Did I read this right? They didn't even have 3D yet? Sounds like they were milking the old for all it was worth to show better short term numbers. Their engineers probably need to be rejuvinated as well. Sound like a big project.
It is always surprising to me, who has covered PLM and other enterprise software for years, how much adoption rates always lag behind what the industry perception is. Naperlou is right that implementation of PLM on an enterprise scale is a huge endeavor, not so much for the software implementation (although that's difficult), but for the huge organizational and process change it invokes. That's often why companies are slow to get on board. That and high cost, due mostly to associated consulting fees.
I, too, am a little surprised, Beth. The Detroit automakers are already very advanced in this area, and it would seem that the tier-one and tier-two suppliers have to move with the OEMs down a parallel path.
You're right, Naperlou, adoption can be painfully slow, and ERP is a good example. Plant software is another good example. Seems like the mandate for adoption doesn't come down until it becomes a competitive or cost imperative. My guess is that OEM customers prompted the action at Johnson Controls.
Beth, it is amazing, but it takes a long time for tools and techniques like PLM to become widely adopted. It is like ERP, where many companies were not up to date until recently. Finally, the high end corporate market is getting saturated. In the software and systems development area CASE tools are still not as widely used as they should be. I was working for a company in the early 1990s. The statistics they quote about project failure rates and other indicators have not changed much since then. And they have sold a lot.
So, it is good to see PLM more widely used. Effeciency improvement is what really drives wealth in a society.
Yes, it is surprising Johnson controls was not further along in PLM, Beth. I think they finally got on board in part out of pressure from their OEM customers. At one point an automotive executive joked that our cars are fromt he space age now, but our seats are still from the 1970s. Since Johnson Controls is the largest seat maker, the company's adoption of PLM may begin to changed that.
Nice customer win for Siemens. I'm actually surprised such a major automotive OEM supplier was not further down the pike in implementing PLM. PLM, while still not as widely understood in some manufacturing sectors, is pretty well entrenched in the automotive and aerospace markets and in use at most of the major automotive OEMs. Interesting that the Vistagy folks seem to be the driver on this deal. Vistagy, a maker of tools for composite design, was recently acquired by Siemens. Perhaps the need for a tool for effective material composition was the final straw that drove Johnson to pull the trigger on a move to implement PLM on an enterprise scale.
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