PLM architecture discussion with Peter Schroer of Aras

February 3, 2012

If you followed my comments on one of previous posts – Cloud PLM and IT Basic Instincts, I promised to have a conversation with Aras about PLM architecture. On Wednesday, I had a chance to visit Aras Corp. office in Andover, MA and had long conversation with Peter Schroer, CEO of Aras. The idea behind the conversation was to discuss benefits of Aras PLM architecture. Aras is aggressive in their goal to displace existing PLM systems – TeamCenter,ENOVIA and Windchill. When you think about how a company of less than 100 people can do, you would be trying to find “killer innovation” in technology and/or business. So, this conversation was about technology. Obviously, some charts presented by Peter cannot be shared in public. So, here my “collage” of the conversation to give you feeling of the atmosphere :) .

History and PLM Architecture

Aras Corp. is probably the newest PLM software created from the scratch back in 2001. Top 3 major PLM systems were created as a result of multiple mergers, acquisitions and additional development. It doesn’t say anything about what system is better. However, coming later to the game provides some clear advantages – learning from previous mistakes and use of advanced technology.

PLM functional architecture

This is my simplified view on PLM functional architecture. It can be applied to many PDM/PLM systems developed for the last two decades (actually, it can be applied to non-PLM systems too). Almost all PLM systems were built on top of RDBMS (the exception known to me was MatrixOne, which runs on object database – Objectivity, but migrated to Oracle later). A very essential layer is ORM (Object Relation Mapper) converting RDBMS into object store and providing the data model to build PDM/PLM applications. The characteristics on ORM are important and define the level of flexibility and basic functional capabilities. Business layer (API) and applications and solutions introduced functionality of the system, including core functions, integrations with desktop and enterprise systems as well as many others.

PLM functional architecture

Almost all PDM/PLM systems passed the trajectory of development started from the so-called “toolkit” to “solutions” with many intermediate stations. This is a place where commonality ends. Different vendors put their own functional priorities as well as specific technological and implementation choices.

At the same time, I would define ORM as one of the core capabilities of every PDM/PLM system to provide an engine to implement multiple functions. In many cases, the capability of ORM defines so called “data modeling” capabilities. It is important to differentiate technological capabilities and marketing buzzwords. One of the characteristics of ORM is to use a certain level of RDBMS capabilities can be a differentiation. RDBMS (e.g. Oracel and MS SQL) is a very mature technology. DB vendors developed highly sophisticated mechanisms to support multiple data modeling capabilities. To use a right combination of RDBM data modeling can impact significantly future capabilities of PLM system.

What is my take on Aras?

In general, I don’t think Aras’ principle architecture is different from Enovia, TeamCenter and Windchill. The implementation technique can vary, but it will deliver most of the functions available in other PDM/PLM systems. On the other side, devil is in details. Coming late to the game (around 2000), Aras had a chance to learn from many mistakes made by PDM/PLM vendors during 1990s. It is an important advantage of Aras. I’ve seen lots of focus on flexibility and efficiency, which can create implementation differentiations and potentially lead to the advantages in implementation and maintenance cost. However, these things are hardly can be visible by just reviewing architecture and can be only proven by real work.

What about other players?

I can see some similarity between Aras architecture and Enovia V6, TeamCenter and Windchill. Aras claims to be lean compared to other systems, I can see some reasons why. At the same time, these claims cannot be taken in a broad range and requires detailed discussion. I found some similarity between Aras and MatrixOne (both companies were founded around I-495 in MA :) ). One more vendor to be mentioned here – Autodesk. We don’t have official detailed information about what is inside of Nexus PLM. It will be interesting to get inside of Nexus technology and see it (as soon as Nexus PLM will be released).

What is my conclusion? PLM architecture influences two major characteristics of the system – flexibility and cost of change. Vendors understand it. You can see different marketing terms here – dynamic modeling, insanely configurable, etc. There are no direct dependencies between how each element of architecture impact flexibilty and cost of change. At the same time, overall, it does matter. In modern PLM world, these two things will drive future success of PLM systems and vendors. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Freebie. Aras marketing wasn’t involved, and no censorship was applied to the content of this post.

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Technological Options for PLM on the cloud

January 30, 2012

Cloud is hyping in 2012. Coming Facebook IPO can only supercharge the future of cloud computing. Last year Autodesk announcement about Nexus 360 cloud PLM created a confirmation that large CAD / PLM vendors will be interested to leverage the power of cloud. Two weeks before AU2011, during DSCC 2011, Dassault Systems confirmed their plan to continue development and investment in their Enovia cloud platform.

It takes time, but economic of cloud computing is too good to be ignored by CIO. At the time consumer market already embraced cloud computing via multiple store (but not only) options like Dropbox etc., CIOs are just coming to discover it. Navigate to the following Gigaom article – CIOs come around to cloud storage. Here is my favorite passage:

“The sheer volume and availability needs are pushing cloud storage to the forefront,” he said. They have to look at the economics of cloud compared to the high-cost, high-maintenance data center storage model, he said… In short, even the most risk-averse C-level information executives are coming to realize that if cloud storage isn’t in their current plan, it will be in the near future.

At the same time, I can hear voices of customers and vendors about the fact cloud computing is still confusing. So, in today’s post, I decided to put some practical technological options about how PLM (and not only) can be delivered on cloud today from the technological standpoint.

Amazon

Amazon is Amazon. Flexible, public, cloud. Period. It is a perfect virtual environment with dollar meter. You pay for what you use. Despite few outages, AWS is pretty stable and can provide you a reliable base as a platform for cloud PLM. Most of PLM vendors talking these days about cloud are exploring Amazon as a first option. Amazon also provides probably the best shortcut between existing PLM architectures and future cloud models.

Microsoft Azure

Azure is a different type of cloud animal. If you’re familiar with terminology, Azure is PaaS (opposite to AWS, which is IaaS). I can see many advantages of Azure. It is single development platform, tools, multi-language support. Another positive side of Azure is that Microsoft can much easier force developers follow specific rules that can prevent application from misbehave. The perception of vendors and developers is that Azure is closed platform. I’m not saying it is true, but this is what I think many people assume when they think about "Azure cloud".

OpenStack

This is a very interesting option. OpenStack pretends to become "an Android of the cloud". Open Stack achieved critical mass to become a reality. OpenStack is IaaS environment currently supported by Rackspace and NASA. Technologically, OpenStack is a combination of storage and computing library. The easiest way to start with OpenStack is to use it onRackspace. OpenStack objective is to convert cloud into commodity, which can be beneficial for many consumers of the technology. I can see an interesting option for OpenStack and PLM. OpenStack provides a very open and economic way to establish mini-cloud centers. It can be a foundation for cloud services available for large companies having concerns about public cloud.

Cloud Databases

This is an interesting option for PLM developers. Fundamentally, PDM/PLM is all about a database today. To move PLM database on the cloud, can be an interesting option. Read my post few months ago – Will Database on the cloud supercharge PLM for Small Companies? There are few providers to be mentioned here. I’d be starting from Amazon RDS. Another option is to use databases services created by enterprise software vendors – Oracle Cloud Databases,Salesforce.com Database and few others.

Don’t Forget IBM big blue

Big Blue IBM is also going to the cloud. However, IBM is doing it differently. It called IBM Smart Cloud. You can learn here about how IBM suggests to use these services here. In a nutshell, IBM idea is to wrap whatever you have with Tivoli cloud services. IBM is attacking cloud from a software perspective and looking how to build a cloud umbrella beyond your existing data center. IBM clearly is looking how to attract "enterprise dollars" from AWS, OpenStack and Azure.

What is my conclusion? I believe we can see lots of misunderstandings with the cloud computing in a near future. CAD / PLM vendors and service providers will be able to balance in order to dance on both sides of the solutions – on premise and on the cloud. Understanding of technological options is a good foundation towards reasonable decisions about the cloud in 2012. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM, Smart Products and Internet of Things

January 12, 2012

In my view, the power of the internet is going much beyond current horizons. Back in 2009 I published my first post – PLM and Internet of things. The idea I discussed, in a nutshell, was about how product lifecycle management can cross the borders between physical and virtual objects. That was my conclusion almost 3 years ago:

All physical objects surrounding us designed and manufacturing with a certain level of PLM system involvement. Different manufacturing companies have various levels of PLM deployment, but most of them have CAD to create digital models, they track data about what they were engineering and manufacturing. Since we take more and more environmental responsibilities, we need to track what we designed in real life. This is where I see “the internet of things” are finally connecting. I think RFID technologies is only beginning in the whole story of connected virtual and physical devices.

Now, let’s make fast forward in 2012. The internet is getting into our life in much broader ways. So-called post PC era with the huge amount of mobile devices set a new perspective of what role Internet can play in our life. Internet provides today a global net foundation for things to stay connected. I’d be calling them “smart objects”. Google self-driving car is maybe too sophisticated… However, what about products that will be able to control our different behaviors, informing us about various things and so forth.

A very interesting article was published by the end of the year in NYT – The Internet Gets Physical. It talks about how everything in our life gets connected. What is very impressive is that all “physical things” in our life are designer by engineers using CAD and PLM systems today. Product lifecycle can become a centerpiece of the connection between virtual and physical life. Here is my favorite quote from NYT article:

“We’re going to put the digital ‘smarts’ into everything,” said Edward D. Lazowska, a computer scientist at the University of Washington. These abundant smart devices, Dr. Lazowska added, will “interact intelligently with people and with the physical world.”The role of sensors — once costly and clunky, now inexpensive and tiny — was described this month in an essay in The New York Times by Larry Smarr, founding director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology; he said the ultimate goal was “the sensor-aware planetary computer.”

I’ve been watching a video introducing product called Twine (btw, the similarity with my plmtwine.com domain is purely occasional). This product is a very interesting step into converting products in our life into “smart products”. Remember, few months ago, I posted about Toyota tweeting cars? Here is the thing – using Twine you are able to make many products in your house to tweet, but not only…

What is my conclusion? The ability to control object behaviors in real life becomes more important for manufacturing companies. To have an ability to collect this information and convert it into a meaningful output leading manufacturing companies towards specific product decisions can be a trend and interesting business opportunity. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

picture courtesy of NYT Internet Gets Social article

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PLM and Data Model Pyramid

January 10, 2012

There is a lot going on in database space these days. Few days ago I posted – PLM, RDBMS and Future Data Management Challenges and I’ve got quite a few comments discussing multiple data management and modeling topics. My main point in that post was an alert to PLM to wake up and check how new technological development in database and data management can provide a competitive advantage or improve existing PLM solutions.

Today, I want to continue this conversation with discussion about different levels of data management and data models. I was reading dataversity blog post – The Data Model Pyramid. Take your time and read this post. In addition, you can navigate here to read related blog post by Steve Huberman – Key features needed in data modeling tools.

First take a look on the pyramid.

Clearly, two top levels – Business Subject Area model and Application Subject area model represent a specific set of data models required for any database driven solution. PLM is not an exception from the rule. However, high level of diversity in product development and manufacturing brought software vendor to develop their own tools for data modeling, which relies on the set of private data-management tools and abstractions. I found the following passage from Steve Huberman post interesting:

There are dependencies between the different types of data models shown in the pyramid, between data models and other artifacts or models that represent other aspects of business and requirements, the enterprise and solutions architecture, and application design. The activities required when producing and managing data models are only part of a wider set of business and technology activities; integration with associated activities is key to the success of data modeling.Without a tool that provides specialized support for data modeling, the data modeler cannot hope to work effectively in this environment.

Later in the article, Steve defines the set of features required from data modeling tools from different standpoints – core modeling, usability, integration, collaboration, management and communication. It made me think about what will happen tomorrow with PLM data modeling tools. It will be interesting to see if many years of private data modeling tools will come to sort of unification and standardization (yes!) on tools to deliver a variety of BSAMs and ASAMs. The key unsolved problem, from my perspective is the ability to populate and maintain multiple BSAMs tailored to specific business needs.

What is my conclusion? PLM was long time relying on private tools to manage and operate with data modeling delivered by vendors. I believe future of data modeling will provide a shift towards more openness in tools and, as a result of that, a shift towards faster data model tailoring, customization and efficiency. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM and Strategic Technologies for 2012

October 26, 2011

We are in the Q4 of 2011. It is a traditional time start thinking about what is going to happen in 2012. I was reading Gartner’s Top 10 strategic technologies for 2012 published after Gartner’s ITxpo 2011 Symposium last week in Orlando. What is strategic technology according to Gartner:

What’s a "strategic technology"? The short version is that a strategic technology is one that has the potential for "significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years." That means either an existing technology that’s matured or become suitable for wider use, or it’s an emerging technology that could provide a strategic business advantage for early adopters. If it’s new(ish) and going to impact your organization’s long-term plans or initiatives.

I expected (and hope you too) to see "cloud" in the list. However, the rest of the list looks interesting. Here is the list:

  • Cloud computing
  • Big Data
  • Extreme Low-Energy Servers
  • Next-Generation Analytics
  • App Stores and Marketplaces
  • In-Memory Computing
  • Mobile-Centric Applications and Interfaces
  • Contextual and Social User Experience
  • Internet of Things
  • Media Tablets

Read about Gartner perspective in details here. Some of the things are resonating with my thoughts about what PLM technologies will emerge and how CAD/PLM vendors can leverage them. Please take a look below on my take about what technologies will be important for the future development of software for manufacturing and engineering.

Cloud Computing

Well.. this topic is everywhere. I think "cloud" is about shifting paradigms. People, by mistake, see the cloud as a renaissance of mainframe computers connected via the internet. However, it is wrong, in my view. There two things where cloud will provide a shift – cost of services and availability. Take a look on one of my latest posts about the cloud- 3 Key Cloud principles: will CAD/PLM follow?

Big Data

The stories about Big Data are fascinating. The importance of big data related technologies in manufacturing is obvious. The amount of data gathered by enterprise organization is huge. Most of this data is "invisible" today. A fraction of this data is controlled by enterprise software. Rest lives between workstations, databases, Excels, portals and personal USB drives. A significant portion of data now is on the web, but it is not connected to information inside of companies. To have the ability to connect information Design-Engineering-Manufacturing-Support-Service-Marketing (sounds PLMish) is where big data technologies can help.

Next generation analytics

Business in general and manufacturing company specifically is all about a decision. You cannot manage anything if you cannot measure and analyze data. How efficient is your design, energy consumption, customer adoption rate, customer complains, supplier’s efficiency – all this information needs to be analyzed? The ability to embed analytics in the decision process is the key issue and top priority for most of the companies.

App Stores and Market Places

This is part of what called "consumerization". We finally got it with iPhone, iTunes, etc. Now we expect the same magic to happen in business. In my presentation earlier this month on Dassault PLM forum, I mentioned Enterprise App Store as something that will have a huge potential in the future. However, many questions are still not answered – who will decide about the purchase, how apps will be selected, how integration will happen, etc.

In-memory computing

The impact of how products can leverage new memory technologies (i.e. Flash drives) is incredible. Especially when it comes to calculation, simulation and analyzes. So, I expect it to be part of technologies, CAD companies will use the most.

Mobile centric application and interfaces

I hope you are taking mobile seriously. The revolution here is under go, and we will see lots of improvements in this space. However, the main point – you don’t need to be at your desktop to decide is probably the key. The amount of time, people will use mobile device and not laptop/workstation is growing. It will help to develop fields like – marketing, support, technical operation and many others. Since I published. Who can generate 3D/PLM content for Apple iPad two years ago, we can see a huge progress. You can see mobile/ iPad apps in the portfolios of almost every CAD/PLM company. Future here will be just amazing, in my view.

Contextual and Social Experience

Well, this is another "new kid". I think, everybody these days experienced "social addiction" of Facebook and other social networks. The "aha" moment these days is to understand how it will impact our business life and business decisions. Social technologies are running fast, but to find really workable stuff is hard. One of my last write ups about that is -PLM and Social Enterprise: Files vs. People? can give you some ideas where social can go.

Internet of things

Another "fascinating topic" in my eyes. I’m following "internet of things" trend for some times now. Here is my short note about that almost 2.5 years ago – PLM and Internet of Things. Some technologies in this space are really interesting for manufacturing / engineering – sensors, image recognition, 2D to 3D conversions.

Media Tablets

This technology is kind of extension to "mobile" story. However, it is all about experience and information consumption. My favorite example – Flipboard for iPad. You can take another "almost 2 years ago post" – Things are getting touchy (PLM Tablet user experience) and compare it with your experience today. Another aspect of tablet technologies is the development of API for information access.

What is my conclusion? Prediction is a tough job. Talking about technologies in the context of the future is twice though. In general, customers don’t care about technologies. They care about "getting job done". However, speaking about engineering, manufacturing and enterprise, I can see a "momentum for new technologies", because this place was too long unchanged. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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CAD/PLM Strategy and Burning Chrome

March 2, 2011

Choose the platform for your software becomes a new issue in 2010s. Platform was kind of easy story for the last 10-15 years. You had a choice of market share leaders, blue chip companies and that’s it. You cannot get wrong by signing a contract with IBM. This is what people told me a decade ago. Not anymore, in my view… The future choice of a technological platform can be a bit more complicated. I read the article Burning Chrome by TechCruch few days ago. Have a read and make your opinion. This is my favorite passage from this article:

Google’s long-term strategy seems to be to supplant Microsoft by first building the best browser, then making it easy to move your files to Google Docs; and finally, slowly but inexorably, making Windows and Office irrelevant. Obviously no one will abandon Microsoft products wholesale anytime soon; but as cloud computing grows more ubiquitous, Google steadily iterates feature after feature, and people grow accustomed to working in the browser, then one day, maybe only a couple of years from now, a whole lot of people – and businesses – will begin to think to themselves “Hey, we haven’t actually needed Windows or Office in months. Why do we even have them at all?”

CAD/PLM and Technological Platforms

CAD vendors successfully leveraged various technological platforms in the past. Think about Autodesk and PC back in 1980s and SolidWorks and Windows in 1990s. PDM/PLM made their own play with technologies and platforms too. Windows-based PDMs in the last 1990s and early 2000s presented some approach about how to apply Windows based user experience to improve the quality of tools. The overall cost of these systems went down at the same time. Web-based development also provided some great examples of successfully implementation PLM systems.

What Next?

The question I’m asking myself is what next. I can see some interesting trials these days by CAD and PLM developers to leverage existing technological platforms and innovations. Few of them to be mentioned. PTC ProductPoint presents a massive usage of Microsoft SharePoint. Another interesting example is trying to leverage social technology (3DSwYm,Vuuch). Cloud experiments of Autodesk in something they called "infinite computing". All these examples are promising. However, I have a feeling of something missing.

What is my conclusion? “A good player goes where the puck is. A great player goes where the puck is going to be”—The Great One. I can think about Chrome as one of the next innovative platforms PM can leverage. The biggest problem PLM companies are trying to resolve already many years are cost of the deployment and mainstream deployment. To make a system to proliferate together with Google’s idea of network computer can be an interesting strategic move. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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CAD, PLM and Technological Trajectories

December 8, 2010

I read CIMData article Windchill Evolving Lineage. Navigate your browser on the following link. I found this read interesting. CIMData is an analytical company working primarily with PLM providers and their customers. This article is a nice explanation about PTC technological evolution. Two months ago PTC announced new Creo products on their Lightening event in Boston. Since then, CAD and PLM community is discussing intensively what actually PTC is inventing in Creo. Windchill was the product that wasn’t mentioned much during the Creo event. The following article just confirms that PTC is continuing to build their PDM future on top of Windchill foundation. I specially liked this passage from the CIMdata article.

…new applications, which all leverage the Windchill foundation layer, can only be as good as the foundation upon which they have been built. And as we all know, a weak foundation cannot support what has been constructed on top for long without either collapsing or being redeveloped. Fortunately, PTC has understood this basic truth for years and has a long history of evolving Windchill’s foundation and the solutions that have been built on it. The bottom-line is Windchill and the 900+ SQL tables that exist across all of its modules, while still a 100% Internet-based solution, have been evolving for years. A close study of Windchill shows that it is not the same solution it was ten years ago, and that’s a good thing.

I found a information about 900 SQL tables interesting and wanted to read more about what changed in Windchill. Based on additional information the following examples presented changes in Windchill infrastructure over the time: Info*Engine (EAI module acquired from Axilium) was re-written in Java, UML/Rational Rose related implementation moved into Java, incorporation of Open Source technologies to replace commodity code and significant investment into Microsoft’s technologies such as SharePoint and Project Server.

Technological Trajectories
I see interesting trajectories in development of PLM and enterprise technologies over the past decade and even more. There are two main characteristics on these trajectories: evolution and convergence. The reasons for that are slow changes in manufacturing companies (especially big ones) and multiple acquisitions that were made by enterprise companies for the last 10 years. Companies were locked by commitments to existing customers, existing architectures acquired from different companies. Nevertheless, I can see CAD/PLM companies made an effort to introduce technological innovation. As such, Dassault released V6 with the revolutionary proposal to manage CATIA data by using MatrixOne data engine, UGS/Siemens PLM introduced a new version of their TeamCenter Unified product and now PTC is going to come with new Creo product line.

Consumerization of Enterprise IT
This is an interesting trend, in my view. Lots of technologies were developed for the last ten years in consumer software space. These technologies may create a significant pressure on today’s enterprise software providers. Open Source, Cloud, Social – this is probably a short list only of possible technological influences. We can see some traction in CAD and PLM companies in trying to leverage these technologies. However, as I mentioned before slow changes in enterprise manufacturing companies make these implications less visible in a short period of time.

What is my conclusion? Existing PLM software is developed using 15-20 years old technologies. 900 SQL Tables in Windchill is impressive information. I believe other PDM/PLM products are similar. What will be the next technological trajectory in the development of these applications? Will Windchill technology evolution CIMData presents in the article is a right path to go? What will allow to decrease a cost of the future PLM software? Right questions to ask, in my view.

Best, Oleg

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PLM, Technological Choice and Open Source Revolution

July 23, 2010

The acceptance of Open Source technologies is growing. One of the latest examples of products in open source movement that caught my attention was Lucid Imagination. Lucid is built on top ofLucene and Solr – open source search libraries and enterprise search solutions. I was thinking about trajectories of Open Source solutions and found that the majority of them started their paths from a particular technological choice. It is known as LAMP Stack. So, the topic I wanted to discuss today is what is the impact of a specific technological choice on the solution.

Open Source Technological Choice
The choice of open source technologies today is become more and more dominant for the newcomers. New software companies are selecting open source software as their default technological stacks. Web, wide adoption of OSS and low cost of the solution brings a massive amount of new business in this space. I can see a significant shift in this space compared to the last decade.

OSS driven business
It is very interesting to see a route of building OSS based business. I can figure out several aspects of this build up – technology, community, product and business. The sequence of these aspects is exactly how I mentioned them. The technological choice is based on OSS projects is the core foundation of the solution. It gives the root for creation of community of people involvement into this development. The community is one of the most fundamental elements of any OSS project. This is a live indicator of the project. As much as development becomes more mature it can be turned into a deployed product. Only at this stage, this product can be converted into business either by redistributing of the certified code or by providing consultancy and service development.

OSS and Enterprise Software
For the long period of time, enterprise software, in general, and built for the enterprise PLM, was very protective about Open Source. OSS violated some very basic rules of enterprise software business related to licensing, redistribution and liabilities of the software development companies in the context of software code originality. I can see a significant change in this trend now. Multiple OSS solutions started to be much more popular in the enterprise. Just to mention – Sugar CRM, Drupal, Alfresco as examples of acceptance of open source solution in the enterprise. The latest example is Lucene/Solr and company Lucid Imagination that are taking Lucene and Solr Enterprise Search solutions for distribution in a similar way RedHat did it for Linux.

OSS and PLM
I can see a certain opportunity in Open Source PLM innovation. The first very visible company in this space was Aras. Started on the MS code-based, they are mostly focusing on a business model. The absence of OSS technological foundation and community development can provide a significant negative impact on the Aras Open Source PLM future. However, innovation role of Aras, can be considered as a very positive in the context of building industry perception related to Open Source PLM.

What is my conclusion today? I think, open source revolution will be coming to PLM too. However, to make it happen, all aspects of Open Source influence need to come into balance. I can see a significant level of dependencies between them. It starts from the technologies that drive openness and innovation. Then it creates a community of developers and users of this software. They eventually are creating the next step- open product innovation. And, finally it comes to the business model of open source in the way of reliance on free distribution, community contribution and business profit for companies that supports the development of these models. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM Data Warehouse: Dream Or Nightmare?

July 12, 2010

My new website and blog is BeyondPLM. The original post is here.

PLM is certainly dealing with lots of data about products: design, engineering, lifecycle data, manufacturing, processes. When/If you speak to PLM software providers and some big customers you can hear term “Data Warehouse”. DW term is not coming originally from PLM domain and related more to the general purpose databases and data management field.

This is a very commonly used definition of Data Warehouse from Wikipedia:

A data warehouse is a repository of an organization’s electronically stored data, designed to facilitate reporting and analysis [1]. This definition of the data warehouse focuses on data storage. However, the means to retrieve and analyze data, to extract, transform and load data, and to manage thedata dictionary are also considered essential components of a data warehousing system. Many references to data warehousing use this broader context. Thus, an expanded definition for data warehousing includes business intelligence tools, tools to extract, transform and load data into the repository, and tools to manage and retrieve metadata.

Data Warehouse Technologies

The technologies for data warehouse most commonly are coming from database and data vendors related domains. There are multiple methodologies and techniques to organize data and make available. The most known in this field are bottom up and top down design for data warehouse. Most of the data warehouse methodologies are focusing on fast data retrieval opposite to transactional databases. With all bright insight made around the data warehouse, their implementations are very expensive and, in my view,  data warehousing technologies are under significant pressure to drop cost and improve the agility of implementations. You can often find multiple data-related implementations that may correspond to data warehousing , such as Business Intelligence, Data Integrations, etc. The newest trends in Business Intelligence are stating that Data Warehousing is ruined and the future BI technologies will bring better solutions in this space. Recently, I had a chance to read a very interesting write up made by TEC – Are Data Warehouses as Dead as the Dodo?, which is exploring a promising future of new BI technologies to replace data warehousing need.

PLM and Data Warehouse

I think, PLM is often using “Data Warehouse” term to underline the power of PLM technologies to manage big amounts of product data. In my view, PLM platforms never took serious steps in the implementation of actual data warehousing. Nevertheless, large PLM implementations done for big aero- and auto- OEMs contain a significant amount of product data that need to be available across the multiple departments and synchronized with multiple applications. You can find an interesting story about Boeing and Airbus PLM data warehousing implementation can be found on TechniGraphics web site. At the time of writing this blog, I could download this paper from the following link. Some interesting numbers from this document- the Boeing Dreamliner data warehouse contains about 16TB of data. PLM needs to deal with large amounts of data. To handle it efficiently seems to be a very interesting problem.

What is my conclusion today? Large PLM implementations need to handle a significant amount of data. Today, DMU implementations are requiring to bring multiple elements of design data to handle analysis and validation of complex products. There are many other product-data related problems that often remained unsolved because of technological complexity. What is the technology available to solve this problem? Is it future HD PLM from Siemens? Or maybe Project Lightning from PTC? Time will show…

Best, Oleg

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How To Disrupt PLM Price with Technologies?

June 21, 2010

My post “How To Manage ECO Without Paying $1’500 Per Seat” raised a very interesting discussion on Zero-Waite State blog about PLM price. Thanks Stephen Porter for doing that. I recommend you to get inside and have a read. This post made me think about the future of PLM price trajectories and an impact of technologies on the future of PLM price.

The Future Disruption

I hope you had chance to read the book by Chris Anderson – Free: The Future of a Radical Price. I’d call it the modern “Bible of Free”. One of the important points, in my view is the following – “information and technology cost is trending towards zero”. As part of this, my own believe is that we are going to experience an influence of this trend, including an influence of free-price-market in various fields. The potential weak elements in the chain of highly priced software products are those that have a serious customer dissatisfaction or a very high price/value characteristic. What happens with PLM? In my view, this is a definitely weak chain. The complexity, over-promising during a sale process and history of acquired products and companies created a place that needs to be disrupted. I can see potential PLM disruptors PLM disruptors – Open Source (Free Distribution) of Aras, few on-demand products and PTC SharePoint business. The last one is trying to ride SharePoint adoption and Microsoft strength in the enterprise market. Who will be more successful in the future PLM disruption? A very interesting question…

PLM Technology Weakness

Where I see a weakness in PLM technology we have today? The current technological approach was born 15-20 years ago. We are continuing to SQL our future. The development of most of PLM technological platforms are balancing to co-exist between existing customer commitments and future product development. Platform fundamentals are the same regardless on the type of user interface or modern marketing terms. This technology is vulnerable in front of new development that happened during past ten years in Web 2.0. To understand the scope of the last ten years and the potential influence is very important.

What is my conclusion? When Stephen is asking – The Price Is Right?, I’m thinking about sales lessons I learned in the past. The right price is one customer will be ready to pay. Since PLM sales these days are not similar to sales of iPhones and iPads, I think we have a problem. We won’t be able to solve it since the problem is not in the price, in my view. The problem is broader and related to all main components of PLM delivery to customer – price, technological complexity and high price customer need to pay by installing, customizing, modifying software and training people. To make PLM cheaper, to provide a more flexible PLM pricing model, or even give PLM away can definitely provide some pain-relief, but will not give a radical change to the industry.

Just my thoughts.
Best, Oleg

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

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