While I am waiting for our technical staff to free up to begin our in-depth review of Engineering versus Manufacturing based PLM solutions I thought I would introduce a discussion about Engineering organizations and their need to communicate with other groups inside and outside a product development company. Historically, engineering groups have tended to keep to themselves and view outside communication as a necessary evil and an inconvenience. This communication might be in the form of a drawing or even a CAD model or viewable. It involved a manual process where the information was transferred from the native environment of engineering via a network drive, an email, ftp or even via paper. Terms like "silos of information", "black box", and "Bermuda triangle of product development" were often used. One of the more prevalent terms used was "Island of Automation".

Most engineers tend to embrace technology and are early adopters of solutions that help them work more efficiently. So often (not always) the engineering organization might be ahead of the rest of the company when it comes to having their information organized and secured in a data management technology. In fact, tools like Pro/Engineer, UG, Catia and SolidWorks almost require a system be in place to control access to information. Once you get beyond about five users it becomes very difficult to control versions of files particularly if multiple people will be accessing the same data. So by necessity engineering groups adopted product data management solutions to address these issues. Unfortunately, it was a very rare thing for an engineering group to expose these systems to anyone outside of engineering. Usually the data management tool itself was ill suited for anyone outside of engineering anyway. Thus the "island of automation" The CAD vendors addressed the issue by making the island bigger enhancing or replacing the CAD PDM applications with a more robust solution and manufacturing oriented vendors responded by building bridges to the island via CAD integration. This article will contrast the approaches and the implications of each.

I attended the University of Texas and one of our pastimes is to tell jokes about one of our rival schools Texas A&M. They are known as "Aggie" jokes. A&M is an excellent university and they are particularly strong in Engineering disciplines but the jokes are always at their expense. I am not above just telling Aggie jokes for fun but this one is actually relevant. Two Aggies were flying a small plane and determined they were running low on fuel and needed to land immediately. They were in the Houston, Texas area so they radioed the tower of one of the large airports in Houston to request clearance to land. The controller immediately cleared them for a runway. The Aggie pilot made an approach and after seeing the runway requested a larger runway. The controller was confused and replied that they were able to land large jets on this runway and that it was the best they could do. The Aggie responded that considering their fuel situation they would have no choice but to attempt to land on the runway. As the plane attempted to land it indeed ran off the end of the runway. Fortunately the plane was intact and both the pilot and his companion were unhurt. The Aggie pilot looked at his friend and said, "See I told you that runway was too short!" his friend replied, "Yeah, but it sure was a wide sucker." Recently someone pointed out to me a study from Aberdeen Group titled "Product Lifecycle Management Solutions AXIS for Hardgoods Manufacturers". This study is broad in its reach and as these types of studies goes is well written and researched. However, if you really delve into the contents it much like our Aggie pilot's runway lacks depth. As we embark on what I hope is a "deep dive" into PLM and the different philosophies and approaches I thought it would be worthwhile to look at one of the more ambitious attempts to clarify value and functionality among PLM solutions and where this study falls short in providing clients with assistance in determining the appropriate PLM solution for their company.

When I was a kid I was always fascinated with the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. The technology they developed to go deep down in the ocean was amazing. I recently heard James Cameron speak at SolidWorks World and he discussed his innovations to allow for the exploration and salvage of the Titanic. He also spoke of new technology that will allow vehicles to fully explore the Mariana Trench, the deepest known part of the world's oceans. That will obviously be the deepest dive ever. The term deep dive has also become synonymous with a thorough review of technologies. We use it often to indicate a meticulous breakdown of a particular subject matter. Obviously in the context of the discussions I began previously on engineering based PLM and manufacturing based PLM a deep dive would indicate a breakdown of the characteristics of the two PLM technologies and the benefits and shortcomings of each approach. Before we embark on our voyage on our own virtual Calypso(Jacques' boat) I wanted to outline the approach we will take to analyze each PLM platform.

My eight year old son is currently mesmerized by Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and is eagerly awaiting the movie. In the book the gods of the Greek and Roman Pantheon battle with their unique abilities which results in epic conflict. Currently in the PLM space there seem to be two types of PLM solutions that vie for supremacy with their unique abilities. Several solutions including Windchill PDMLink from PTC and Teamcenter from UG/Siemens have their origins in computer aided design (CAD) and derive a lot of their structure directly from engineering data. Alternatively, products like Agile, Matrix Enovia, and Arena are driven by the bill of material and seem to be more focused on the manufacturing side of organizations. It presents an interesting dichotomy. All of these products fall under the same label and presumably address the same business challenges but do so in a significantly different way. Whether its lightning bolts or tridents slaying inefficiencies in product development processes is no trivial feat. Potential customers need to fully understand the benefits and disadvantages each type of PLM presents so they can determine the best approach for their environment. This article will begin a series on exploring the capabilities of these applications in the context of engineering versus manufacturing. We will tap a number of content experts as we take a deeper dive into the core structures of the engineering and manufacturing based PLM solutions. This first article will lay the ground work and establish the context for the remaining articles in the series.