Will we see a day when the OEM and Supply Chain have interoperability between CAD in PLM? Big issue with an enterprise that elects to use a standard CAD in their PLM and the Supply Network is using everything under the sun. Is there hope on the horizon for the OEM?
Answer: I am optimistic about this. Moving to lightweight models has helped us a lot as has the standards initiatives. Companies are clamoring for interoperability between different suppliers of models. There may be some backsliders in the PLM software community, but there is huge pressure for interoperability.
That concludes our program for today. I want to thank our guest, Dr. Michael Grieves, for some great insights into PLM and its future. I'd also like to thank our sponsor Siemens, as well as everyone in the audience for participating. Thanks and enjoy the day.
Michael, you said: Some of the most important thing that organizations do involve practices, which have not gotten the same attention as processes. It's a pretty big distinction. I have an entire chapter in my book devoted to understanding that.
Can you tell us a bit more a bout what distinguishes processes from practices? How are they different?
Answer: I will try to be simple about this. Practices are about having a desired end result and figuring out how to achieve it. Processes are about taking inputs that are given, performing up prescribed operation on them, and getting a result that you use without question. Practices require a lot of thinking. Processes require doing what you're told. I get efficiency (lean) from processes, but I get innovation from practices.
Can you address some of the confusion between PLM and what you called geometry. Lots of times people associate PLM with CAD and really, CAD is just a piece of the PLM equation. Where and how do you delineate?
Answer: Products are about 2 things: form and function. Although CAD is important, it is simply about form. In my book, I list 13 informational structures that he allow need to worry about. CAD is one of the 13. An example of a couple of others are the bill of process and the products operational instructions.
Given the importance of PLM in evaluating the environmental impact of a product, are you seeing significant adoption of PLM for this purpose? Or is this something that manufacturers should do but don't do?
Answer: There are some manufacturers, example Steelcase, who have employed PLM for this purpose. My overall perspective is that companies are more about the optics, that is looking like they're concerned about the disposal phase, then they are really active in doing so. A great deal of the design for the environment initiatives are wasted efforts, because this information will not be around decades later when the product will be disposed.
Where are most companies today on the maturity scale in terms of PLM adoption and deployment?
Answer: It varies pretty widely. But if I was going to graph it on a curve, it would be skewed to the left or the immaturity level. There are a lot of companies that have a pretty good sophistication level in engineering, but fall off pretty quickly in manufacturing and support. For those that are interested, my 1st book had a chapter on how to evaluate the maturity level of an organization in PLM.
Will we see a day when the OEM and Supply Chain have interoperability between CAD in PLM? Big issue with an enterprise that elects to use a standard CAD in their PLM and the Supply Network is using everything under the sun. Is there hope on the horizon for the OEM?
Can I do PLM without Requirements Management? And would I want to do PLM without Requirements.
Answer: you can. Organizations have done PLM without linking it to requirements for long period of time. However, given the option, I certainly would want requirements linked to my product. All the PLM solution providers are trying to provide this capability. However, it is one thing to track requirements, but it is another thing to tie the requirements to the physical parts. This is what really needs to be done.
Michael, you said: Some of the most important thing that organizations do involve practices, which have not gotten the same attention as processes. It's a pretty big distinction. I have an entire chapter in my book devoted to understanding that.
Can you tell us a bit more a bout what distinguishes processes from practices? How are they different?
Can you address some of the confusion between PLM and what you called geometry. Lots of times people associate PLM with CAD and really, CAD is just a piece of the PLM equation. Where and how do you delineate?
Can Michael talk about suppliers who are directly integrated to the OEM's PLM to provide concurrent engineering and CAD design collaboration?
Answer: Some of the more advanced OEMs have this capability. It gives their suppliers these capabilities without them having to incur huge costs. I would have to say that I've only seen this being done in a handful of OEMs and usually only for their tier 1 suppliers.
To what extent does PLM incorporate what used to be called business process management? To what extent does it enable what used to be called the agile enterprise?
Answer: To a certain extent, this is the case. However the processes are limited to those involving the product. However, product is not simply about processes. Some of the most important thing that organizations do involve practices, which have not gotten the same attention as processes. It's a pretty big distinction. I have an entire chapter in my book devoted to understanding that.
Given the importance of PLM in evaluating the environmental impact of a product, are you seeing significant adoption of PLM for this purpose? Or is this something that manufacturers should do but don't do?
Regarding the tracking of environmental products, the short answer is that without PLM it will be almost impossible to accomplish that. Equally important, unless PLM exists from the beginning, designing products to be environmentally friendly at disposal is a waste of time. If that information isn't available when the product is being disposed of decades later, it will simply go into a landfill.
To what extent does PLM incorporate what used to be called business process management? To what extent does it enable what used to be called the agile enterprise?
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