PLM
PLM definition for PCO Innovation
PLM is an enterprise strategy that includes processes and software tools.
Main objective are :
- optimize innovation
- support collaboration
- create, maintain, and share product definition through its lifecycle.
This business initiative includes the following :
- Complete lifecycle management : from requirements to product end of life
- Managing all components of complex systems : mechanical, electrical, electronic, hydraulic, and software components, ...
- Supporting related processes : requirement management, design processes, manufacturing process management, configuration management, maintenance and repair, project management,…
- Managing all product data : documents, BOM, manufacturing process data, configurations, effectivity, CAD, CAI, CAM, simulations, processes,...
- Support extended enterprise : customers, partners, subcontractors, and suppliers
Approach
This PLM strategy must be supported by a project that include key fundamentals :
- Opportunity study
define objectives and challenges, scope, and feasibility.
- Requirements
analysis of existing situation, business process re-engineering, identification of best practices, identification of business case.
- Concept definition and selection of PLM solution
description of the architecture of the target information system, Identify-Evaluate-Select a PLM solution.
- Functional specifications
acceptance scripts, preparing business transformation, definition of training and communications. At this stage, a COTS approach (component on-the-shelf) solution is preferable in order to minimize integration activities.
- Integration
detailed specifications, coding and testing, integration
- Acceptance and deployment
business approval of components and interfaces, performance testing and load balancing, setting of production environments, help desk preparation.
- Migration
migration strategy, migration tools, assistance data loading and cleansing.
- Operation
administration of environments, performance audit and optimization, help-desk support, maintenance, bug resolving, deployment of new release, non-regression testing
Key success factors
Business transformation management
A PLM project is a business project and can be very structural. This transformation is supported on different levels: business process, organization, data and business object model and tools, …
- Anticipate and manage stakeholder regarding resistance to change
- Support the right level of communication during the change process
- Manage education to ensure an appropriate use of the product based on specific training materials
- Coach and support : change must be measured efficiently
Convergence
The success of a PLM project also involves usage of best practices and the solutions that support them, primarily a OOTB approach: out of the box implementation of PLM software (as opposed to customized software). This approach leads to the need to support convergence of business needs to best practices in order to be as close as possible of standard PLM solutions.
- Adapt business processes to avoid heavy customization
- Iterative prototyping to validate compliance with the PLM tool
- Prepare organization to reduce the risk that the solution be rejected by end users
Migration
In most cases, the success of this kind of project needs migration of existing data to the PLM solution (totally or partially). Usually, target object model differs from the existing one. This makes the migration strategy essential.
Prerequisites to deploying a new PLM :
- Define a migration strategy
- Select data to be transferred
- Scope and size of data that will be migrated
- Define migration methodology
