I probably get asked this one question more than any other: I think I want/need/could use/maybe should think about PLM but it makes my head hurt. Can you help?
Something along those lines, anyway. The problem is, PLM isn’t one thing and it isn’t the same from enterprise to company to division to small business to solo entrepreneur. The concept of product lifecycle management, that you track many aspects of your product from inception through design to making to servicing to retiring/replacing — that’s common. After that, every case is unique.
Also unique to each company contemplating PLM is its motivation. Do you have a specific quality problem? Need to better communicate with suppliers? Or are you trying to create a major corporate shift (“we want to be #1 or #2 in our industry”) and want to use PLM as a lever to re-examine old processes and shake things up? Each of these is a great reason for PLM, but everything downstream from that decision will be different.
The PLM vendors, of course, don’t help matters. They’re competing with one another for your consideration, which often leads to confusing messages. Would you buy laundry detergent simply because it’s better than another brand? No. You want to know, objectively, what makes one brand better so that you can see if it solves your specific issue. PLM vendors bury that level of detail in Experiences and Platforms and apps/APIs/widgets and so forth. It’s not buyer-friendly and, to my mind, shows a growing internal focus and not the customer orientation they all claim to value.
So, what do I generally suggest that people do? Start small. If you’re trying to shake up an enterprise that you think has gone stale, start small there, too. Pick one thing (a behavior, an information flow, a quantifiable problem like warranty returns or failures) and work backwards to root causes. Realize that IT is just a tool and that you need to work on the underlying data and personalities to fix whatever you tackle first. Then ask each PLM vendor how they can, specifically (very, very specifically) help you fix this. What do you need, from a hardware/software/training/connecting perspective? How will it change your team’s daily work? Can you tackle this on your own or do you want to engage an implementation partner?
A partner, by the way, is both good and bad. Good, in that they’ve done this before, in the best scenario for a company like yours in your industry. A partner can help you navigate the vendor landscape and handle some of the nuts and bolts of the implementation. Bad in that they may try to fit your business into one of their templates –but that could also be good because it may save time and money in the implementation– so listen carefully and be aware of any tradeoffs. Perhaps the best thing about involving outsiders is that they are dispassionate: they haven’t been with you for 25 years, won’t feel threatened if you change their workflow and can help mediate between stakeholders. PLM implementations often involve a review of sacred processes, unearthing “because we’ve always done it this way”. That’s hard for insiders, and it may be good to have an external party handle this.
Jim Brown, a fellow industry analyst –and a genuinely funny guy– and I recorded a brief webisode on just this topic late last year. Check it out here or click on the image below. You’ll love Jim’s SprayOn Software spoof:
Parting words: don’t do something because someone makes you feel bad that you haven’t. When we’re kids, that applies to smoking cigarettes and crossing big streets before we’re ready. As adults, it’s a little easier to resist “everyone’s doing it” but we still fall to peer pressure occasionally. You hear about tremendous savings, quality improvements and all sorts of other wondrous benefits of PLM at a conference. That’s great! But how did they get there? Don’t be swayed by magical thinking: PLM technology is much more usable than even five years ago and may be perfect to address your specific issue but, for many, it’s still a major enterprise IT implementation. Investigate but don’t jump ’til you’re ready.
