PLM Implementations and Open APIs

May 8, 2012

Let’s talk nuts and bolts today. APIs.. If you think about any PDM / PLM implementation, the question about API is one of the most important. Why so? Because you know – it is near to impossible to get all done out of the box and via configuration. Even if marketing advertised and sales promised, you will have to have something to be done behind the scene using this magic word API.

PLM Openness

The topic of openness comes very often these days. I’ve been posting about openness about a year ago -PLM and New Openness. Notable news around PLM Openness is coming these days around so-called “Codex of PLM Openness” introduced by ProSTEP iViP. Navigate to the following link and you discover that majority of PLM vendors, including big-three-PLM (Dassault, PTC andSiemens PLM) are committed. Yesterday, during the opening session of annual Siemens PLM user conference – PLM World 2012 in Las Vegas, the topic of PLM Openness came into many conversations and even was captured by Siemens PLM blog.

Enterprise Systems and APIs

Enterprise systems have long history of API development. If you spent enough time in your life with databases and enterprise business you probably remember horrible stories of proprietary databases, move to SQL, hope of XML, believe in SOA / Web Services latest dreams about REST APIs. Last week, I came to a very interesting blog trilogy from CloudAve blog about enterprise architecture, APIs and more called – Simple Service Enterprise part 1, part 2, part 3. It is a bit long, but I recommend you to have a read. The following picture was resonating to my thoughts related to PLM implementations and APIs:

Here is my favorite passage that I’d apply to product lifecycle management and many other enterprise implementations:

…the fundamentals of information interchange: exposing business functionality, currently encapsulated in the back-end, to the outside world via services. These services are a one-to-one translation to back-end functions, which are one-to-one translations to business process steps themselves: the smallest level of business transaction.

Implementations, API and Open Data

Here is the idea how I see the future of open APIs. PLM system(s) is holding hostage of data and responsible for a set of process and transactions. Since PLM system cannot live in a vacuum, the interaction of PLM system with other systems in the enterprise (including various B2C and B2C services) is driven by processes. In order to have a productive API, you need to expose these processes using an appropriate level of granularity, including semantics of data (in this context, thinking about resources seems to me as an appropriate way). Having such a level semantically-resource-oriented-APIs can provide an easy and open way to interact with PLM system to build the most effective services.

What is my conclusion? To build a good API is a very complicated task. To make Open API is even harder. I can see a potential in exposing both semantics of data and related system functions in a way allowing me to use it and accomplish processes automatically. I think, web and REST give us a bit promise. The responsibility of vendors is to develop an appropriate level of granularity to make it usable. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Picture is courtesy of CloudAve.

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

The anatomy of MultiCAD-PDM Integrations

February 19, 2012

After posting my last blog multi CAD and PDM- dead lock?, I’ve got quite many emails and calls. It again proved to me that the topic is painful and require clarification. I’ll be setting up few follow up conversations following weeks. Today, I want to provide some background and clarify few basic things related to Multi-CAD and PDM.

The scope of Multi-CAD PDM

One size doesn’t fit all. Companies are using multiple CAD systems. Functional specialization, acquisitions, mergers and existing skill set. All these factors lead to the questions of how CAD systems exchange the information. It is about formats and interoperability. PDM multi-CAD is not about it. Since PDM is largely about the control and data share, multi-CAD PDM is about how to organize an environment in which engineers (and other people in your organization) will be able to use PDM will all CAD systems and files.

CAD-PDM: Immersive integration

Immersive integration is the trend in CAD/PDM which was formed for the last decade. It allows CAD users to interact with PDM within CAD environment. It simplified a lot design interaction and helps PDM to have a better control over the design process.

CAD-PDM plug-ins

Plug-in is a piece of software normally written using CAD API that allows PDM functionality inside of the CAD system. It includes functionality related to PDM control – open, check-in, check-out, release, etc. In addition to that it allows to support multiple CAD functional areas (I’m trying to avoid word ‘feature’ in order not to interrelate it with CAD parametric design features).

CAD complexity and PDM plug-ins

The growing complexity of CAD systems made PDM development quite complicated for the last 5-7 years. CAD systems made lots of functional enhancement, which made development of CAD-PDM in a nightmare. Add to that CAD releases, and you understand why CAD vendors got an ultimate advantage to provide a better CAD-PDM integration for their own CAD and PDM systems. It happens because of availability of internal knowledge, specific APIs and release process.

Customer needs and MultiCAD – PDM

MultiCAD environment is a reality of many companies. In such situation, customers are following two possible strategies 1- to follow dominant CAD + PDM strategy; 2- to form multi CAD/ PDM environment. The availability of a specific CAD-PDM integration is an ultimate deal/no-deal requirements in many situations.

Openness and API

In many situations, basic PDM and CAD integration can be achieved by using open API and system customization capabilities. These are important characteristics both PDM and CAD side. Availability of such instruments can decrease the pain around MultiCAD -PDM plug development.

CAD and PDM software releases and upgrades

Last, but now least- this is another pain point of Multi-CAD ODM plug-ins. Most of CAD and ODM releases are following one-year cycle. At the same time, customers are not always following all upgrades. To support multiple CAD releases in a single PDM is another place where precise synchronization between CAD and PDM development process is required.

What is my conclusion? The topic of MultiCAD PDM isn’t new. Let’s face the reality, because of the absolute importance, companies easy can get provoked to use it as a competitive advantage. In addition to "openness" in general, the ultimate way to solve this problem is Open API. I believe Open APIs is the most important strategic factor for companies to be competitive in the future. Just my thoughts… I’m looking forward to your comments and future discussions. Stay tuned for more posts about that.

Best, Oleg

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

PLM and New Openness

July 21, 2011

The topic of openness in PLM software isn’t new. In the past decade, I’ve been hearing lots of good and bad things about PLM and openness. Last year, I shared my thoughts with regards to PLM and openness in my post – Closed Thoughts About PLM Openness. Few days ago, I had a chance to read Ralf Grabowski was interviewing Fabien Fedida of Dassault Systems. Among all topics they discussed, one was about "new openness". Navigate your browser to the following link to read the interview. I put below some of my thoughts and references on PLM openness for the last year.

New Openness in Dassault V6 R2012

According to Mr. Fedida, Dassault is thinking how to improve the openness of their PLM software. Few examples: releasing of new APIs, adding V6 to external PDM integrations using Web Services and XML schemas. Here is my favorite passage:

Dassault is aggressively releasing API [application programming interface] calls "to the entire eco system." For example, ENOVIA V6 is now up to 3,000 API calls, 3DVIA Composer has 500, and CATIA has new ones in the area of composite manufacturing. There will be more APIs to come…

I can see the release of new APIs as something very positive. However, I’m afraid a bit about measurement of openness in the number of API calls, which reminded me how software was measured by LOC (lines of code) twenty years ago.

Aras, PLM Data "Obfuscation" and Other PLM vendors

A different perspective on openness is coming from Aras blog, which talked to us about PLM vendor’s practice of Lock-in, interoperability and need to make database and data models transparent and interoperable. Navigate your browser to read What is PLMData "Obfuscatopn" and Why Should I care?!? The following quote explains the "data obfuscation problem" and core idea behind Aras’ openness in database and data modeling technologies:

This is the way the other major PLM / PDM systems were / are designed. The database table for the Part Master is notcalled / labelled “Part” – it’s labelled “0034543908543TG324” or something else confusing like that… the data aresometime split into different tables so that access is non-intuitive. This is “obfuscation” and it’s done by design. PLMsystems have traditionally (and still are) very hard to get at the data and figure out, sometimes impossible…. Aras is an open and transparent data model that is designed in a very simple and straightforward manner. Parts are in a table calledPart”, Suppliers in a table called “Supplier”, etc. and you have complete access along with a published data dictionary. That’s very different from the other major PLM providers and one more way that we are helping companies take control of their own destiny. “

Talking about other PLM, I’d be mentioning TeamCenter PLM XML schema, which is a good example of openness, in my view. You can get more details here. It is interesting to see that the same Aras was delivered Aras’ connector to TeamCenter using TeamCenter PLM XML openness. Navigate to the following press release made by Aras back in 2009 – Aras announced connector technology for Siemens PLM Software TeamCenter.

What is my conclusion? Openness is a tricky thing, in my view. It depends on environment and in many times it is a part of the company fundamental strategies. I have to say that DS API numbers and connectors to everything are really reminded me the shelf in Apple store with connectors with all possible sources of data. At the same time, I cannot completely agree that usage of right naming in a database can solve the issue of data transparency and interoperability. The fact vendors are thinking about openness is a good sign. We will watch results… What is your take on PLM openness?

Best, Oleg

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

PLM: Standards, Openness, Open Source and more…

May 21, 2011

Yesterday, I had a chance to join a discussion panel on Eurostep Share-A-SpaceForum. The formal name of the panel was "The plan ahead -Share-A-Space". However, I used the opportunity to ask few questions to panelists – Hakan Karden, Eurostep CEO, Nigel Shaw, Managing Director Eurostep UK, Magnus Färneland, Share-A-Space Product Owner, other people in Eurostep organizations as well as forum attendees.

My interest (and I didn’t try to hide it) was to discuss everything that related to Standards and Openness. I think these topics are important and can impact significantly future of the industry. In addition, I think Open Source is another topic that can be intertwined with standards and openness. I decided to put it on the list as well. At the same time, I found that despite the obvious importance, the relationships between them are sometimes misunderstood and not clear.

Thinking specially about standards, I was lucky to have on the panel Nigel Shaw of Eurostep, who has a longest record of work related to STEP, PLCS and ISO. His work on STEP and ISO activities are going back in 1984 and his participants in ISO TC184/SC4 is going back 34 years.

Below you can find four questions I asked panelist as well as some note I took after the discussion.

Question 1: What is the future of standards in PLM?

It was interesting that everybody noted the importance and maturity of the standards available today (mostly in the context of STEP and PLCS). At the same time, future context was mostly around how standards can enable information sharing and collaboration. Specifically, with regards to PLCS standard, my note is that the standard today is a result of 25+ years of evolution and used by many companies and vendors. At the same time, usage of standards is mostly requirement of customers (if it comes) and not necessarily vendor’s interest.

Question 2. Will social tools and openness increase the demand for standards (STEP)?

My proposition behind this question was around changes in personal behavior on the internet and social networks. People have tendencies to share more. Gen Y considers many things "normal" that in the past were absolutely inappropriate. Does it make a change that will allow people to agree on common standards? In our discussion, we touched many points related to exchanging of information between people and business organizations, which have common parts, but also fundamentally different. Another topic that resonated was a communication between consumers and vendors in the context of support, buying decisions, etc.

Question 3. Can Standard-related activities become a foundation for Open Source?

Certainly, most of the participants are considering standards as "open" source today. I’m taking "source" out of equation by purpose, because most of panelists and attendees put the emphasis on the ability of people to exchange information, rather than on the ability to "open source". I can see Eurostep perspective here to protect their IP related to Share-A-Space platform and at the same time to support openness related to data exchange and sharing. This conversion led us to the next source – differences between standards and openness.

Question 4. Is there a difference between Standards and Openness?

The discovery we made during the conversation was related to different understanding of openness. This isn’t surprised for me. I found it very common. You can hardly find the company that can say – "we are not open", or "we are closed" (btw, maybe Apple is one of them?). At the same time, everybody understands openness in a different way. The agreement we came during the discussion was that standards definitely can imply openness. However, standards are not mandatory elements of openness. The elements of openness in the PLM world (but not only) are as following: supporting of non-proprietary formats, import/export functions, open APIs, etc. All these elements are not requiring special "standard" support.

So, what is my conclusion? What I learned during this conversation (and also during Eurostep 2011 forum) is how "standards" can be leveraged inside of the commercial company. I think, it changed some of my positions related to absolute rejection of "standards" as something beneficial for a company (not for customers). On the fundamental level standard IP and knowledge is something that helps to the company to decrease cost and improve the quality of products. Just my thoughts..

I’m looking forward to your comments and may be additional discussion around the questions.
Best, Oleg

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

PLM Complexity: What Does The Future Hold?

March 21, 2011

One of my blog readers shared with me slides of Paul Saunders presentation about MRO software from the Miami Aircraft Commerce Aviation IT Conference March 2011. I found the presentation very timely. Author is focusing on MRO systems and makes analyzes about why MRO systems are so complicated and who is responsible for such a situation. In addition to that Paul made some prediction about the future of MRO systems as well as some software development trends. Despite the fairly significant size (110 slides), I recommend you to spend some time and go through the slides. Do it and make your opinion?

The Future of MRO presentation

This presentation made me think again about PLM complexity. About a year ago, I wrote about PLM and Collapse of Complex Societies. Following the Tainter’s theory, PLM system just created another level of bureaucracy. What are the sources of bureaucracy and why complex PLM systems are following these rules?

Sources of Complexity

The fundamental intent of Product Lifecycle Management is to organize a product development processes. It implies lots of assumptions about what is the process? how data is organized? how people are interacting? what are organizational boundaries and other business processes? PLM system development followed the set of rules developed by predecessors in enterprise software and mostly MRP and ERP systems. Software vendors built the top down system organization and tried to formalize organizational data and processes. However, product development process diversity between manufacturing companies made this formalization process impossible. Development created multiple “options” and predefined schemas. When it came to the implementation, it resulted in a huge amount of customization and system tailoring. In addition to that, companies were concerned about the competition.

The Future is Open?

Play with openness and data in enterprise organizations was probably the most dangerous and destructive for end users. As I wrote in my post - The Ugly Truth about PLM-ERP Monkey Volleyball, enterprise software companies are trying to control data and, as a result, limiting availability and access to this data from other vendors. The openness creates a situation when a company will be able to choose a better tool without sniffing around the existing tool. The biggest lesson PLM and other enterprise software need to learn is how to switch towards open data, open systems and open architecture.

What is my conclusion? The following sentence from Paul’s slides is a key: this software isn’t complex enough. Have you had a chance to hear it for the last week, month, year? No. Vendors need to fight complexity in PLM products. The first things to target is a system openness and a complexity of user experience. The complexity game is over. Finally…

Best, Oleg

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

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

2 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank, Future Trends, Open Source | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

Closed Thoughts About PLM Openness

June 29, 2010

My post Open vs. Closed PLM Debates last week and related Fortune CNN Money Blog article by Jon Fortt – Chrysler’s Engineering Software Shift created some very interesting experience for me. The level of interest, especially the amount of comments, is one of the things that drive my analyzes after actually post published. The special experience I’ve got with this blog post was that I got most of the comments by email and not on the blog website. It made me think, may be about additional issues related to the “openness and PLM” that I didn’t discover before. So, I decided to pull some of my thoughts about PLM and Openness here and see if we all can generate a reasonable discussion about that.

Are We Open?
I think, CAD/PLM lives in the world of competition on openness. The question “Are We Open?” sounds as a wrong question to me. In my view, there is no Black & White in openness. The issue of openness needs to be related to the specific characteristics of software that can be measured. The examples of such characteristics are – Open API, support for existing standards, availability of software for customization and extension, ability to publish or exchange information about data models and file formats, etc. I think, we can collectively come and find more characteristics. A special characteristic of openness is the open source, and it needs to be analyzed separately, in my view.  So, in order to get an answer on the question “Are We Open?”, we need to come and analyze various aspects of software.

PLM and Integrated Software
I’d like to emphasize the topic of “integrated software” in the context of discussion about openness. It is a tricky one. Enterprise Software, in general, as well as CAD and PLM software specifically is growing and the question of integrating different pieces of software becomes more and more important. Customer demands are to have a better integrated software and software vendors (especially a big ones) are focusing on the questions how to make it happen. Sometimes it comes to the point where pieces of software that before had a weak connection becomes tightly integrated and dependent. Is it a good thing? I think, it depends… The latest debates about DS V6 platforms and tight connection between CATIA and ENOVIA are actually coming to this point, in my view. I think, the intent of DS is to provide “best integrated software”. Does one size fit all? I think, DS engineering wizards definitely had in their mind a question how to create a next level of CAD and Data Management functions in a single box. I can see similar trends also coming from other CAD/PLM vendors.  The best non-PLM association I’d like to come with is Apple platform. When it comes to the unique experience customers are having with Apple product, you can make a compromise on openness of the platform. Will it continue for the long run, I don’t know? However, I see these strategies work for Apple these days.

PLM Openness and Customers
I think, this is a real measure of your openness. Whatever you do is for customers and not for competitors. Customers need to have an ability to define what are their openness needs. The reality I see on a customer side is that nobody is using CAD and PLM software coming from a singe vendor. The maturity of industry will be measured by the ability of vendors to come to the compromise of how to serve customers with the best performing software. How vendors can achieve it? It is a very good question… However, it shows the overall maturity of the industry.

What is my conclusion? I think, openness is ready hard. To play this game right, you need to see both worlds at the same time – customers and competitors. And this is the exact order how to see it. My bet is that openness wins for the long run. I think, we will see more software that will be measured by how it performs for customers. One of the performance characteristics will be how information managed by the software can be open and available for Pull (I’m going to post more about the “Pull” in the future) . It will be the end of “openness competition”. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Share

9 Comments | Competition, Daily PLM Think Tank, Future Trends | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

Open vs. Closed PLM Debates

June 24, 2010

I read Fortune CNN Money Blog article by Jon Fortt – Chrysler’s Engineering Software Shift. In the competitive world of PLM software it raises again the question about what is the better choice – Open or Closed? The context of this article is leaked information about Chrysler’s movement from CATIA to NX or, maybe more from DS PLM product lines to Siemens PLM. However, author made a nice association between the engineering software story and bigger story related to the strategy of closed platforms such as Apple, Oracle and Cisco. It made me think how I see the future of Open vs. Closed routes in PLM.

CAD Openness
The debates about openness of CAD and later PDM/PLM software is not a big news in the industry. From the early beginning, CAD applications tried to protect themselves, by creating a proprietary format to store geometrical models and drawings. For the long period of time and until now, practically all leading CAD vendors are using closed file formats. It created a separate industry of companies working on translators and supporting so called “interoperability”. The discussion about CAD openness and interoperability is probably the longest one I can remember in the history. I’m not sure we’ll be able to see the end of this story. The current situation reflects clearly the conflict of vendor’s business models and user interests. CAD industry veterans outline the future of CAD (MCAD) will remove this barrier and make CAD product more open. You can take a look on my blog post – CAD Future: How To Liberate Data.

PDM/PLM and CAD Integration
In the beginning, PDM was about just managing meta data about CAD File. It started from revision management and release control. Most of PDM system in the market managed to have multi-CAD integration strategy by supporting multiple vendors. However, customers were interested in more integrated products. Evolution of PDM product into PLM, including their ability to manage a diverse set of product data and processes, just added more fuel into development of future PLM Platform strategies. It was a time, when vendors started to think seriously about how to create completely integrated product suites. Dassault V6 is a first kind of system that introducing CAD/PLM system bundle.

CAD vs. PLM Openness
What is the difference between CAD and PLM Openness? In my view, it is an interesting turning point in the overall story of engineering software. In the real world, customers are working with a diverse set of tools. In the world of pure CAD, their decision to work with multiple CAD products was hard, but doable. Many of the customers (especially big ones) worked historically with multiple CAD products. PLM is adding new flavors in the old story about CAD openness and interoperability. This is the place where the world of CAD files ends and companies are starting to think more about how to manage all engineering and enterprise data assets.

The Future Is Open?
The most important question is how we can move into the future where data will be more open. I think, many of the companies, are thinking how to solve this problem. It looks like a very promising future to make data open. However, the business reality is different and companies are continuing to make profits from closed platforms. The following quote from Fortune article is the most important, in my view:

When the closed strategy works, it can yield outsize profits — Apple’s recent financial results being a prime example. But it can backfire, too. If a company’s bundle of products doesn’t work together well enough to justify the added cost, customers can get turned off. That’s the danger for Dassault. Joe Barkai, analyst at IDC Manufacturing Insights, says that in this age of consolidation, automakers are more likely to be looking for flexible design systems that can easily share data with a new partner or supplier.

What is my conclusion? I think, we are going to see more and more stories related to development of Open startegies. There are clearly two possible options: 1/To create excellent integrated product suites and sell them to customers (i.e. Apple story) or 2/To develop open strategies. My take – I think Open game is hard. However, the prize can be big. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Share

11 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank, Market and Technology | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 73 other followers