner To-Increase. This is another example of "a process like" integration between two packages – engineering and manufacturing.

The last examples show a different approach of integration. Dassault 3DLive solution is providing an interesting approach to access manufacturing information from ERP and other systems via the native 3DLive user interface.

What is my conclusion? The space of design to the manufacturing solution is complex and not covered well, in my view. The demand from customers is significant and the same time the requirements are complicated and solution in a most situation needs to be tailored for every customer. Most of the software vendors are talking about design to manufacturing processes and, at the same time, moving integration to partners, service providers and 3rd parties. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM, Manufacturers and Mobile Apps Hysteria

June 1, 2011

I can see around more and more people are playing with mobile devices. Last 3-4 months contained many announcements coming from hardware and software manufacturers related to "mobile business". Android Honeycumb, iPad 2, Google App store, Microsoft / Nokia deal, etc. I started to ask myself – what is behind all this? The following Forrester blog post caught my attention -Mobile App Internet and 2011 Mobile App Hysteria. John McCarthy was writing 3 months ago about some information coming from Forrester Mobile Internet report. Here my favorite passage:

The explosion of app innovation that started on the iPhone and then spread to Android devices and tablets will continue to drive tech industry innovation and have far-reaching pricing and go-to-market implications for software and services providers. A second round of innovation will leverage the intersection of cloud-based services; Smart Computing; and newly app- and Internet-enabled devices like cars, appliances, and entertainment systems. The development of this mobile "app Internet" with hybrid local and cloud-supported applications will not only foster huge levels of innovation but also open up new services opportunities around the creation and management of these B2C, B2B, and B2E apps. The mobile app Internet will also change the way software is priced and designed.

You can purchase Forrester report navigating to the following link. In his blog, John put some numbers from that report. I found the following ones the most interesting:

Even at $2.43/app, the app market will emerge as a $38B market by 2015… Helping enterprises ride out the perfect storm of innovation is a $17B services opportunity…

CAD and PLM companies are not staying aside of mobile applications’ game. I wrote about it in some of my previous posts: PLM and post-PC Era, 3D/PLM: Future or Baloney?, Mobile, Photo, Video and Manufacturing Collaboration, and some others. We also have seen some bold mobile announcement come from companies like Siemens PLM – TeamCenter Mobility Apps.

The Power of Mobile Disruption

Back in 2005-7, BlackBerry was my favorite device. It was super fast, easy and powerful. Few years ago I had a conversation with one of the manufacturing companies about the iPhone and mobile. The person I talked was a huge BlackBerry fun. Our point of disagreement was actually the absence of a keyboard. From his standpoint "iPhone fancy apps had no connection to manufacturing companies". Fast forward nowadays… I know he is running iPhone 4 and has lots of Apps on it.

In my view, mobile platforms create a huge disruption in everything IT does in manufacturing company. People are stopping tolerating existing enterprise suites and limitations. Engineers want the ability to answer on inquires coming from manufacturing also when they are out of their desks, managers want to have live updates ECO bottlenecks. There are many other examples.

What is my conclusion? I think people started to digest initial mobile device hysteria and transform it to something productive. In my view, it will require lots of changes in existing infrastructure and PLM product suites. Some of them won’t survive and some of them will be transformed. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg
Freebie

Photo: (Cristiano Betta/Flickr)

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PLM and Control Your Home

May 26, 2011

In the old days, the focus of manufacturing companies was mostly about how to produce stuff. Most of the products were disappearing from the horizons of engineers after moving out of their manufacturing plant dock. Not anymore. Life is different now. Manufacturers need to take care about many things related to the “real life” of their product. Maintenance and Disposal are just only two simplest examples. The only “smart” device in the line of product is my car, which reports me about the need for the next car maintenance. Rather than that, very few products have a real behavior.

Let assume you are in the business of home appliance. After installing, these units are complete idiots from the standpoint, of how they behave. CNN Money declares: Google Wants to Control Your Home. The article talks about the few announcements made by Google during Google I/O conference earlier this year. Google are rolling out somewhat called Android@Home, a platform that will be able to control almost all devices in your home – electronic, appliance, etc.

Android@Home was developed as an open protocol that can be used by any connected device and controlled by any wireless device or computer — including non-Android devices (i.e. Apple iPhone and Microsoft Windows PC)… LED light manufacturer Lighting Science lined up as an early Android@Home partner and was featured prominently in Google I/O’s keynote address on Tuesday. Lighting Science is creating light fixtures with wireless transponders, which will communicate with a wireless hub. That hub will be able to connect to devices using Google’s new platform.

Now you ask me how all these things related to PLM? Here is my take… Manufacturers are looking for new ways to connect with customers via products they manufacture and sell. Assuming your thermostat is connected to Google and then to the manufacturer of a particular thermostat. It sounds like a good idea. They can optimize thermostat behavior and get various useful parameters out of there. One more… Fridge can gather the information from your local Stop-and-Shop, look on what are your favorite meals, gather some recommendation and make a buy. In case, maintenance required, the fridge can invite maintenance people to fix it. Sounds like a dream? What is your take?

Best, Oleg

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Manufacturing Companies and SaaS Business Opportunity

January 11, 2011

I had a chance to watch Jason Green’s video interview by TechCrunchTV Sarah Lacy. Take a time, watch and make an opinion. I found interesting to listen to Valley VC, which is strategically focusing on cloud and enterprise opportunities. This is not a common trend, in my view.

Take a look on the following video.

This is not a first time I’m writing about a cloud opportunity in the manufacturing market. Navigate your browser to few of my following “cloud posts” if you had a chance to miss them: PLM and Cloud: Hold the Promise? and PLM and Pragmatic Cloud- Do Less. However, this video made me think about few interesting trends I wanted to share with you.

B2B and Cloud Services Trend
One of the important trends I can see in the enterprise cloud market is the development of B2B cloud services. Why it is interesting, in my view? It provides an alternative way to just pushing enterprise customers with enterprise product suites converted to the “cloud or SaaS model”. Business Services can become an interesting and disruptive approach for enterprise market.

PLM on the Cloud
I have a mixed feeling about PLM and Cloud. Definitely, few mindshare vendors already made (or planning) to make plans for cloud offering. The top two companies here are Autodesk and Dassault. In the past, PLM industry had few companies moving towards SaaS/On Demand. Arena Solutions as well as PTC/IBM bet on their future with Cloud/SaaS infrastructure. The biggest problem I can see in this domain is the replication of existing products, portfolio and plans to the cloud. This is not how I can see manufacturing and engineering software need to be developed.

Bottom Up Approach
I can see an interesting opportunity in development of manufacturing services, which has an opposite philosophy to the current mindshare PLM and ERP vendors. Existing enterprise and PLM models are very top-down oriented and assume a significant agreement about how a system needs to be implemented and how data need to be managed. Development of business services can be an interesting approach to provide an alternative solution on the market.

Freemium Business Models
Another aspect of SaaS and Cloud business is in implementing new  business models. Freemium is one of them. Normally, people see “Free” as an option that can be used only for a consumer market. The complexity of enterprise implementation and high potential cost of free services, it seems to be a wrong option. However, I can hear Jason is talking about 10-15% convergence rate in enterprise freemium models. It can shake business modeling canons and create a significant opportunity in the market.

What is my conclusion? Thinking about PLM Reset 2011, I can feel it is a time to re-think common practices of SaaS applications. Companies have tried to replicate existing software and shift the delivery towards the cloud. This is a wrong approach. The biggest potential of cloud will be in the combination of new approaches, technology, delivery and business models. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Mobile, Photo, Video and Manufacturing Collaboration

January 6, 2011

Mobile communication is evolving. Lots of new things happen. iPhone was a revolutionary device that introduced back-end camera and allowed to share photos and videos. During the last six months, we have seen a massive introduction of front-end cameras on multiple devices. In combination with back-end camera, it opens the whole world of new opportunities.

I’ve been watching the following presentation by Brian Pokorny during the Web Summit 2.0 in San-Francisco. I found it interesting. Watch that and make your opinion.

This video made me think about a possibility to improve communication and collaboration in manufacturing organization. The opportunity photo sharing creates is related to the potential communication and content sharing. Picture worth thousand words. Today, email communication is mostly “word” oriented. People are talking about social communication, which should come and replace email collaboration. Photo and video can create a new dimension of communication.

What is my conclusion? Email is sticky. Email runs companies. However, everybody understood the inefficiency of the email. It is hard to kick an email from the comfort zone. Web 2.0, social systems, etc. – it is all about how to improve to communication and collaboration. Photo can be the next step and additional powerful dimension. Just my thoughts..

Best, Oleg

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