The new world of platforms

What those in the product lifecycle management (PLM) industry are doing today will not cut it tomorrow. Surveys and numerous direct interactions with industrial companies have shown us at CIMdata that even today, PLM is not living up to its potential.

There are some good and varied reasons for this, but they all might be summed up in a single word: complexity.
 

Complexity dimensions

The main dimension is with the product itself. Automobiles are likely to include several hundred million lines-of-code. Medical devices, too, are becoming more complex, as electronics and software add capability. Regulations governing product safety and impact on the environment are increasingly detailed and lengthy. Customers also are demanding more choice, requiring mass customization along with products tuned for regional tastes as well as regional regulations.

The second dimension of complexity lies in the proliferation of PLM-enabling technologies. What we now know as PLM started with product data management (PDM) and the management of CAD files, but other technologies that support PLM have emerged.

Engineers can now manage the vast data sets from CAE simulations with simulation lifecycle management (SLM) tools. Many companies also manage the life cycle of the software itself with application lifecycle management (ALM). A recent new term, Big Data, where massive data sets are analyzed for information and wisdom, is really just another facet of PLM. Understanding and using these tools in the most efficient manner is a complex undertaking.

A third dimension of complexity is growing supply chains, which must be managed. Driving down cost or capturing regional business through investment offsets are causing supply chain networks to expand, diversify, and gain complexity.

The final dimension of complexity is the varied, ever-changing nature of competition. This could come from new products, new business models, or new global trends.

PLM today

In the broadest sense, PLM captures the data for a product from its inception through its entire life, throughout an extended enterprise and its complex supply chain. This includes research, development, production, marketing, and servicing, including all the functions and data needed to support that, as shown in Figure 1.

It is vital to remember that PLM is not simply a set of tools. It is much more than application software. CIMdata defines PLM as a strategic business approach used to collaboratively create, use, manage, and disseminate product-related intellectual assets throughout the extended enterprise from concept through its entire life. What ties the process together is product data in all of its dimensions, ranging from geometry to service data to instructions on remanufacturing or recycling, and end-of-life.

There are implications to businesses that think of PLM as technology only. An opinion poll conducted early in 2014 illustrate asked a cross-section of executives to give their opinion of PLM in the form of discrete, specific questions, as shown in Figure 2.

Poll results illuminated some of the confusion surrounding PLM. About one-third of those surveyed thought that PLM was just fine for them. Another 12% thought it provided a competitive advantage and were going to invest more. The rest had specific issues. For example, 16% showed ignorance of the term itself.

However, for the most part, businesses simply are not implementing PLM in a way that gives them the level of return possible because for the most part, PLM still means PDM and CAD. It could – and needs to be – so much more.
 

Future challenges

PLM is not being universally used to meet today’s challenges and the future is rapidly approaching with fresh ones to address.

Just one example of a fresh challenge is the emerging concept of a circular economy. This is in some ways driven by the robustness – and therefore longevity – of products that industry has managed to create. In a circular economy, it is not just about recycling. It is also about repurposing and remanufacturing, such as with business jets which have a second and even third life. This is adding yet another dimension of complexity since companies need to preserve data about the product from its inception through multiple lifetimes.
 

Product innovation platforms

The answer businesses – and PLM solution providers – are moving toward is structuring their processes around platforms. CIMdata defines a platform as a foundation upon which functional capabilities, data, and processes are enabled and executed. Characteristics of platforms include being able to plug in technologies and software quickly. An example of this is the cloud. Another is the Apple iPhone or an Android device.

We have observed the emergence of three levels of platforms, each intimately related to each other, but devised toward different ends.

Business platform. This comprehensive architecture includes functional capabilities that enable companies to perform business level processes. Think enterprise resource planning (ERP) or customer relationship management (CRM), standardized end-to-end business processes with access to business data.

Innovation platform. Within the overall business platform is another devoted to innovation. Successful companies innovate new business models, new service offerings, and manufacturing techniques just as much as new products, and they need a platform to manage that.

Product innovation platform. The third piece is one devoted to product alone. This innovation platform cultivates continuous creativity for new products. It yields is improvements in products and the manufacturing processes that create them. It inspires new and better products throughout full lifecycles and across generations of a product.

The next step is to develop and build a product innovation platform. This is not replacing PDM or PLM. It is an evolution beyond PLM, beyond monolithic enterprise information technology applications that simply are no longer sustainable or robust enough. Some would argue that the complexity of extended enterprise processes, organizational requirements, and information constructs can’t be addressed by any single solution provider, no matter how large.

The new paradigm – the heart of the new product innovation platform – is one in which solutions from multiple providers can be seamlessly deployed using a resilient architecture. It must be able to withstand rapid changes. It must easily incorporate, integrate, and enable other applications.

An example of this is the Apple iPhone that provides a platform for third-party developers to provide apps. Apple provides the technical platform, but what adds value is seamless integration of all those apps into what the user ultimately wants. It is a practical way to realize mass customization, to allow others to innovate new products for the benefit of all.

A product innovation platform using this model will be much easier to align a particular business to its unique requirements. It can integrate a host of disciplines outside of traditional engineering needed to meet the broader demands of 21st century innovation, such as marketing and service.

To be successful, the product innovation platform must natively support visualization and closed-loop decision making, and protect intellectual property.
 

Implications

Users may have to push PLM solution providers to adopt an open-platform mindset. This means adopting and publishing standards so that third parties can write applications on top of a PLM platform in the same manner as a smartphone. One example of a standard that solves some of that problem is the functional mockup interface (FMI). It is a tool-independent standard to support both model exchange and co-simulation of dynamic models using a combination of XML-files and compiled C-code. While it is not sufficient in itself to achieve the complete goal or a product innovation platform, it is the sort of open standard that we could see in other functional domains.

CIMdata is observing some progress on this front. Various PLM solution providers are building out their offerings toward this model, though in different ways and using different approaches. They are doing this through acquisitions and building out new capabilities that address an era of end-to-end business process and data connectivity enabled by platforms.

The spread of platforms will bring radical changes for workers, and the impact of adopting and using platforms will be monumental. It will not be business as usual.

CIMdata
www.cimdata.com

About the author: Peter Bilello is president of strategic management consulting and research firm CIMdata. He is an internationally recognized authority on product lifecycle management (PLM), has more than 23 years of experience in the development of business enabling information technology solutions for research, engineering, and manufacturing organizations, and has served in a variety of positions in PLM. Bilello may be reached at 734.668.9922.