Manufacturing Crowd-Sourcing and Cloud PLM Opportunity

December 5, 2011

Crowd-sourcing is a popular trend these days. For those of you out of sync, in a nutshell, crowd-sourcing is a way for a community of people to build, create, print, etc. anything. Here is the classic definition of crowd-source from Wikipedia:

Crowdsourcing is a distributed problem-solving and production model. In the classic use of the term, problems are broadcast to an unknown group of solvers in the form of an open call for solutions. Users—also known as the crowd—typically form into online communities, and the crowd submits solutions. The crowd also sorts through the solutions, finding the best ones. These best solutions are then owned by the entity that broadcast the problem in the first place—the crowdsourcer—and the winning individuals in the crowd are sometimes rewarded. In some cases, this labor is well compensated, either monetarily, with prizes, or with recognition. In other cases, the only rewards may be kudosor intellectual satisfaction. Crowdsourcing may produce solutions from amateurs or volunteers working in their spare time, or from experts or small businesses which were unknown to the initiating organization.

I had a chance to write about crowd-sourcing before. Navigate to one of my previous posts – Marketplaces and Engineering Software or NoPLM and Quirky Social Product Development. Earlier last month, I’ve been reading recent announcements related to Local Motors and SolidEdge Design1. I can see it as a big deal.

Navigate to the following article in Develop3D by Al Dean to read his commentary on this. Also, you might be interested to read Evan Yares’ take on this same topic in his post – Siemens PLM and Local Motors. Here is my favorite passage from Evan’s post.

While I think the Local Motors deal is interesting, what I find more interesting is the potential Design1 might have in Siemens’ (and its competitors’) major accounts, as a low-cost interstitial CAD tool for use by engineers and others who are not full-time CAD users, or who simply don’t need history-based CAD. I could imagine some companies (particularly large automotive companies) signing up for literally thousands of copies. It could make things pretty interesting in the CAD business.

I found another source of ideas looking for GrabCAD presentation during AU2011 last week (Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend Hardi’s presentation and ended up to catch it via slideshare version).

The connection of GrabCAD to crowd-sourcing services can be interesting because it will require additional tools that can help people to communicate and re-use data.

All this, made me think about a potential impact crowdsourcing models can make on PLM software development. Here is the idea, in a nutshell. Design1 is a good start. Local Motors needed a cheap CAD tool that can be used by the community of people. The community of people is obviously using the internet as a way to communicate. So, by doing that, one of the biggest concerns of cloud PLM (cloud security) will be dissolved. It means data will flow online anyway. Obviously, the community can be interested in having PLM tools to support data management, communication and processes across the community.

What is my conclusion? The power of community is fascinating. It can impact many aspects of software development. Will community be using Google tools or special PLM software dedicate to online usage? It is a good question. What is your take? Speak your mind.

Best, Oleg

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CAD, PLM and Visual Reporting

October 17, 2011

Reporting is a very important part of product lifecycle management. Actually, without reporting it is hard to imaging how you can make all information about a product and its lifecycle usable. At the same time, PLM vendors ditched reporting capabilities for a very long time. I was writing about it few times. Maybe you can take a look on one of my posts almost two year ago – Do we need reporting standards in PLM?. Many years reporting was the add-on function, and the niche was mostly occupied by service providers and implementers.

Recently, I noted a trend that made me change my opinion. I can see some significant changes in an attitude CAD and PLM vendors put to improve some reporting capabilities. One of the elements of this trend is "visual reporting".

Siemens PLM and HD3D

I made a note about HD3D back in 2009. Navigate to this post to read about it. Earlier today, I was reading twitter stream coming out of Siemens PLM conference in Europe and found that Siemens significantly improved the capability of HD3D and it plays very nice by providing excellent reporting capabilities and navigating between 3D and non-3D information. In today’s announcement about NX8 Siemens included information about future enhancements of HD3D. Here is a quote from the following announcement:

Enhancements to NX 8 in the area of product design include more powerful and efficient modeling, drafting and validation solutions along with expanded HD3D support for better design decisions.

Expanded HD3D and design validation tools provide enhanced interaction, more powerful reporting and enriched visual presentation of PLM information from more sources. Standard HD3D features now provide a visually rich and more flexible feedback environment to help users quickly locate, diagnose and fix problems, ensuring designs comply with standards and fulfill requirements.

High Definition 3D (HD3D) capabilities include enhancements like new simulation “results measures”, that allow users to tie results directly to requirements so teams can make smarter decisions.

Al Dean of Develop3D wrote about HD3D and Visual Reporting in his article earlier today. See few screen-shots from this article.

Who else is in business of Visual Reporting?

Watching NX8, HD3D made me think about other vendors probably pushing towards the same directions. I found Dassault System 3DLive product (even earlier than HD3D) trying to accomplish almost the same goal of combing 3D visual information and information coming from PDM and ERP system. I think Siemens development folks definitely learned from Dassault 3D live before building HD3D (just my opinion and combination of dates).

Interesting enough, I found Autodesk is also not standing aside and watching how Siemens PLM and Dassault are improving the reporting capabilities of their products. Autodesk proud to call it "Visual Data Management".

What is my conclusion? I think, slowly, but surely, CAD and PLM vendors are starting to understand the value of the ability to present data reports and visualize them nicely. It recognized by many vendors (and just brought examples of Siemens PLM, Dassault Systems and Autodesk). In my view, we are going to see more examples of how reporting capabilities can increase the value of products and make it more usable. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Siemens’ Active Workspace – PLM Next Big Thing?

September 30, 2011

PLM is a lot of lifecycle. It is a very important characteristic of PLM to support product access the multiple lifecyle phases. As a result of this PLM forced to be focused on integration. The nature of PLM to live between all other enterprise systems in manufacturing organization. How many times you’ve seen a slide presenting PLM capturing product from early requirement phases and until final disposal. Over the past few years, I’ve seen the trend of PLM vendors to delivery more vertically integrated systems. It was demanded by customers, since it answered on the requests to integrate multiple enterprise products and information. About a month ago, I posted Total Integration and the Future of PLM. This blog post resonated. You can see a long history of discussion came together with this blog. It was clear to me “integration” became a key word.

Dassault System was a company that experimented with the vertical integration too. Coming with their revolutionary V6 release and 3DLive concept, Dassault introduced the environment “pulling dots” together. You can find corresponded materials on YouTube (like this) presenting how V6/3DLive supposed to provide a complete integrated working environment.

I first heard about Siemens PLM plan to deliver so called HD-PLM and HD-3D environment last year. I’ve seen examples of HD-3D. I liked a clean UI. However, I’ve seen some correspondence between ideas of 3DLive and HD-3D. Here is my blog about it from the last year – 3DLive, HD-3D, 3D UI and Efficiency.

Earlier this year, I started to get some information about Siemens PLM plan to deliver something called – Active Work Space. E The first time I’ve heard about it was a blog by Desktop Engineering called- Siemens PLM Connection: Clues to Active Workspace. It was interesting enough. I noted the following passage:

“What we’re trying to do,” said Bruce Feldt, Siemens PLM Software’s VP of Open Tools, “is to provide access to information, that complex PLM information, though a transcendent user interface …”

The end product, revealed Feldt, “is intended to be a new client [with which] PLM workers of all classes will start their work day. Active Workspace will know who the workers are, what’s on their work list, what kind of things they’re working on. It’s all centered around the notion of improved decision-making … It is a search-based application. Do not consider it as a search engine … the user interface has to be very simple to use … it’s a highly visual environment. Going through lists of texts, product structures, and information presented in hierarchical ways is useful, but we think if we present them in a more visual way, it would be more useful and easier to understand.”

Below is a slide from the presentation shows what Active Workspace is and what is it NOT.

Another piece of information about Active Workspace came later this year from Siemens PLM conference. Jim Brown of TechClarity was talking about HD-PLM and Active Workspace in his blog post – Siemens PLM: Progress Report 2011. Here is the quote from Jim’s post:

HD-PLM – This is where “smarter decisions” becomes real. The most tangible progress here is with Active Work Space (AWS). Active Work Space is a central solution for Siemens PLM that aims to bring all of the information, tools, and product context together in one place for a user. This holistic view of the product is intended to serve as the central location that decision makers access product information and the tools to create and share it. One of the key points Siemens makes is that this should put all of the tools Chuck talks about above in the context of the product and the decisions being made. At a minimum, it simplifies the view into the products for a user and provides a fresh interface to the PLM solution suite. Over time, this has the potential to develop into much more (I will share more of that as plans are made public).

Finally, Kenneth Wong of Desktop Engineering published an article earlier last week – Siemens PLM: Active Workspace in code… where he placed the following picture previewing future Active Workspace UI. According to information provided by Kenneth, Active Workspace supposed to come later in November.

What is my conclusion? I think, vertical integration and decision-making are two important trends in PLM these days. Ultimately, PLM value prop is going more and more towards “smarter product decisions”. The only way to have a smarter decision is to provide a complete and efficient tool connecting information to be used by decision makers. I sort of like Siemens PLM Active Workspace idea. However, obviously, I have many questions not answered. Cost of implementation and openness to other tools in manufacturing organization are two most important. In my view, customers’ demands are towards cheaper tools and faster implementation timelines. Is it achievable? I don’t know… I didn’t find information about how to Siemens is planning to implement Active Workspace. Hope to see it in the future. These are just my thoughts and guesses…

Best, Oleg

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Total Integration and the Future of PLM

August 12, 2011

I’m still cleaning my post-vacation backlog of feeds and messages. One of the articles by UK Eureca Magazine caught my attention, since it was named exactly as my blog – Beyond PLM. This article is an interview with managing director PLM Software, Robin Hancock about the company’s vision for the future of PLM.

One of the main topics discussed in the article was a topic of "integration" or so-called "total integration". Here, my favorite passage:

Charting the development of PLM, Hancock says, "In the old days it was all about product design. Now, while you’re designing and developing the product and getting people to collaborate around it, you’re also designing and developing your plant and your manufacturing capability concurrently. Because the pressure is to get more competitive, more highly configured products to market at a lower price and higher quality, more quickly, doing those things concurrently is the next big value proposition for manufacturing and engineering companies. But change is difficult and the last thing you want is some ‘big bang’.

Siemens PLM is planning their future HD PLM approach to help realize the potential of the total integration. Here is a visionary video Siemens PLM released a year ago:

The discussion about "the total integration" and "big bang" approach made me think about the following 3 trends I can see in a modern PLM technological and application development: Multiple System Approach, Vertical Integration and Continuous Implementation.

Multiple System Approach

The reality of manufacturing companies is simple – people stopped believing in a single system that solves all problems. Businesses understood that they need to have a blend of systems representing their unique approach of running product development. I can see multiple reasons why it happened. Among the most important ones I can see system complexity, implementation cost and high demand for fast ROI.

Vertical Integration

Customers have a strong demand for vertical integration. The days were systems could work disintegrated finally over. The question of integration between design,manufacturing, supply, execution and other elements of the overall system chain is obvious and businesses are ready to spend a lot of resources to make it work.

Continuous Implementation

This trend related to the potential implementation cost. The demand of users is to drive this cost down as much as possible. Opposite to a ‘big bang’ approach, this one is focusing on how to implement multiple small projects into a sequence of successful deployments.Each has their own cost, ROI value proposition. All of them together allows to decrease the overall implementation cost and project risks.

What is my conclusion? It seems to me, the understanding of the "integration value" is important to successfully implement PLM systems. This is not a short term project, but a long journey. I think, in the past "integration" was a "step child" in PLM product family. PLM companies focused on their own product lines and dismissed integration opportunity. However, future is integrated. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM and Post-PC Era

April 6, 2011

Picture-9.pngI found an increased trend of conversation around the "post-PC" topic. I found the conversation fascinating. Are we going to replace our PCs, workstations, laptops with mobile table devices like iPad 2? I’m not sure it is going to happen soon. I’ve been readingGartner’s prediction about PC market dynamics as well PC World article discussing the same topic. Nevertheless, I can see how mindshare PLM vendors are reacting on strong dynamics of tablet devices. Earlier last month, I posted 3D/PLM and iPad: Future or Baloney? I’m continuing to watch other CAD and PLM vendors coming to the "table" and introducing their iPad apps.

Early Adopters or Mainstream?

Autodesk was one of the first vendors coming to the tablet’s game. It started by introducingAutoCAD WS last year and followed by multiple additional Apps. In my view, Autodesk is still leading with the maximum number of various iOS apps. Dassault and SolidWorks came later this year and introduced3DVIA Mobile on iPad on SolidWorks World 2011 earlier this year. Few days ago, I found Siemens PLM introducingTeamCenter Mobility Apps. I found the following video interesting. Watch it and make you conclusion.

Mobile and Decision Making

I can see a clear trend to introduce mobile apps as something that drives to better decision making capabilities. It raises multiple use cases where end users are not necessarily needed to stick with the fully blown application tools on their PC to make a decision. I found TeamCenter app scope wider than other mobile applications introduced on iOS devices before.

What is my conclusion? I can see signs of post-PC era. I don’t think it means that we will replace our PC with mobile devices. However, it introduces a new dynamic in decision making that can help to accomplish their jobs, even if they are out of their desks. The new status quo can introduce a completely different set of expectations in front of PLM vendors these days. Important. Just my opinion.

Best, Oleg

Freebie. Siemens PLM didn’t pay me to write this post.

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Daimler PLM Dilemma – PDM First

November 27, 2010

This week Siemens PLM announced – "Daimler AG has selected CAD Software from Siemens as their standard for their worldwide vehicle development". The event of such size is notable in the PLM space and generated a significant amount of buzz and publications. Despite the fact most of publications talked about what was a decision base for Daimler AG, my favorite quote was from Graphic Speak article:

All the MCAD/PLM vendors want the major automotive manufacturers as their customers, for both the bragging rights and the additional sales to the supply chain. But automotive is not the big story in the next few years for PLM. Recently PTC disclosed to business analysts information on their current competitive campaigns. They listed the number of targeted customers by existing PLM platforms. “In-house or home-grown” was in second place, with Siemens PLM the only vendor with more installations in the PTC cross-hairs. Real market growth is not coming from a few large vendors who have been using PLM for years, but from the thousands of smaller manufacturers who will leap-frog from a “PLM system” based on AutoCAD, Excel, email, and Windows Explorer to state-of-the-art engineering IT. This larger market is wide-open.

CAD and PDM History

For many years, CAD system was a leading software component in the overall strategy related to the design and engineering world. The decision about CAD was always one that set up the agenda to work with a vendor. At the same time, PDM was an appendix to a CAD kingdom. PDM integration with CAD system was considered as strategically important. The ability of PDM to be connected and used together with CAD environment was one of the key decision points for many companies. The importance of CAD (design) data was absolutely undoubted.

New Horizons of Product Data

In my view, last 10 years, introduced some changes in the priorities of engineering IT. The importance of "integrated solutions" raised significantly. The driver behind that is the understanding of manufacturing companies about how to control cost. The importance of product data management beyond CAD and design became clear for large OEMs and even smaller companies. The amount of product data outside of design environment outgrows the amount of CAD data. The introduction of lightweight data formats like JT, XVL and others decreased the dependencies of people outside of the design department on CAD data. Today, PDM system is a platform used to support expanded product data scope. Most of these systems are heavily customized. In includes the complication of CAD-PDM integration. However, the importance of the global product data management is growing.

PLM Platforms and Cost of Change

CAD/PLM vendors noticed the importance of vertical integration in the beginning of 2000s. This factor led them to decisions about the future platform strategies. All PLM vendors spent significant resources over the past decade to modernize and re-architecture their platforms – TeamCenter Unified, Enovia V6, Windchill. Lots of money was spent to introduce modern backbones, expanded portfolios and integration strategies. However, the reality in the field is heterogeneous software landscape. It leads to a question of "change cost" as the most important element of the future PLM decision.

What is my conclusion? Cost is important. In 2000s , the decision CAD vs. PDM was almost always CAD + any PDM Integration. Which means – CAD First. We learned something new this week. PDM and Data Management becomes more and more important. The cost of global product data platform change and potential IT disruption is much bigger compared to the cost switching to another CAD. So, in 2010s, the math CAD <or> PDM is different and the answer is probably PDM change + IT cost. Which means PDM and product data backbone first. This is an important difference, which will have an implication on engineering and manufacturing software decisions of the current decade. PDM system position can give some advantages in the PLM giant wars for large automotive and aerospace OEM accounts. Questions about cost of change and untapped PLM markets are more interesting, in my view.

Best, Oleg

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PLM Vendors, IT and Cloud Strategy

November 3, 2010

I was reading CloudAve yesterday. The post named – IT: Become Relevant or Die. Read this blog and make your opinion. The discussion about cloud is not new. This is my favorite passage from this post:

There are three things happening in IT now. The first is cloud, the second is mobile, and the third is social. CloudBlog agrees. But, what’s happening with IT is that it’s faced with 2-4 percent growth over the last several years. That is the equivalent of shrinkage when compared with spending in other areas. IT’s projects are becoming less relevant and thus are dying.

In addition, take a look on the video Daryl Plummer of Gartner video interview.

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Engineering and Manufacturing software business is relying significantly on IT performance. Most of the large and profitable PLM implementations are driven by IT or IT-related companies. For the last year, I’ve heard many PLM companies are making announcements related to the cloud-technologies. To understand what will be a future impact and what PLM companies are doing with regards to do this, seems to be interesting. So, I decided to put my comments behind what I know about cloud strategies of companies in the engineering and manufacturing domain.

Aras

The last newsletter from Aras, stated the following – Aras Explains PLM Cloud Strategy. The link brings you to the CIMData paper. Details about Aras’ cloud strategy can be found here. Simply put Aras folks are saying “we are ready for cloud – just bring it in”. Following additional publications on Aras’ blog, they are preparing to have some real-life tests in cloud scenarios. I think, “private cloud” can be the most relevant scenario for Aras, focusing on large customers first. I have some concern related to Aras’ cloud strategy in the context of their business model. How it will co-exist with Aras Open Source strategy is not clear.

Autodesk

Cloud was definitely in the focus of Autodesk for the last year. It started, actually, in the end of 2009 when Autodesk acquired Israeli Sequoia back startup Visual Tao. Earlier Autodesk made several statements about their vision towards better leveraging cloud computing. During 2010, Autodesk demonstrated few projects focused on cloud-based applications, such as Project Butterfly, Project Twitch and few others. I can see Autodesk put an effort and significant thinking behind the “cloud theme” and how to make it practically useful for type of customers Autodesk has.

Arena

This company can be for sure qualified as a pioneer of “cloud computing” in PLM. Back to the origins (bom.com) was the first company that said the word SaaS / OnDemand / Cloud (?). My personal opinion – Arena was much ahead of time. The post-dot-com weather of 2000s was very destructive for Arena’s business. Today, I can see Arena is producing a decent set of cloud based application, mature and ready to use if functionality of them is good for you. However, it is easy to check – Arena is providing Free 10-Days Arena Trial.

Dassault

Since V6 release, Dassault is speaking about cloud as part of their strategy. It takes too much time, but it is okay for such a big company like DS. The beginning of 2010 was signed by very loud messages coming out DS SolidWorks annual customer event – SolidWorks World 2010. You can take a look on the following article – SolidWorks Takes off in the cloud. Very recently, Jeff Ray, SolidWorks CEO blogged with some updates about SolidWorks cloud strategy.

PTC

During the last 6 months, PTC heated atmosphere and blogosphere with messages about PTC Project Lightning. It ended with Creo launch last week. However, Creo launch didn’t put any lights on what PTC plans doing with cloud. Even more, during the exec press conference, PTC’s new CEO, Jim Heppelman mentioned that word “cloud” wasn’t mentioned. In fact, PTC had early cloud exposure with their Windchill solution hosted by IBM. This is probably explains PTC’s current strategy with regards to the cloud. Probably, PTC learned their own lessons working with IBM on the cloud and we’ll know about that later.

Siemens PLM

I can provide a definition related to Siemens PLM cloud strategy using one word – NAH… Siemens doesn’t care. At least, in a visible way. In the past, I had a chance to track some cloud-recommendations related to TeamCenter. Siemens PLM has some software products exposed to the cloud. However, no messages are coming with regards to this.

There are other vendors that exposing themselves to the “cloud story”.

Vuuch, company planning to bring the power of social to product development is actually SaaS / Cloud company. You can subscribe to their service online, and you don’t need to install it.

PLM+, Israeli startup focusing on PLM for SMB claims the availability of their product on a service base. However, they are in a long time Beta version since last year.

What is my conclusion? I think, engineering and manufacturing software vendors learned a lot from their “cloud” stories during 2010. Almost all vendors got to the point of “trying the cloud water”. In my view, 2011 companies will shift more towards delivery. It will be interesting to see what PLM and other companies will put on the market to satisfy needs of growing cloud presences? This is the time to watch. Important and interesting, in my view…

Best, Oleg

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