PLMPulse Survey – Edition 2017

PLMPulse Survey 2017

The PLMPulse results from first industry-led survey on our status of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and future priorities. It provides a unique insight into the readiness of organisations to maximise the result on their investment on PLM. Below is a sample of the report including the executive summary.
PLMPulse Chapter 1
PLMPulse Nick Leeder Speaking at PI Congress
Nicholas Leeder presenting at the launch of PLMPulse Survey at PLMx Texas in October 2017.

Foreword

PLMPulse Introduction by Nick Leeder

Over the years I have been involved with and attended many PLM conferences, both driven by the PLM vendors or independently organised such as PI PLMx by MarketKey Limited.  Much of the content provided fantastic insight into how companies have addressed their own PLM journeys and often the presentations focused on PLM being the next big thing.

I started my own journey with PLM around 1996, now over 20 years ago. PLM has always promised so much in terms of benefits.  Today is no different… there is a lot of talk about PLM again, with Industrie 4.0, Internet of Things (IoT) and big data promising to finally unleash PLM’s potential.

  • But have we really progressed further than the initial use of the tools to manage CAD and Engineering data?
  • Has PLM and our own implementations of it led to the benefits and reached the marketing hype?

PLMPulse is the first industry-led survey hoping to shed some light into where we are in our PLM journeys and where the real value lies.  It is not meant to be an academic or consulting research paper, but rather a temperature check of how industry sees PLM today – the pulse.

The team and I were fascinated by the results but not surprised by the outcome.  As you will be able to see from the report, industry with its often confused and fractious relations with PLM and technologies still has a long way to go before the potential is fully realised.

Most importantly are the conclusions to this report.  They should guide us to how we, as industrial users of PLM, should use this information to change and adapt when defining PLM within our own organisations.  If PLM is to be the next big thing, then its role beyond engineering and executive level sponsorship needs to change.  This new secured foundation will allow organisations to strengthen PLM for the future, gaining greater value from the information inside of PLM and create the backbone for the inevitable Internet of Things (IoT)  and digital business model transformations.

Finally, I would like to thank everybody who participated in the survey.  With over 300 survey responses, the reaction from industry has been phenomenal.  This uptake demonstrates how important this topic is for industry.  In addition, the support from the teams at Husqvarna, Dyson, Stannah Stairlifts, SKF and TI Automotive in defining the scope of the survey was essential to success of the PLMPulse Survey.

Nicholas Leeder

Co-Founder of PLMPulse, Owner of Nick Leeder &Co Limited and i42R BV

"PLM needs to be recognized as a business system alongside ERP to the least… managers should commit to the promotion of PLM within and outside their organisation…”

PLMPulse Chapter 2

Report Highlights

Business Use of PLM

Is PLM predominantly used by Engineering functions or is there a wider adoption in organisations?

0 %
The use of PLM in the business is still dominated by Engineering functions
  • PLM has yet to be adopted more widely in the enterprise, with the main functional use in Engineering departments and information centred around technical product information.  
  • The usability of the PLM tools and breadth of information may be limiting its wider adoption in the business.

PLM Value Case

Is the value case behind PLM clear and tangible for many organisations?

> 0 %
The business case behind the investments in PLM was “intangible”
  • Most businesses report that the benefits case for PLM is either intangible or the investment was based on a “must do” need.   The focus of the investment is typically cost down, rather than value creation.
  • Flexible subscription licensing models present short-term cost reduction opportunities, the adoption of cloud solutions is still very low.

Organisational Readiness

What is the readiness of organisations to elevate and refine the role of PLM?

0 %
Has a functional Executive is accountable PLM.
  • There is significant resistance to the adoption of PLM in organisations, even if the benefits are understood. This may be driven by the lack of clear business and executive ownership to support the change in the organisation.  
  • Most projects are focused on cross-functional process changes. However, the greatest barrier to transformation is reported as modifications to current processes.

Value of Information

Are organisations able to extract value from PLM information through insight and analytics?

0 %
Are unable to access information in PLM to analyse it
  • Whilst PLM vendors provide tools to analyse PLM information, few companies utilise them past very basic ad-hoc searches. Reporting and Analytics from PLM is typically via extracts and Excel based reports, potentially leading to data integrity issues.
  • Therefore, not surprisingly few companies have connected PLM to their big data strategy.

Future of PLM

Will PLM and Internet of Things unleash new value potential for organisations?

0 %
Current PLM implementation was not ready to support IoT
  • The future of PLM is linked to the Internet of Things (IoT) and the majority of responders aim to connect it to their digital strategy. Yet most companies report their PLM implementation is neither ready for IoT nor there is a near term plan to change.
  • The greatest barriers are reported as clarity of PLM’s role, especially with other enterprise systems. New “buzz-word” terms are causing more confusion.
PLMPulse Exec Logo

And diving a little deeper…

Business use of PLM

Is PLM predominantly used by Engineering functions or is there a wider adoption in organisations?

The use of PLM in the business is still dominated by Engineering functions, with 59% of responses indicating the main use by engineering functions and 68% stating it was the main storage of technical product information.

The “L” in PLM refers to “Lifecycle”, yet few companies report PLM supporting their business with product information or usage once it has left their manufacturing facilities.  One reason for this restricted use may be the complexity of the PLM tools and the investment in training.  86% of responses indicated PLM was “complex” or difficult to use.

Is the value case behind PLM clear and tangible for many organisations?

Over 50% of the responses indicated that the business case behind the investments in PLM are either “intangible” or have been made on a “must do” basis. Clearly this presents organisations with a challenge to demonstrate any tangible ROI on their investment, with 26% reporting their cases were tangible.

The focus of the investments made by the respondents is cost reduction, with efficiency of of process (not IT) being the driver.  26% of the responses also state that their investments in PLM are also focus on supporting new revenue streams, which moves PLM from an efficiency drive to a value creator in organisations.

The traditionally high costs of PLM investments have been historically seen as a barrier to a positive ROI.  60% of the responses state the subscription models for PLM software licensing as a must have or important to remove this software investment of perpetual license models.  Only 6% of respondents state they have implemented cloud solutions to remove the investment costs of infrastructure.  Security has been sighted as the main reason.

What is the readiness of organisations to elevate and refine the role of PLM?

PLM projects typically are transformational in their nature.  41% of companies report their PLM projects are transforming cross-functional processes.  36% of organisations report that to have acceptance of the projects, the benefits needs to be localised within the departments. 23% of respondents report changes to current to processes as creating a high resistance to acceptance.
One challenge to drive the changes from PLM projects is clear functional ownership in the business.  50% of respondents state that PLM has either mixed or no clear functional ownership in the business.  Only 11% report that a functional Executive is accountable PLM.
When then barriers to maximising the benefits from the projects are examined, 88% of respondents state resistance to change as highly impacting benefits realisation97% report that having siloed business processes creates barriers to benefits.

Are organisations able to extract value from PLM information through insight and analytics?

Being able to access the information from PLM systems enables companies to create value from it.  62% of survey respondents state that they are unable to access or have to exact information from PLM tools to analyse it.  Only 19% of respondents report using the PLM software vendors tools.  That said, 66% of respondents stated that the vendors did provide tool to access and analyse PLM data, but the complexity of the tool was barrier to their use.
66% of the respondents stated that either no or only basis Key Performance Indicators (KPI) were taken from PLM.  13% of responses took no KPI information from PLM and 29% used basic part data.  It was uncommon for companies to use PLM to measure information such as cost or projects status.
Given the hype around ”Big Data”, 36% of respondents reported their companies not having a formalised strategy in this area and a further 24% did not have PLM connected to it.  Only 15% respondents stated that PLM was connected to their strategy.

Will PLM and Internet of Things unleash new value potential for organisations?

It is often heard that the future of PLM is the Internet of Things (IoT).  38% of the respondents reporting that PLM was not included in their IOT strategy or would be in the future.  A similar percentage reporting that PLM was included and a key part.
59% of the respondents did state that their current PLM implementation was not ready to support IoT and had no or only long term plans to change.  Only 7% of companies state their PLM implementation was ready to support IoT.
On reason for the lack of adoption of PLM into companies IoT strategies is the clarity of the role in an Enterprise.  84% of responses stated that the lack of clarity of PLM’s role vs. other enterprise systems like ERP was a barrier to enable their IoT initiatives.  Further, 43% stated that new terms associated with PLM enabling IoT (like Digital Twin etc) were creating more confusion.

In Conclusion

The legacy use of PLM in Engineering functions and the associated complexities of it use have led to organisations limiting it broader us and the expanding the information that the PLM tools contain. The results show that most organisations struggle to tangibly demonstrate the benefits of PLM.  The main focus of benefits being the increase of efficiencies and cost reduction, rather than creation of new value or revenues.

If PLM is to expand outside of Engineering and have a wider adoption in organisations, it is clear from the results the accountability of the information and tools need to be elevated out of the Engineering or IT departments and into the board room.  It is at executive level that the duplicity of local process protection vs. the scope of cross-functional process change can be addressed and wider benefits be delivered.

Legacy PLM systems contain a wealth for product information which could be critical for the enablement of digital and IoTstrategies.  Most organisations have not started to the journeys to connect their PLM environments into this fundamental business shift.  PLM vendors and consultancies still have have some way to go to help companies accelerate its adoption.  The current focus of new technologies and terms is not clear enough for business to embrace.

Full Report Contents

  1. FOREWORD
  2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
  3. BACKGROUND
  4. ORGANISATIONAL USE OF PLM
  5. THE VALUE CASE BEHIND PLM
  6. ORGANISATIONAL READINESS FOR PLM
  7. DRIVING VALUE FROM PLM INFORMATION
  8. THE FUTURE OF PLM WITH INTERNET OF THINGS
  9. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
  10. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PLMPulse