SolidWorks World 2012: Community and the opportunity for PLM

February 14, 2012

Monday was my second day in San-Diego. SolidWorks World 2012 was officially launched with general session with presentations of SolidWorks CEO Bertrand Sicot and Dassault CEO Bernard Charles. Yes, it is the coolest show in the town. 5500 attendees, 110 companies in the partners pavilion. I think, SolidWorks beat all scores in absolute and relative numbers. According to SolidWorks people, this is the biggest SWW show ever. In addition to that it made me think about the following comparison with SolidWorks rival – Autodesk. Autodesk University 2011 two months ago in Las Vegas gather about 8000+ attendees. However, AU included AutoCAD, AEC and other businesses. On the picture below Bertrand is dancing on stage during the kick of SolidWorks World 2012

The power of community

Solidworks clearly has the best community on the market. The following numbers (I haven’t had a chance to check them) shows SolidWorsk jobs market on US website monster.com compared to SolidWorks competitors – PTC, Siemens and Autodesk.

SolidWorks Future Versions

This is the picture that was presented by Bertrand Sicot when he talked about future SolidWorks V6 (or maybe it will be called differently) version. Bertrand mentioned "next year" as a target date for future version. The target is moving, which doesn’t mean necessarily bad thing. However, SolidWorks clearly misscommunicate this issue from 2010. On Wednsday, SolidWorks will be presenting future of SolidWorks 2013.

SolidWorks PDM and PLM opportunity

No big news here. As far as I know, SolidWorks is not introducing new products. SolidWorks EPDM and SolidWorks n!Fuze remains two products in the focus. It seems to me SolidWorks is focused on EPDM and sales of this product are growing. At the same time, this product requires some re-architecture to support the reality of today’s business and technological environment. n!Fuze, the product first introduced last year, is going through the turbulent time. Gian Paolo Bassi (SolidWorks new VP R&D) mentioned that some mistakes were done at the release time. He hinted on two aspects – pricing and usability. So, we can expect the next gen of n!Fuze in the second half of this year. There are also no news about future PDM / PLM products on top of Enovia V6. The joke I shared with my community on tweeter about EPDM V6 is that SolidWorks is still running on 4 cylinders V6 car will come later…

What is my conclusion? I think SolidWorks community has an incredible power. When you can see how many people are united by SolidWorks (or how Bertrand called it "united by design), you can understand what potential it contains. The development story of SolidWorks today can be summarized in a single word – transition. n!Fuze, the future of SolidWorks on V6 – the time to judge will be in one year when a new team and leaders will be able to show results. For the moment, they can only promise. If you have customers and revenues, you can fix the rest. So, in my view, the potential of SolidWorks community for PLM is not realized yet. This is a white space, opportunity for DS R&D and an open call to competitors and partners. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Autodesk, Aras and Integrated PDM / PLM story

December 7, 2011

Back to the beginning of this year, I came with the post – Integrating PLM and PDM. Wrong question? My initial thoughts about integrating PDM and PLM was driven by growing interest to integrate existing software assets in the companies. However, thinking more I can see some additional aspects of PDM / PLM integration in a longer-term perspective. Few weeks ago, I postedFrom PDM to PLM: Unify vs. Integrate. I can see some examples of "integrate trend" happens now. I wanted to discuss two examples. Both Aras and Autodesk, in my view, are trying to integrate existing PDM systems with agile and flexible PLM environments.

Aras Enterprise PLM

If you haven’t had a chance to review it, Aras EPLM is a new packaged offering coming from Aras and expanding SolidWorks Enterprise PDM horizons by providing additional process oriented applications in Aras PLM. I recommend you to take a look on Aras EPLM on-demand webcast. Based on the information I found on the website, the functional scope of Aras EPLM related to Item and BOM Management, Product costing, Supply Chain processes, Project management and Change Management.

The clear strategy of Aras is to provide a complementary solution to SolidWorks and EPDM. I believe SolidWorks customers are looking for this solution as the opportunity to keep SolidWorks EPDM, to have an additional functionality and eliminate probably more expensive and unclear migration towards future Enovia V6 solutions DS is planning to deliver in the future.

Autodesk Nexus PLM

Another interesting example that just came last week – Autodesk made the announcement of Nexus PLM. Thre is little information and hands-on experience available about Autodesk PLM. You can navigate to my earlier posts aboutAutodesk Nexus PLM and Autodesk PLM strategies. At the same time, from the top slide presented by Steve Bodnar, Autodesk VP of PLM, we can learn that Autodesk is building their PLM strategy as a combination of two products – on-premise PDM (Autodesk Vault) and cloud based future product (Nexus PLM).

Looking on the scope of solutions Autodesk is promising to deliver as part of Nexus PLM, you can see some similarity with Aras EPLM Solution.

PDM / PLM Integration: pros and cons

If I think about possible advantages of combined solutions PDM+PLM, the one that stands clear to me is the interest to leverage existing software assets and re-use implementations cost already made by customers. When I think about the way Aras and Autodesk articulate what they do, I can see lots of similarities.

In that context, the cost of integration between PDM and PLM becomes one of the most important elements. Mindshare PLM vendors like Siemens PLM and Dassault are driving customers towards unified solution. They are trying to convince customers that unification will reduce the total cost of ownership and optimize the implementation. At the same time, if cost of integration is low, the type of solution proposed by Autodesk and Aras can have some grounds.

What is my conclusion? PDM / PLM integration looks like an interesting trend. We are going to see to see more examples, in my view. What is the fundamental reason behind it? I think many companies are having trouble to drive their IT infrastructure towards unification. It requires longer projects and expanded budgets. If PLM companies find an efficient way to integrate and access data between systems, it can definitely provide a competitive advantage on the market. Last one cannot be guaranteed, but it sounds as an interesting opportunity. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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PLM Think Tank October Top 5

November 2, 2011

The last week snow in Boston was kind of an event. I think, many of New England residents are still sitting without power and the internet. Which made me think about how dependent we are on the internet supply and how few choices we actually have when it comes to the service interruption. Talking about it, I really want to come to the topic which caused lots of discussion among readers of my blog and also CAD/PLM blogosphere – cloud. Navigate to the following link and read about my discussion with Ralf Grabowski about the future of Cloud. Now, let’s move to my traditional top 5 for October.

1 – PLM Definition and ERP Implementation Patterns

Manufacturing clearly wants to optimize product development processes across the enterprise. The single point of truth is leveraging the simplicity of SQL-database experience for the last 20 years. At the same time, centralization and replication of data are complicated and expensive processes. Managing phased implementation creates a set of new problems related to the ability to maintain the data transformation and synchronization within the time.

2 – Aras, SolidWorks and Disruptive PLM Strategies

Aras is clearly playing a role of a disrupter on PLM market. Back in 2007, Aras disrupted PLM first time by introducing Open Source PLM. It looks like Aras is on the way to make a second disruption among large companies using SolidWorks and taking a role of Enovia V6 in a bundle EPDM / EPLM. Enovia clearly has a technological advantage of having unified development forces in their new Dassault facilities in Waltham, MA to develop “best in class” Enovia V6 / SolidWorks EPDM integration. The speed of customer adoption will be a key factor for Aras.

3 – Cloud and Next Generation of BOM

I think, cloud and other web-based solution can introduce many advantages. One of them is to streamline BOM access by members of the team. Think about BOM as a Google spreadsheet and you probably can get excited by how it may change the way you work. However, cloud technologies introduce new challenges (especially in the field of integration) that need to be solved.

4 – CAD, PLM and Visual Reporting

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.

5- PDM Cartoons, Marketing and Unsolved Problems

Few weeks ago, I’ve been interviewed during Autodesk Forum in Moscow. The conversation was about social networks and the question I’ve been asked was – What is next after “Like”? For the sake of the story, my answer was “+”. However, let me shift gears a bit. Thinking about PDM Cartoons I came to the question – “What is next after PLM?”. I found many things marketed as “PLM” functionality presented in these PDM cartoons. Does it mean “PDM” will be the next step after “PLM”. Who knows… The only thing is clear to me – lots of problems in manufacturing organizations cannot be solved by application of yet another “power point deck”. It is time to think what software can do so. The complexity is not in favor these days. Companies are trying to find a different way to solve existing problems.

Best, Oleg

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Integrate PDM and PLM: Wrong Question?

February 9, 2011

Two weeks ago, during SolidWorks World 2011, I had a chance to talk with Jonathan Scott of Razorleafabout different aspects of integration between SolidWorks Enterprise PDM and Enovia V6. Navigate to the following link to see Jonathan’s presentation online. These slides as well our conversation made me think about trajectories of different product data management systems and environments in the context of the overall software lifecycle in manufacturing organization.

PDM as a PLM Foundation

Few years ago, I had a chance to read SolidWorks White Paper about PLM. You can navigate to the following link to retrieve this document. The concept of "PLM: It starts from PDM" was crafted very well in this paper. Thinking more about this concept I can see a very interesting approach of PLM implementation- to start from existing PDM solution. The potential advantages of this approach can be to prevent unnecessarily migrations between systems and shorten implementation cycle. PLM system connected to PDM system can re-use data foundation to manage CAD files lifecycle, Bill of Materials, change management.

CAD Files and BOMs

These are two entities that always raises lots of discussion during PLM implementations. Multiple CAD systems create significant difficulties for PLM implementation and making ROI much longer than expected. Management of multiple Bill of Materials, tracking changes between different BOM views can be an additional complication in front of PLM. What if product data management system, which already in place (from CAD vendors, homegrown or any other) can provide this solution? The starting point of PLM implementation will not be anymore to start managing CAD files.

Collaboration and Process Foundation

A significant portion of a product lifecycle is to support people in their way to run product development, exchange information and making decision. Most of this work today relies on IT infrastructure available in the organization – mail, shared workspaces, instant messenger and more. Business process management software (if any in place) rarely covers product development processes. Companies thinking about product development process improvements have a very long way to go until PLM implementation actually coming to the stage of quality management, cost management, compliance, regulatory and more. A new approach in PLM implementations can be to start from this stage and leveraging existing PDM infrastructure.

What is my conclusion? Software has a long lifecycle in manufacturing companies. I found the lifecycle of PDM/PLM software systems is very complicated. Actually, it is as complicated as the product lifecycle they are managing. To change existing systems in a company can be a very costly decision. To re-use existing systems can be a complicated from the technical standpoint, but can lead to a faster ROI. It makes sense to me. The cost of integration can be a key in this story. So, a potentially "wrong question" can lead to the right answer. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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