If you're one of those individuals who has to sit and wonder "what is PLM software" when asked, you're probably missing out on something that could provide you with a number of benefits to your business. Product lifecycle management systems are used to examine and manage the lifecycle of a product, from its initial conception, to the very end when it is no longer of use to anyone.

Product lifecycle management programs are essential for companies interested in compiling data on product creation, development, and marketing that can be used during the production of other products, to reduce both time spent on production, and the costs associated with production. The software associated with PLM solutions utilizes engineering tools to allow several processes to take place simultaneously, making product production as much as 70% more efficient. It's hardly surprising that the product lifecycle management industry is worth about $25 billion. There is little argument to be made about whether PLM solutions are worthwhile. Instead, we're going to focus on PLM implementation plans for businesses that are ready to take advantage of quality PLM programs.

The PLM Innovation Americas 2012 is North America's only independent and technology agnostic PLM event. Bringing together 300 senior end-users, thought leaders and select PLM vendors, the conference aims to leverage the collective wealth of knowledge and experience to identify and encourage best practice. The combination of a world class speaker roster, cross-industry case studies, targeted Think-Tanks and pre-qualified networking opportunities make this North America's must attend PLM gathering.

PLM contrasts with two traditional approaches to managing the lifecycle of a product, which include:

These comments are inspired by two things: 1) observations during PLM consulting work in life science companies and 2) remembering an article by Edeger W. Dijkstra, A Case Against the GO TO Statement, in Communications of the ACM 11 (1968), 3: 147–148.  As an R&D product development engineer, I have found the following a great help to innovation: change the vocabulary to change the perspective on the problem, the new perspective enables new insights for innovation.

I had the opportunity to return to a client which I worked with over three years ago.  My first contact with this multi-billion dollar Medical Device Company was to develop a PLM strategy for the R&D organization, mainly focused on the early design experiments.  At the time, they were already leaders in their market but still used paper lab notebooks for their initial engineering design and experiments.  Over the course of the project, I found that they understood the need for change but many felt that they were being forced to update a process that had worked well for them and had made them industry leaders.  After working with them for nine weeks, the strategy finalized and delivered to them which lead to a three year series of project that I was not involved with, but others in Integware worked on the implementation.

PLM is not a new concept. It has expanded well beyond the industries where it started.  A question that we at Integware continue to hear from most companies, and in particular the visionaries within companies new to product lifecycle management, is “how do I show the business value of product lifecycle management?”

I’ve had the opportunity to manage a large number of projects over the years from very large to very small and I have often found that the main challenges related to successful enterprise solution delivery are usually not technical.  Yes technical obstacles will exist, will need to be overcome and engineering tradeoffs made.  But in my experience the major roadblocks to enterprise implementations stem from improper governance, issues related to management of change (by that I mean organizational acceptance and understanding of value) and strategic investment shifts.

This posting describes an approach to PLM implementations when an OOTB approach is not feasible and following this process leads to the characteristics a first rate PLM implementation.  The engagement should be run in an agile manner with frequent deliverables that can be signed-off.  The deliverables start as light-weight easily refined components of a Paper Prototype (PP) and evolve with feedback to a Demo Prototype (DP) and finally to a Conference Room Pilot Prototype (CRP) that shows the total solution.  Each prototype is signed off by the business users.  The purpose of the prototype refinement is to gradually transition the user from a paper-based world into an understanding of a PLM-based solution.

Now that spring is here and summer is on the horizon and if you are like me you want to look your best for summer. What does that mean? Usually a diet of some sort, but what do you look for when starting a diet and how am I going to apply that to PLM?