I have to admit that as I age I struggle with my fitness and weight. I once could eat whatever I wanted with little consequence and could jump in and out of exercise programs without wrecking my body. Back in the day, I was an avid cyclist and swimmer. At one point I was swimming 2 hours a day in the University of Texas Master swimming program. But these days I am consumed with the responsibilities of a family and work, and it leaves little energy to take care of myself. Ironically by neglecting my physical well being, I am hindering my ability to be a good husband, father and CEO. I think companies struggle with the same issues I do. They become complacent when it comes to business practices and are so busy with their day-to-day activities they neglect the systems and processes that support product development. This article will be the first of a 12 week series paralleling my own journey toward personal fitness with the steps a company needs to take to become “PLM Fit”.

Kerrie Jordan wrote an interesting article that I think mirrors some of the points I want to make about PLM ownership and how companies can maximize the value of their investment. Kerrie’s article is focused on how applying PLM in the right manner yields the highest value. The main takeaway from her article is that good product development doesn’t happen by accident. Purchasing a PLM system and using some sort of rapid deployment methodology doesn’t automatically guarantee results. Certainly having a PLM tool is important, but without a plan for today and tomorrow you could find yourself to use Kerrie’s analogy staring at a patch of weeds. Fitness is similar in this way. One must have a plan and the discipline to stick with it. If you leave things to chance they will most likely get put off or just dropped entirely. I have identified that I need events to work toward to make my fitness meaningful and to keep me motivated. Given my background in swimming and cycling, a triathlon seems to make a lot of sense as something to work towards. We must look for similar types of events in PLM that companies can work towards to get the most value out of their investment.

Unfortunately, one cannot wake up one day and decide to participate in a triathlon and expect good results. There is a process to follow in order to ensure success and to avoid injury or death. There are basic elements of fitness that need to be in place to make sure you are physically ready to compete in an event and not end up in the medical tent. The first place I started was with my diet. As I mentioned, I do have a fairly accomplished background in swimming and cycling but I absolutely hate running. Firstly, I am not built for it. Weighing in north of 200 pounds trudging around can be a fairly painful experience for me. If I am going to be able to compete in an event like this I need to change my diet and lighten the load on my feet. As we all know this is easier said than done, so I decided to reset my body with a juice cleanse. In my research, there were indications that this would help rid my body of unhealthy food cravings so that I could make better choices in my diet. I did successfully complete this activity and I think it does help. You realize how your body becomes accustomed to sugars and other chemicals when you shift away from processed foods. I was trying to come up with a PLM parallel to the juice cleanse and I have to admit at first I drew a blank, but then it occurred to me that a body converts food into energy and the higher quality the food is then more energy is generated. Similarly, PLM is fed by data and the higher quality and volume of data the more value PLM contributes to the organization. A few weeks back I read an article on Linkedin titled “Stop Wasting Time Fixing Your PLM”. There wasn’t much to the article but the core point was that if your data is bad there is not much you can do to fix your software. The author suggested focusing on fixing the data first and then worrying about the configurations of the PLM. I think this is sound advice so one of the first steps in achieving PLM fitness should be to evaluate the quality of data that is currently in the system and the standards that are in place to ensure quality data into the future.

How does one go about auditing data in a PLM? There are some fairly straightforward scripts and reports that can be run against existing information to identify inconsistencies with data entry, missing fields, etc. This would be a good place to start but beyond that there is a mindset that should be embraced. “All Digital Mindset” is a term coined in an excellent article by Ajay Chavati and Kevin Prendville from Accenture. They point out in today’s world viewing the PLM as a substitute for a filing cabinet is a path to lost productivity. Linear process is no longer a competitive way to do business and in order to concurrently develop products, all information needs to be digital and it needs to be managed in PLM. If your organization still maintains separate silos for certain types of information then your ability to achieve PLM fitness is severely handicapped much in the same way that I continue to fuel my body with cookies and ice cream. The article emphasizes this perspective with this quote “By embracing digital like never before, product developers will become fully integrated digital businesses and, therefore, well position themselves to be more competitive.” The article continues, “PLM processes span original conception of a product through its servicing phase until it ceases operations. Digital PLM elevates these PLM processes to higher levels of efficiency, productivity, and intelligence than the previous linear model.” One of the most interesting points in the article is that companies are no longer just collecting data and vaulting it. They are designing systems to get the right data. What this means on a practical level is that they are designing their PLM systems to enforce standards for data collection that ensure the right meta data is attached and that meaningful reports can be generated from this information. Fit PLM systems encompass all conceptual design and engineering information and are fully integrated with ERP. Analytics are in place to monitor trends so that executives can make accurate decisions on product development and assess their company’s ability to execute efficiently. Granted this is not something that is widespread at the moment but numerous companies are well on their way to putting this approach in place.

What I can guarantee is if you don’t have a plan to get there it will never happen. Without a PLM fitness roadmap most companies will continue to progress unsteadily and fall short of their potential. Recognizing that data quality is a cornerstone to PLM success and that getting that information filtered and accurate is critical. Identifying gaps where product data is absent from the system is equally critical. Coming up with an approach where all information flows through the PLM including conceptual, engineering, project execution, quality, compliance, etc. will ensure that everyone is working together and that a complete view of product development is available. Hopefully I can have the discipline to ensure that I am providing my body with the proper foods in a similar fashion so that I can achieve my objectives. Stay tuned to find out and to learn what other steps you can take to become PLM fit.