Me: Freshman year in college. Requirements say you need a Physical Education class each semester. I was in the last group to pull classes. Yes, we pulled computer cards back in the “day” to select classes. Two choices left, some folk dancing class and beginning wrestling. Chose wrestling, it was also sold as a fitness class. “Who doesn’t need more fitness.”
You: Tasked to begin digital transformation in your organization. Understanding the need for a PLM solution, you make your choice and choose between PLM Thing 1 and PLM Thing 2—and who doesn’t need to “experience” more PLM Thing 2? Solution was sold as being out of the box, ready to handle your needs.
Me: First day of class. Instructor asks the class “Who here has had previous wrestling experience?”
- Big hairy guy #1 - “Uh, yeah, I was district champion in my state.
- Big hairy guy #2 - “Umm, I was a three-year letterman for the largest high school in my state.”
- “I just missed the Olympic team for my country.” (Smaller South American country guy)
I remain quiet during this exchange. Everyone that was not on the university team took the class to impress the instructor, who was also the team coach.
You: You are an experienced IT professional, have implemented multiple systems, maybe even a legacy PLM solution. You have credibility with management and are ready to take on this project. You aspire to become more of a voice in the business. Your confidence is high.
Me: I am doing great in the fitness part, half of every class is stretching and calisthenics. Best shape in a long time. Second half of class is actual wrestling. Here’s the thing—everyone wrestles everyone else. Weight or experience doesn’t matter. “A smaller wrestler can beat a bigger one if he simply uses his head.” I hold my own with those I outweigh and some my own weight. The district champion, who outweighs me by fifty pounds, throws me around like a cat playing with a mouse and has me pinned in less than a minute. I get beat up every period, finally I am rolled over on my wrist and sprain it. Instructor gives me the “what a quitter you are” look and excuses me from the next class.
You: Implementation is looking good, you’ve done this before, you are an implementation champion. You take the out of the box features and put them to use. The fact that a few processes got sprained along the way is irrelevant. Then some realities set in and the processes will only bend so far. Management sends you that email and you scramble. You can’t go on vacation and skip this project so, you undertake some customizations. You spend some significant time and money, but things are salvageable.
Me: A few years have passed, ok several years have passed. Wrist is long since healed, my current physical infrastructure has been settled for a while. Watching the Olympics, specifically women’s wrestling, I’m very impressed with the quickness, power, and talent on display. Then I realized, even if I weighed more than any of the competitors, I would be flat on my back in about 15 seconds. My physicality has aged, and perhaps not well. I can no longer compete.
You: A few years have passed. Your technology infrastructure is getting older. CIMdata tells us that your solution has probably not been upgraded in 8-10 years. You attempted an upgrade in year four, but your customizations were not easily pulled forward. You investigate getting them rewritten on the upgraded system and give up on the whole idea. Budget and time will not get you there.
You still have a vision and are chartered to effect digital transformation but, in many ways, your technology will not let you respond with the quickness and power to do so. Your initial productivity increases have faltered, information siloes are persistent, and in some cases proliferated, as old processes reclaim out of the box methods. You have a nominal digital thread, but it is built on a shaky structure of trying to knit together data from multiple applications. Your vision is transformational, but your reality is day-to-day—keeping the lights on and taking orders. You are trusted as a functionary and not a visionary.
Aras: At Aras, we help you build and connect to what the business needs, react to new business requirements in a timely manner and at a lower IT project cost, so that you can become a partner to the business. We offer the only digital transformation platform that has been built from the ground up to create and maintain full traceability of product information across the lifecycle, enabling diverse teams to share and collaborate more efficiently.
The Aras Innovator platform is an innovative, modern, service-oriented architecture (SOA) that allows companies to create a digital thread by developing and modifying applications, processes, and workflows far more easily than traditional systems that take a hard-coded approach to delivering out-of-the-box solutions that fall short of transformational needs and immediately result in technical debt. Applications are built and modified using a visual approach via the Aras modeling engine, and models utilize the services they need, which ensures easier upgrades and the preservation of customizations. In fact, Aras subscribers have their upgrades completed for them, by Aras, in a matter of weeks as part of their subscription.
In addition, the Aras platform supports an open architecture, including open standards, APIs, and connectors, ensuring that the platform easily integrates with other enterprise applications and legacy systems, creating a seamless digital thread. Rest assured that this open architecture does not compromise your security in any way—our platform was developed with network and data security as a top priority.
A world of unprecedented market uncertainty requires resiliency and flexibility in order to adapt. Using the Aras Innovator platform, which is open, configurable, and includes continuous upgrades, will help put you on a sustainable path. It’s time to build your future with Aras.