Have you ever implemented something new in your organisation and come to a point in the journey where just the thought of it is exhausting? If the something new is trying to change the culture, I’m confident you will have experienced this feeling of exhaustion. The themes of this month’s podcast are the factors for success when seeking to implement a PLM approach in an organisation and how to learn from the established engineering discipline of Systems Engineering in your Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) approach.
Chapter 13 “Virtually Indistinguishable”
There are many overlaps between Systems Engineering and a Product Lifecycle Management approach. Systems Engineering is primarily concerned with the introduction of a new product. The NASA Systems Engineering Handbook is a great resource in this area (link). In smaller companies many engineers are required to wear multiple hats and effectively take on the role of a systems engineer. While we don’t work in traditional Systems Engineering roles, we think Systems Engineering has progressed a long way since the writing of Virtually Perfect and has directly or indirectly taken on many of the suggestions that Dr Grieves proposed it could learn from PLM. One area where Systems Engineering (and traditional engineering) can improve is by staying connected to their products after selling them. This allows more value to be added for the manufacturer and customer during the product's lifecycle. In other words, create a digital twin - even if it is a simple data stream of some key metrics of the product - which will allow you, as the manufacturer, to help the customer benefit most from the product sold.
Chapter 14 “Virtually Successful”
This chapter felt like a summary of the book. Several key insights were brought together to remind and give advice on how to successfully benefit from a PLM framework in your organisation. A key point to success is having the right definition of success. It’s not enough to see PLM as a nice new software that helps a bit. Firstly, PLM is not software. And secondly, you will not capitalise on the opportunities from an integrated PLM approach if you see it that way. A better definition of success is seeing new technology as an enabler for organisational change and viewing products as dual objects: both virtual and physical. In this second view of success, technology is evaluated based on what will benefit the organisation and customers. Organisational change is necessary for improvement, and the intellectual property of the organisation is valued in the virtual products it creates. As with any business plan, Dr Grieves encourages having a vision of the future and how to get there. “Not having a vision of the future is deciding to go out of business” – Dr Grieves.
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