Need for expansion of Product Life cycle Management (PLM) beyond engineering to users across the company and its extended enterprise
Engineering and design occupies an important role in most Hi-Tech companies due to mounting business pressure on R&D and product development functions. This is due to increasing demand for innovative feature-rich products accompanied by shrinking product life cycles and decreasing prices for the improved products. Thus there is a need for the PLM software to collaborate and communicate with a wide range of users beyond the Engineering department within and outside the company.
Let us examine in detail the drivers for this new revolution.
One of the main causes of this is need to reduction of prices for the products and the need to use components which are increasingly cost-effective and at the same provide better features. Thus there is a need to collaborate with global suppliers to address this need to enhance the competitiveness of the product in a globalizing world.
Another important reason for this new outlook is the need for reduction in time to release the new product to the market. This calls for reduction of all non-value adding time spent in the product development process. One of the main contributing factors in the product development time is the delays in communications and collaborations with other departments in the company and with suppliers.
Another important driver is the need to ensure that the products developed are really in tune with customer demands. Hence the need for interacting with customer and sales and marketing departments to ensure that the right product is developed.
There is also an increasing need for outsourcing to help in developing components which are beyond the capabilities of the company. This may also be explored to help in reducing the development lifecycles to ensure quicker time to market.
Now let us examine how good PLM software will help a Hi-Tech company achieve these key imperatives.
Collaboration with Suppliers: Good PLM software helps the engineering department engage with global suppliers for exchanging product designs and negotiate prices faster. This improved vigor in communication will help in identification of better and cheaper components and also help in substantial reductions in product development life cycles.
Collaboration with other departments: PLM software helps in quicker collaboration and communication between the engineering department and other departments. This ensures that the right product is developed which caters to the right customer demand.
Comments
Fully agree from the PLM product point of view. As a business consultant I see there is always another angle needed: The people who provide/implement the PLM software - do you believe a PLM product can bring this knowledge ? Or will there always be a need for industry knowledge ?
Posted by: Jos Voskuil | December 12, 2008 10:29 AM
Thanks for your feedback. From a business point of view, to ensure that the PLM software provides the best value to the company, there could be a need for the experts in Design department to get fully involved in the implementation of the PLM software. This would ensure that the industry knowledge coupled with the best business practices that the PLM software brings forward are both looked into before finalizing the "FUTURE" business process during the implementation.
Posted by: K N Harilal | December 16, 2008 6:00 AM
Make a lot of sense for me. As much as PLM will move out of engineering space - it will bring more and more value to organization.
Posted by: olegshilovitsky | December 26, 2008 9:36 PM
A good post. As a functional consultant, I will say that, we people who are in PLM domain, need to change focus about PLM to a product management tool rather than just a software to reduce product cost. You are right. There is need to expand PLM beyond engineering divisions. Then only we can call it as PLM. Otherwise it's just PDM. I see PLM as a business operating tool. If we see it as such a tool then we must say that it can be applied to any business model in any industry. Keep writting. All the best.
Posted by: Ashish Kulkarni | December 28, 2008 5:59 AM
Nice Post,
Many in the PLM industry still think PLM is only for Design/Engineering department only.
This view towards PLM Systems should change.
Many other areas like Portfolio Management/Issue management..... are available in current PLM Systems.
In a few days we could start hearing about SLM [Service Lifecycle management].
Posted by: Bhushan Teli | December 29, 2008 9:01 AM
Thanks Oleg, Ashish and Bhushan for your comments.
PLM is definitely going beyond the engineering departments and impacts the whole value chain of Hi-Tech companies.
Thus I agree that the view towards PLM should change.
We also need to look into the developments in the other new areas that have been mentioned and the impact of these on PLM.
Posted by: K N Harilal | January 1, 2009 10:59 AM