Submitting your Enhancement Request via the Internet

As many of you know, Dassault Systemes and COE’s Development planning Council (DPC) have been collaborating on the development of a web based tool to facilitate the submission and management of enhancement requests to guide the Dassault development teams in future product development. The SER Tool is mainly a SER database server and a SER web based application. The current SER Web based application was difficult to maintain. There was a reliability issue as was noted in a session the Spring 2003 COE conference. We believe that the internet aspect of this tool is important in order to allow the DPC chairpersons to use it remotely with any license issues.

For these reasons, the re-writing of this application has been launched internally in DS and is on-going. The first step is to re-do it adhering to iso-specifications & iso-process, the objective to restore reliability, maintainability and future developments. This will preserve the existing database and insure easy transition to the new application. This will also enable in a second step smooth evolution of the tool based on DPC chairperson requests.

The first pilot of the new tool was demonstrated at the COE Fall 2003 conference in Seattle.  We plan to deploy the tool before year end.

We will review the DPC feedback regarding their experiences with this tool in July, 2004.  The advantage of this plan is to make it work efficiently as soon as possible without any interruptions in the process. In the meantime the current tool can be used, as the database generated today will be preserved.

PLM: Strategy, Collaboration and Technology
By Amit Sharma, Infosys Technologies Limited, Bangalore, India

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965)

Few of us would have imagined couples of decades back the relevance of the above words to the current state of affairs.  Technology over the last few years has opened lots of doors, but at the same time we seem to have lost our way in the puzzle. Tons of Information stored in structured and unstructured fashion is available, but optimal and efficient mechanisms to utilize this information are either completely missing or poorly implemented. However, information technology just like any other concept is maturing at a fast pace. From legacy databases, to client server and web driven data access mechanism, information is finally being structured and readily made available. The next level of maturity is information dispersal based on synchronized and integrated processes providing intelligent data interpretation and knowledge reuse. This is the basis of Product Lifecycle Management and as a concept PLM aims at allowing the following:

“PLM is about Synchronized inter & intra business processes between entities/enterprises to ensure a successful collaborative environment that allows effective business decision making, streamlined supply-demand and product innovations that are customer centric, thus imparting partnering entities/enterprises with tangible and intangible benefits such as increased quality, faster time to market, innovative work practices and lower costs.”

One can go at length to describe more about PLM, but the above graphic will do more justice to demonstrate PLM as a concept that can be adopted by enterprises to manage the entire spectrum of product life cycle from ideation to obsolescence, with the life cycle circling back with knowledge re-use enabling the launch of even more innovative ideas and products that meet customer demands. It would be prudent to clarify here that PLM as a strategy can be adopted and should be adopted in stages, first internal collaboration, followed by extended enterprise collaboration (distributor, dealer etc) and finally external and extended cross enterprise collaboration (Suppliers, Partners and Customers).

How will PLM allow / provide / stimulate Innovation?

In the last few years PLM has been defined as a concept that would foster innovation. Any definition on innovation would be in incomplete without reference to Peter Drucker’s article written in 1985, “The Discipline of Innovation”. Listed are few excerpts from this article that may help define innovation.

“Because innovation is conceptual and perceptual, would-be innovators must go out and look, ask and listen.”

“To be effective, an innovation has to be simple, and it has to be focused. It should do only one thing; otherwise it confuses people. Indeed, the greatest praise an innovation can receive is for people to say, “This is obvious! Why didn’t I think of it? It’s so simple!” Even the innovation that creates new users and new markets should be directed towards a specific, clear, and carefully designed application.”

“Above all, innovation is work rather than genius. It requires knowledge. It often requires ingenuity. And it requires focus.”

One question that comes up in every conference or seminar is how would PLM or collaboration foster, stimulate or allow innovation. Innovation just like any other benefits can come in extremes; trickle as in incremental innovation or deluge as in radical innovation. One needs to appreciate its form and encourage its effervescence. 

If one analyzes Drucker’s definitions, it seems to clearly articulate that innovation usually emerges after a deep understanding of a problem and its analysis, “…would-be innovators must go out and look, ask and listen”. What if these would be innovators were each and every employee, supplier or a customer? What if they were able to share their thoughts and ideas with each other? What if they could enhance their understanding and start from a higher base while solving any problem? What if they did not need to re-invent the wheel and re-invent solution for avoidable iterations during a product lifecycle? What if they could have access to a “Shared Innovation and Experience database” that could serve as a repository of each idea and give birth to new ones? What if we could have corporate innovation, team innovation and individual innovation as a way of doing work and not an add-on or a nice to have?

Figure 2 demonstrates process based collaboration with a framework for innovation to evolve and succeed.

Which PLM tool or product should I invest in?

PLM is a concept that attempts at integrating the various processes and phases involved during a typical product lifecycle.

Concept -> Design -> Prototype -> Plan -> Develop -> Manufacture -> Market -> Sell -> Service -> Re-Cycle

As such there is no single tool or package that can be termed as a PLM package. Organizations adopting PLM need to follow or devise an IT framework (Figure 3) that is process driven, i.e. an integration that is based on cross enterprise processes that integrate cross enterprise application via Web services or EAI, and has centralized repository of shared and distributed repository of protected or IPR data.

With such an IT framework, organizations that are embracing PLM will be able to successfully collaborate since the partnering enterprises will work as a seamless extended enterprise, all following a single unified process and not disjointed and fragmented processes that are only integrated via data bridges with no process or information intelligence. Another way to articulate PLM is to relate the concept as a way of doing business in the 21^st century; “Collaborate to create successful and innovative products” or in other words “Collaborative Product Innovation”. CPI or PLM should only be adopted in stages and a successful adoption will follow a maturity model that makes the transition to the new state realistic and achievable.

CPI Maturity Model

1. Intra-Enterprise CPI: An internal collaborative platform within the walls of the organization. The organization is aligned based on processes with integrated application supporting the business process based structure.
   
2. Inter-Enterprise CPI: Organizations that have achieved step 1 above integrate to provide a collaborative environment with virtual projects, portfolios and teams sharing common goals and aligned to single cross enterprise processes
   
3. Just-In-Time CPI: The highest level of collaboration based on web services with no dedicated partnerships but standard industry process followed by industry players allowing Just in time virtual collaboration. Established industry protocols and standards being followed with web services acting as yellow pages over the net allowing real time information processing and real time process integration. An example of this could be automated RFQ/RFP response engines at Tier 1 for requests coming from OEMs.

To summarize, yes there will be challenges ranging from IPR, cultural, geographic, technology, human behavior and the adoption of PLM itself, however the benefits will more than outweigh these roadblocks. In the early 20^th century Ford and Sloan adopted Taylor’s principals for collaboration of hands, today collaboration is not just between hands but also minds. Skilled workers felt threatened when the concept of assembly lines and specialized teams were being promoted, today the same backlash could be heard from engineers and managers wherein this community feels that knowledge, experience and thought capture via the adoption of collaborative technologies will hurt their interests. Assembly lines that promoted the collaboration of hands eventually succeeded; soon the collaboration of minds and hands through advances in technology and successful adoption of PLM will be a reality.

BY: Amit Sharma: This article is a brief of the Paper “Collaborative Product Innovation: A Perspective” proceeding of International Symposium on Product Lifecycle Management. http://web.mecheng.iisc.ernet.in/~plm03