PLM ELEMENTS

• PLM can not be simply bought as a Software

Application, though software forms an integral
part of PLM
• People, Technology and Processes/Practices
are all integral to PLM
• In definition of PLM, we called it an “Approach”
and a “System”
• Three elements namely People, Technology and
Processes/Practices make up such an
Approach/System

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 PROCESS/PRACTICE vs
TECHNOLOGY MATRIX
• While people and their processes/practices have
been around for a long time, Information
Technology is relatively recent introduction.
• It is a key enabler that allows us to do tasks that
are not impossible, but surely impracticable
without IT
• But people and their processes/practices are also
a prime necessity in implementing PLM
• IT, however enables people to perform their
processes & practices in a more efficient manner

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PLM PROJECT OUTCOMES
P Good Results Good Results
R
O High Lower efficiency Higher efficiency
C High ROI
E
S
S
Low Poor Results Limited Results
E Poor efficiency Low ROI
S

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• Look at previous slide
• This shows a matrix of the impact of low &
high IT utilization against the low & high
process/practice development
• IT includes all manners of Information
Technology -- from manual paper &
records to sophisticated computer
applications & systems
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• Low end IT refers to paper & manual systems
whereas high end refers to on line computer
based systems
• Low process/practice development refers to
processes & practices that are Ad hoc,
undefined or spontaneous
• High process/practice development refers to
processes & practices development that is
continually being analyzed, refined and
improved

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• In the lower left quadrant – low IT & low
process/practice development, the result is a
great deal of wasted time, energy & material
• It exhibits very poor efficiency where there is a
high employee turnover
• Even routine, standardized tasks are performed
differently by the same people
• There is a great deal of trial & error
• Any information learnt is immediately lost
• Wastage of time, energy & material is high
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• In the lower right quadrant – high IT & low
process/practice development, the result is
limited results and low ROI
• Finding solutions in high IT but without proper
processes & practices does not lead to
improvement in efficiency
• Employees will exert least possible effort in
working with the system. Entering data &
information will not be complete / correct
• They will have no use or interest for the
information develop by the system

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• There may be some useful discipline
imposed through the use of IT but due to
poor processes any task structuring &
efficiency will be lost
• Low ROI is a result of efficiency gains from
task improvement being off set by poor
processes & practices
• In PLM scenario it will lead to poor and
even counter- productive results
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• In the Top left quadrant – low IT & high
process/practice development, it leads to
Good result but lower efficiency
• Well defined processes that are
continually improved organization can get
good results
• Good results mean decrease in waste of
time, energy & material
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• Best example of this is Toyota’s Total
Production Systems (TPS)
• TPS uses simple IT such as kanban cards
that pull inventory from the previous cell
• TPS continues to analyze, improve &
document its processes.
• Toyota also spends great deal of time &
effort to train its people on processes
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• Some people think that this approach of using
low technology with highly developed
processes / practices would be
– Successful in a deterministic set up like Factory
where Processes rule
– It will NOT be successful in a design & engineering
functional area where Practices rule
• Toyota has successfully implemented in its
design & engineering functions
• However low technology demand employing
more people
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• In the Top Right quadrant –high IT & high
process/practice development, the result is
Good with higher ROI and higher efficiency.
• IT is used to implement continually improving
Practices & Processes
• For information processing, technology is more
suited than people & paper
• Further processes & practices can be simulated
in virtual space, saving the cost of wasted time,
energy and material

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 ELEMENTS OF PLM
• Process / Practice versus Technology matrix is
conditioned on one main factor – people.
• It holds true if people are motivated and act with
good intensions & competence in making the
process/practice & information technology work
• If they do not, best processes/practices and
information technology will fail
• Well intentioned people will make mediocre/
poor processes/practices & IT work for them
using fair amount of improvising

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 ELEMENTS OF PLM

PEOPLE

PROCESSES
TECHNOLOGY PRACTICES

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• In the above slide people have been
shown in the top of the triangle to indicate
their dominant role
• However all the three elements must
perform individually & work together
cohesively for implementation of PLM

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• People have some characteristics which
we need for PLM to be successful
• There are also some characteristics that
will limit their effectiveness
• The relevant practices of people to be
considered are
– Capabilities
– Change Capacity
– Organization
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 CAPABILITIES
• People have a wide range of capabilities
• Some have limited capabilities suitable for
simple, uncomplicated, well defined task
• Others have robust capabilities that allow
them to engage in efficient goal
achievement even under ambiguous and
uncertain circumstances

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• These capabilities are determined by
– Experience

– Education & Training

– Support

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 EXPERIENCE
• Experience is accumulating information &
knowledge about different situations in
order to be able to trade off information for
wasted time, energy & material
• As humans, every time we experience &
learn from encountering a situation or
performing a task
• We find out quicker and easier ways to do
the task as the time progresses
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• Our experience allows us to reduce such time,
predict outcomes with higher probability or
success & pick right routines for the right
situations
• For example if we have experience in
categorization of parts, we look through only
those categories of parts that perform the
function we want to add to a new product
• Similarly if we have experience with the order of
assembly, we know which of the sequences can
be done in the least amount of time
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• Experience is an individual characteristics
• If the individual lives, so does the
experience
• But if we can capture the experience by
recording it in virtual space, we have
opportunity to impart this experience to
others
• PLM takes it a step further by embedding
experience in to processes & routines
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• A caution about assessing experience
• Often people with 30 years’ experience really have one
years experience for 30 years’. This is to say their
experience level is equal to a person who has been on
the job for one year
• Such a person has been performing uncomplicated,
standardize tasks with little variability for 30 years’ he
reaches the limit of learning in short period of time
• Additional time on job adds no information or knowledge
• Thus we have to assess the variety & range of
experience and not simply the duration of the experience

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• In PLM we can trade information for time,
energy & material therefore our most
experience people will have the most
information about our products
• Capturing that information as they work
with the PLM applications will improve the
efficiency of the transition to PLM

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• May organizations have a knowledge gap in
their work force
• There are large number of people retiring in the
next few years
• There are also large number of in -experienced,
younger workers hire in recent years
• They do not have workers in the middle because
of down sizing in 1990s
• To capture the experience of soon to be retired
workers; only hope is PLM

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• PLM requires new & different ways of
approaching product information
• Our most experienced people may also be
most rigid people who resist new ways of
doing things
• Promise of PLM is not in duplicating the
old ways but finding a new way of doing
things
• This requires flexibility on part of people
25
• Organizations have no longer the luxury of
time & cost of waiting for people to gain
experience
• Increasing product complexity &
decreasing cycle times mean that we have
to gain more experience in less time

26
• Gaining experience is an expensive, passive &
unstructured activity
• Expensive because it requires a good deal of
time, energy & material to find the right solution
for a problem through trial & error
• Passive because activities where we gain
experience happen when they happen
• Unstructured because we do not plan for it
• Experience happens when we least expect them

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 EDUCATION & TRAINING
• One way to gain experience is to provide
people with education & training rather
than waiting for it to happen
• Education & Training are classical
applications of trading information for
wasted energy & material
• With training we teach people what to do
• With education we teach them why they
do it
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• Training is better suited to processes
• We want the same actions performed
each and every time to get the same
results each and every time
• Education is better suited to practices
• For practices we need to understand the
theories of inputs affecting outputs so that
we can separate the relevant factors from
the irrelevant ones
29
• Information that we collect within PLM can
greatly enhance the effectiveness of education &
training
• Using information in the virtual space we can
develop proactive & structured simulations that
will have the same effects as experienced for the
individuals at less expense
• Simulated activities have always played a role in
training for processes but they are also useful in
education for practices

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 SUPPORT
• The support that an individual is provided with
will also enhance or detract from his capabilities
• Support is an extension of education & training
but takes place during the execution of task &
not in preparation of the task
• Support is also a substitution of information for
wasted time, energy & material
• Unlike computers people tend to have
diminished recall for information the longer they
have not used it

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• Proper support can reduce the inefficiency of
searching & relearning process by providing
people with the information they need when they
need
• If processes are used periodically or in-
frequently we should provide support to avoid
waste in time in searching & relearning
• PLM are complex & affect complex processes. If
support is not provided people will become
inefficient & frustrated with PLM

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• For practices it may not be enough to provide
support through computer applications
• For practices that are part of PLM, enabling with
interpersonal communication should be
encouraged & not discouraged
• It may be challenging to identify & separate
support activates from wasted time but it is
necessary for successful implementation of PLM

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 CHANGE CAPACITY
• PLM requires a substantial amount of
change by people within the organization
• A determining factor in the success or
failure of PLM is the capacity for change
• Even If people are excited about PLM, it
may fade quickly if it taxes their capacity
for change

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• Following factors affect the capacity
for change of individuals:
– Magnitude & Timings of the change
– Ability of people to change
– Willingness of people to change

35
• Time & Attention are two scarce resources
which people do not have.
• People have only so much attention to give it to
their surroundings.
• This can be proved by driving on a stretch on a
highway while talking on a cell phone & in the
second case while not using the cell phone.
• We only have a certain amount of attention
available. Talking on a cell phone uses fair
amount of this attention which otherwise we
would have given to our surroundings.

36
• Changes required us to expend a substantial
amount of attention.
• More changes – more attention expended
• It is more difficult to make major changes than it
is to make minor changes
• Changes should be considered as cumulative.
Making a number of small changes can be more
taxing than making a single large change
• Cumulative magnitude of change also includes
changes being made in other functional areas

37
• We have to consider the magnitude of change
overall, and not just that of our initiative
• Therefore the timing of change is very important
so that they can be phased so as not to exceed
overall capacity of people
• Capacity for magnitude of change is like
stretching a muscle – the more it is stretch, more
flexibility or capacity it develops
• Phasing in the changes is a successful method
to overcome resistance to change

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• All people may have the capacity to
change but may not have the capability to
change
• People must be assisted whether they
have the correct education, training &
support in order to be able to make
changes
• In absence of such training & support
changes can fail
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• Willingness of people to change is an important
factor
• Many initiatives fail, not for faults in technologies
/ processes but because people are not
interested in having them succeed
• If people feel threatened by the new system or
are satisfied with the status quo, then their ability
to make changes is limited

40
• Willingness of people to change is based
on three major factors:
– Their belief systems
– Their reward & punishment systems
– Their available options
• People perform best when their actions
are consistent with their belief system
• Belief system can be personal or
organizational
41
• Reward and punishment system plays an
important role
• Work habits of people are determined by
their compensation system
• So best way to get people to do what we
want is to compensate them for the
behavior we want
• Punishment systems are effective at
preventing behavior
42
• Last factor affecting change are the
options people have
• If we allow the strongest option is no
change or status quo
• People should not be given choice
between using their old ways and the new
ways of doing things

43
 ORGANIZATION
• Two elements of organizational
considerations are Structure & Authority
Enablement
• Structure should encourage the flow of
information across functional areas
• Information should be shared by all
• Absence of this practice can only optimize
the subsystem and not the entire
organization
44
• If Authority in an organization exist fairly
high, then the decision to share
information will also be taken at that level
• People will be concerned about over
stepping their Authority & will not share
information
• This leads to silos & compartmentalization
• People must be empowered to share
information
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 PROCESS/PRACTICE
• Though Processes are very important,
Practices deserve equal attention
• Practices did not get much attention due
to:
– IT could only support Processes. Information
had to be highly structured to be Processes.
Practices required unstructured, free-form
information
– For structured processes, there is more
motivation to implement
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• It is important to differentiate between Process &
Practice
• If we del with a Practice as if it is Process – we
attempt to make it more efficient by removing
“Unnecessary” information & “Extraneous”
communication. This leads to reduced efficiency
• Processes & Practices can exist within the same
task
• Processes & Practices require different
approaches

47
 FOCUS ON PROCESS
• Process is a very important issue for PLM
to focus on
• More we can define processes the more
we can increase efficiency in a systematic
fashion
• It is difficult to define & measure practices
• We must analyze to separate processes
from practices where possible
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• Four issues for processes:
– We must have a deep & not superficial or
stylized understanding of our processes
– The processes must be defined in an explicit
manner & not in a tactic manner
– Processes must be reengineered for a digital
environment
– Processes must be integrated across the
organization
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• In practice most of the processes are
stylize
• To automate processes within the
organization analyst must find out how the
processes really work
• Unless there is a deep understanding of
how to processes really work, their
automation will not succeed
• Processes must be explicitly defined
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• suppose the process goes from A to B to C
• It is likely that the person doing process A
unofficially concerned with people doing
processes B & E because he knows that unless
he obtains that information work will come back
for revision
• For example – The design Engineers while
defining the product characteristics check with
the purchasing department for the available
vendors & specify only available products in to
the design
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• If such a process is automated it will stop
working because the people who are suppose to
be in the loop in the tactic processes no longer
have access to the information
• As a result, what was once a good working
system is now made to wok the way it is formally
defined
• This adds more work in to the environment by
becoming a formal, sequential & iterative
processes which is inefficient

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• Processes are not only build around the
information but also around how the
information is delivered
• In old systems presence or absence of the
paper would generate an action
• In digital environment even simple things
like signatures are to be enabled in a
digital manner as an indication that
approval has been made
53
• In organizations where workers are not
comfortable in digital environment the lack
of paper can cause great anxiety
• People may be interested to continue with
paper system as a reassurance or back up
• This leads to additional cost &
inefficiencies

54
• When product information was limited to a
specific function, processes could remain
independent & un integrated across functions
• In PLM scenario we have to see product
processes across the functional areas
• A change process defining the changed to a
product but does not alert manufacturing to this
change will be inefficient & waste time, material
& energy through rework or scrap

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 FOCUS ON PRACTICE
• Majority of information that we deal with on a
daily basis is unstructured
• There is fuzziness or incompleteness in that
information
• People make decisions on such information
through practices
• Practices are non-algorithmic, Judgmental
activities
• We have to find a pattern in a pool of seemingly
unrelated data & information

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• Information requirements are different for
practices & processes
• With processes, focus is on the movement from
state to state as quickly as possible
• With practice, the focus is on collecting data &
information at each state in order to build a pool
of information which will help recognition of
pattern in future
• However both processes & practices are part of
the task

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• For PLM goal is to provide the pool of data
& information & assist in discerning the
correct pattern
• For PLM the important factors for practice
are providing standards & guidelines,
capturing & categorizing exemplars &
providing reach interpersonal
communication & coordination

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• Ability for computers to handle
unstructured data has improved
grammatically over the last decade
• It is now feasible to crate standards &
guidelines that can support practices
• Standards & guideline can also be linked
to design & testing information to provide
& understanding of the rational for design
& approval decisions
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 TECHNOLOGY
• PLM is a heavily dependent on the
applications based on technology
• With continuous development, mergers &
acquisitions even the names of PLM
applications have changed
• Thus reference to a specific PLM
application would be familiar only to those
individuals with the long experience with
the industry
60
• Since there is large variety of applications
for different aspects of PLM, the functions
of such applications need to the assessed
• There are some issues regarding
Technology that are independent of any
particular application
• These issues pertain to the considerations
that any PLM application must take in to
account
61
• Issues involved are:
– PLM needs an adequate technology infrastructure
– PLM application should be open & harmonized with
other applications
– PLM applications must be configurable & not
customizable
– PLM applications must be useable and embedded
– PLM applications must be utility-like in their
performance

62
 INFRASTRUCTURE HURDLE
• This aspect is mostly ignored
• PLM with its requirement for access to
substantial amounts of math-based designs will
strain infrastructure that is not sized to handle it
• Shortage of infrastructure can cause slow
adoption or even failure of the project
• Infrastructure can be in terms of computing
capability, communication, bandwidth, storage &
people etc.

63
 OPEN, HARMONIZED
APPLICATIONS
• There is a large variety of product
information & its uses, as such no single
solution provider make over the entire
PLM
• Thus there will be a number of different
solutions in selected areas of expertise
• There may not be a single standard for
this & we should look for openness &
harmonization in their product offerings
64
• By openness we mean ability to
understand & use the information from the
applications at some level of granularity
• By harmonization we mean to have
different applications to be compatible with
one another so that information can be
shared/transferred

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 CONFIGURABLE, NOT
CUSTOMIZABLE
• Customize software is problematic for new
initiatives like PLM
• With a rapid changes any customization is
expensive & will delay adoption of new
application
• Configurable applications are the solutions
for the applications that are not customize
but are tailored to the organization that
acquires them
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 EMBEDDED AND USEABLE
• Applications should reflect the way that
people do their jobs & the technical
considerations must not overwrite uses
requirements
• If the applications are updated in a manner
that does not reflect the job processes &
practices, it leads to wasted time, energy
& material

67
• We must align our information technology with
our business processes & practices
• By embedding, the information system becomes
an integral part of the job processes & practices
• Application must reflect how job is done & not
how the programming is easily achieved
• Software developers’ needs must not be put
over the needs of the application users

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UTILITY-LIKE PERFORMANCE
• To capture, retrieve and use product
information should be simple & useable
like a utility
• Such applications must be reliable & work
each & every time the user “switches”
them on
• Absence of this will lead to alternate
means of a handling this information
resulting in wastage
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