Leon Lauritsen さんのグループアクティビティ

Why You Need a Flexible PLM System

Leon Lauritsen — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 19:10:00 GMT

To start, let’s define some terms. First, what is PLM? Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is an essential tool that helps manufacturing companies manage complex product development processes.

However, traditional PLM systems often fail to meet modern manufacturers' evolving needs. These traditional PLM systems are complex software products. They are usually compiled from several different pieces of software stitched together under one brand name. As a result, legacy PLM solutions:

Are not flexible enough for most companies
Take too long to implement
Become difficult to upgrade over time
Cannot adapt to changing business needs

In this blog, I will share four reasons you should think about abandoning the old way of spending resources on a PLM system that likely won’t solve your needs.

1. Too much customization is needed

Traditional PLM systems require too much customization.

First, highly customized PLM solutions are challenging and time-consuming to deploy. There are no economies of scale, so costs and project timelines are high. It simply takes longer than it should.

2. Traditional PLM systems are difficult to update and are not future proof

Because traditional PLM systems consist of hard-coded custom integrations and patchwork solutions that are basically hacked together, revising is difficult. Ongoing maintenance will be required to keep the software working; when you fix one thing, another thing usually breaks.

Another disadvantage of hard-coded PLM systems is that they need to be more flexible to change when technology changes. That interaction is set in stone as soon as interactions with the PLM solution are hard-coded inside an organization. To make changes to the system, you need to untangle the existing code and create a new code.

That becomes too expensive and time-consuming.

3. Inadequate collaboration

Traditional PLM systems often need help to support effective collaboration among stakeholders, such as designers, engineers, and manufacturers. This can lead to silos of information and slow down product development. With today's complex product development processes, it's crucial to have a PLM solution that enables seamless collaboration and real-time information sharing.

4. Integration with existing systems is poor

The actual business value of PLM is the ability to integrate with existing systems across the enterprise. Examples are the existing ERP, CRM, CAD systems, and others.

Organizations rely on various sorts of systems to support business processes. Some are built internally by the IT department, some are bought from several vendors, and a lot of them are customized beyond belief.

Most of these systems emerged over time. Standards change, and technology evolves. Integration isn't just linking two software platforms; it often means linking two different generations of technology.

Traditional PLM software is uniquely unsuited to change because the business model relies on heavy customization and consultation, so PLM vendors need to be incentivized to make integrations easy for organizations. The end result is a clunky PLM system.

The clunky PLM roadmap

Traditional PLM implementations go like this:

PLM consultants meet with users, executives, and technical staff to understand what they want from a PLM product.
They learn existing business processes, systems, and the required integrations.
They take your “out-of-the-box” system and custom code all connections to systems and data structures.
They review existing workflows and build optimized PLM answers to make those workflows easier.

But where are the 20-man sales consulting teams when your organization needs new workflows because your business has evolved and your needs have changed?

Suddenly, these workflows are effectively set in stone.

They are difficult to change and persist long after without relevant optimization changes. Inevitably, workflows end up being abandoned for shortcuts.

Suddenly, we’re back to where we started with time-consuming, manual, error-prone, and inefficient processes.

Why you need a flexible PLM system

A flexible PLM system offers a smoother implementation experience.

Because the product must work right out of the box, integration with various business systems must operate immediately.
Legacy data integration must work right away.
The product is easy to update (since it is standardized) and easy to replace.
Project scope is clearly defined from the start.
The customer can start with a basic PLM system, then add in additional plugins and integrations over time to better leverage their data.
Changes can be made without totally rebuilding the product.

In conclusion

Implementing a new PLM system is a challenging task – it is complicated and takes a clear understanding of objectives and requirements, and it needs to be an acquisition that can stand up over time.

But, the problem is that traditional PLM implementations fail often.

Over-customization, poor integration, under appreciated data migration, and less than optimal usability contribute to their failure.

So, why not make your implementation life easier? Why not invest in a sustainable solution that works the first time?

A flexible PLM software lowers the bar of entry by reducing implementation costs, reducing customization requirements, and actively combatting problems like scope creep and integration challenges that plague traditional implementations.

Will Your Legacy System Support Your Business Processes Five Years from Now?

Leon Lauritsen — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 19:12:00 GMT

Every business leader is acutely aware of the increasing pace of today’s business environment. The increased demand for shorter time-to-market for new products has made product turnover much faster today than it was five years ago. In addition, product complexity has also increased. Hence, the need for better data connectivity and traceability is more important today than ever before.

Manufacturers, independent of industries, want to make sure that their technology investments, such as PLM, PDM, CAD integrations, and so on, are able to meet the business requirements now and well into the future via continuous and cost-effective improvements rather than a series of discontinuous, high-intensity, and costly upgrades or enhancements.

Now, it is not realistic to keep all solutions within an enterprise application landscape on the very latest release; however, staying current is always advisable as it reduces risk of both catastrophic failure and incremental degradation.

I often identify solutions that are not currently supported in use for mission critical functions when I am onsite at industrial manufacturers.

Not only does that practice add considerable risk to business operations. It also makes it harder for the company to achieve the goal of transforming analogue processes into digital workflows. If existing platforms are hindering digital transformation because they are not updated to the current version, you run the risk of setting back your business by several years.

Remember, if your business-critical platforms are several years old, it will likely take equally as many years to get back on track.

So, if your platforms are five years old, you have lost five years of new updates and functionality that could have been a great benefit to your company. And it will take you an additional five years before your existing platform is current with other platform offerings on the market.

Technology evolution is a main driver of software obsolescence. There are many negative impacts caused by older and unsupported software solutions, such as lack of new features and the inability to enable an end-to-end digital thread are arguably the most critical.

The question you need to reflect on is, can you afford being 5 years behind the competition?

So, does the cloud solve this issue?

Many companies are turning to the cloud to address their issues. Unfortunately, the cloud doesn’t solve all the upgrade issues, but it does solve some very important ones. Most new software companies are adopting a cloud-native business model. Cloud upgrades often happen every few weeks ensuring application freshness, but there is a downside.

Not all cloud solutions are built in a manner that allows them to be configured to specific needs or upgraded regularly, ensuring that the latest capabilities are available.

Moving software to a cloud solution that does not support configuration or upgrades is like choosing a car based on the type of tires it has.

A cloud solution should meet all your business requirements appropriately and support evolving requirements moving forward. So far, most multi-tenant PLM solutions on the cloud are focused on specific industries and use cases. They are not as flexible as many of the mature on-premises-based solutions have proven to be.

Fortunately, this is starting to change, as the native cloud solutions grow their depth and breadth, and many of today’s PLM mindshare leaders, as defined by CIMdata, are transforming their solutions to leverage cloud platform capabilities, and moving to a business model that supports cloud PLM offerings.

What can we learn from this?

PLM solutions are a complex landscape of business processes, software systems, integrations, and supporting hardware in most companies. The various technologies have lifecycles and need regular upgrades and occasional replacements. Postponing upgrades is done for both good and bad reasons, and it can be risky to be an early adopter as bugs and other issues can be disruptive.

But, on the other hand, missing out on performance updates or useful capabilities can inhibit progress and drag profitability lower.

In addition, missing security updates puts data, intellectual property, and businesses at risk of theft. Digital transformation is a major industrial trend that old and obsolete software cannot often support. Companies must be able to stay current to have access to the features and security they need to grow their businesses successfully.

A recent CIMdata research project found that Aras customers have upgraded more recently than customers of other mindshare leaders’ solutions. Companies looking for a PLM solution that can be easily kept up to date should check out Aras Innovator. Aras’ technology and business approach help customers configure a solution to their needs and keep it current.

Learn more about how Aras can help you modernize your PLM and avoid PLM Legacy Syndrome.

Will Your Legacy System Support Your Business Processes Five Years from Now?

Leon Lauritsen — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 19:12:00 GMT

I often identify solutions that are not currently supported in use for mission critical functions when I am onsite at industrial manufacturers.

Remember, if your business-critical platforms are several years old, it will likely take equally as many years to get back on track.

The question you need to reflect on is, can you afford being 5 years behind the competition?

So, does the cloud solve this issue?

Not all cloud solutions are built in a manner that allows them to be configured to specific needs or upgraded regularly, ensuring that the latest capabilities are available.

Moving software to a cloud solution that does not support configuration or upgrades is like choosing a car based on the type of tires it has.

What can we learn from this?

But, on the other hand, missing out on performance updates or useful capabilities can inhibit progress and drag profitability lower.

Learn more about how Aras can help you modernize your PLM and avoid PLM Legacy Syndrome.

Will Your Legacy System Support Your Business Processes Five Years from Now?

Leon Lauritsen — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 18:48:00 GMT

I often identify solutions that are not currently supported in use for mission critical functions when I am onsite at industrial manufacturers.

Remember, if your business-critical platforms are several years old, it will likely take equally as many years to get back on track.

The question you need to reflect on is, can you afford being 5 years behind the competition?

So, does the cloud solve this issue?

Not all cloud solutions are built in a manner that allows them to be configured to specific needs or upgraded regularly, ensuring that the latest capabilities are available.

Moving software to a cloud solution that does not support configuration or upgrades is like choosing a car based on the type of tires it has.

What can we learn from this?

But, on the other hand, missing out on performance updates or useful capabilities can inhibit progress and drag profitability lower.

Learn more about how Aras can help you modernize your PLM and avoid PLM Legacy Syndrome.

Leon Lauritsen さんの グループ アクティビティ

Why You Need a Flexible PLM System

Will Your Legacy System Support Your Business Processes Five Years from Now?

Will Your Legacy System Support Your Business Processes Five Years from Now?

Will Your Legacy System Support Your Business Processes Five Years from Now?

Leon Lauritsen さんのグループアクティビティ