From PDM to PLM: Unify or Integrate?

October 31, 2011

Earlier, this year, I post a blog called – Integrated PDM and PLM: Wrong Question? In the beginning, this blog post was inspired by Jonathan Scott’s presentation on SolidWorks World 2011. Aras EPLM announcement last week, made me think a bit more about PDM / PLM trends. The idea of integrating PDM with PLM isn’t new and already had a chance to discuss it before. In some of my previous blogs, I discussed that PDM overall maturity was growing for the last 10 years as well as facts that confirming CAD /PDM software vendors will be searching how to boost their future activities based on existing PDM products. Navigate to the following blog – CAD, PDM and PLM diversity, CAD Data and PLM, Autodesk Vault: Enterprise PDM or PLM? A growing amount of conversations around PDM vs. PLM topics made me think about to possible trends in a future PDM to PLM conversation:

Unify PDM and PLM

This is a path that was taken by large CAD/PLM vendors. You can hear “unification talks” from all mindshare PLM companies – TeamCenter, Enovia V6,Windchill. The arguments used by these vendors are quite simple – let’s reduce the amount of systems, unify and centralize information and “life will be good”. These messages are certainly convincing. In the following video, you can listen to how TeamCenter chief – Steve Baschada is talking about PDM to PLM transition.

Keep PDM and Integrate PLM

This is an opposite approach. For many companies, PDM is a successful project. SolidWorks Enterprise PDM, Autodesk Vault, SolidEdge /TeamCenter Velocity. These are examples of successful PDM systems with proven records of deployments. What if we can take PDM “as is” and integrate PLM products on top of them. Aras presented a case with Aras EPLM. I believe Agile PLM, SAP PLM and some other vendors can think about such an approach. I can see “cloud products” can be proposed on top of existing “on premise” offerings. I remember, Arena Solution tried in the past to have such a type of “integrated offering”.

What is my conclusion? I think, these two trends are going to compete in a very near future. Unification as an old school of PLM will be mostly in a defense mode. Their expansion is limited by a significant cost of transition from existing (PDM) systems to unified new platforms. An alternative can be interesting, in my view. Aras is a first example. More to come. The opportunity here is to keep TCO lower. However, the danger of complex integration between PDM and PLM can make this “trick-or-treating” dangerous. Will Aras and followers are going to get more Halloween candies? I don’t know. Just my thougths… Next time I’m going to talk about PDM to PLM integration challenges.

Best, Oleg

2 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 and SharePoint Scalability

March 14, 2011

Picture-5.pngSince Microsoft first released MOSS 2007, I can see an increased amount of manufacturing companies are investigating a potential move to SharePoint. Microsoft used brilliant freemium strategy and decided to give away a basic version of SharePoint (WSS – Windows SharePoint Services) bundled to Windows Server license. It created a significant flow of SharePoint viral evaluations in companies. Because of deployment and implementation ease, many companies started to implement WSS to improve the ability to share data and streamline collaboration. Sometimes, the solution growths can be really spontaneous.

I found the link published by Paul Andrew of Microsoft, very useful to evaluate your need and check upfront if your organizational demand and scale can fit SharePoint boundaries. The following two documents Estimate Performance and Capacity Requirements for Large Scale Document Repositories and SharePoint Server 2010 capacity management: Software boundaries and limits will take you to a long journey of planning an appropriate environment for your future SharePoint implementations.

During last few years, some PLM vendors and their partners made a bet on SharePoint as a platform to mainstream PLM deployment in organizations. User experience and IT compliance are two factors that made a significant influence on vendors, partners and companies. Such products as Windchill ProductPoint or TeamCenter Community are completely relying on Office and SharePoint platform as an infrastructure.

What is my conclusion? Microsoft SharePoint is a large a complicated platform. Sometimes, I can see people having some illusions with regards how easy they can deploy SharePoint based solution for their product development needs. To check detailed SharePoint pre-requisites and make sizing of your drawings and other product-related information is obvious, but important. Just my thoughts..

Best, Oleg

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

PLM Platforms and PLM Automotive Future

March 7, 2011

A couple of weeks ago, I posted PLM Platform Wars: Who is Right or Who is Left? The following short article in Dasssault 3D Perspective struck me to think more about the future PLM technologies and innovation. Watch the video and make your opinion.

Kate is asking: “Can the automotive industry build cars of the future with old technology?” In my view, devil is in details. PLM is a bit different from iPad 2. Despite some marketing presentations showing V6 as a PLM 2.0 technology, PLM technologies are not created from scratch every 2-3 years.

PLM Platforms

The notion of a platform in enterprise software is very specific, in my view. When we are talking about software platforms, we often can think about .NET, Java, iOS or similar stuff. Platform is an obvious target for every technology. By achieving the level of a platform, your technology can leverage value of all applications running on top of this platform.

However, the enterprise software created a special notion of “platform” in my view. In such a context, platform always becomes a set of technologies coming out of a specific software vendor successfully created a rich set of applications and dependent products. There are few enterprise software platforms that approached a high level of partner’s software development. However, enterprise platforms are controlling the ability of additional software components to run on top of so called “platform” in a strong way.

PLM mindshare vendors are often using the term “platform”. TeamCenter platform, Windchill platform, V6 platform. In my view, these solutions are more representing a rich set of vertical and horizontal applications rather than a software platform. The core of all these platforms is database-oriented software product. These products are supporting core data modeling capabilities of these platforms. Until the recent time, the integration between these data management components and CAD elements was very weak.

PDM in CAD Innovation

One of the innovations created by Dassault V6 platform was bundling of Enovia V6 (platform) with CATIA technologies. By providing CATIA with RDBMS based data modeling backbone, DS created few very interesting capabilities in management of CAD data as well as product development processes. Other PLM vendors approached a slightly different scenario. At the same time, the recent announcement about PTC Creo came with a definition of something called “common data model”. For me, it is not clear what will be relationships between “common data model” and Windchill platform capabilities.

Do you think combining of PDM and CAD is a fundamental PLM innovation of 2010s? Well, the CAD/PDM integration was always a complicated part of the game. The ability to achieve a successful integration was a critical element in most of CAD/PDM/PLM implementations. The fact PLM vendors decided to solve it by providing tighter bundling between CAD and PDM tools is extremely positive. However, as a result, we are going to see a larger amount vertically integrated product suites. It can make many customers happy. However, the same solution can make a lot of complications in case of companies’ mergers, usage of heterogeneous products, etc.

What is my conclusion? Building large vertically integrated product suites is not a new approach. It can be very successful. However, we cannot mislead ourselves- companies are running heterogeneous application set. In my view, this is a reality. To have the ability to implement a granular solution set, with the intensive support of Open Standards can be a key for a future success. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 71 other followers