Welcome to this week’s TBT post. Originally published 7 years ago today,
I’d love to hear your current thoughts on the PLM systems I use for examples.

Recently I had the privilege of attending the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, one of the largest rodeos in the world. Yes, that is me with the cowboy hat. I am a native Texan and entitled to wear one when I see fit. The occasion was my son's 9^th birthday and my wife thought that he would enjoy listening to the dulcet tones of the Jonas Brothers. For those of you who do not have children between the ages of 6-12, the Jonas Brothers are the latest Disney manufactured "band" that is all the rage amongst pre-pubescents. I was not optimistic about this concert. After a few opening screeches by their "special guest" Demi Lovato (another Disney pseudo singer) they took the stage and the crowd of pre-teens roared. After a few songs, I noticed my very cynical "to cool for school" 13-year-old daughter starting to dance around and believe it or not I found myself tapping my foot to the beat. Musically, these guys are decent — they are not Pink Floyd or the Eagles — but they are not bad. They have a lot of energy and a decent variety to their songs. All in all, I hate to say it, but I actually kind of enjoyed the concert. They were a hard-working group and put in a lot of effort to ensure their fans came away entertained.

As I was reflecting on the evening I realized, while I enjoyed myself, the music lacked substance and staying power. I can't remember any of the songs and it wasn't like the subject matter was actually profound. It was adequate — much like entry-level PLM solutions such as Arena or Omnify. These products appear to be functional, and at first blush, do a decent job of vaulting information and providing a framework for a small company. In fact, when compared to higher end tools, it is difficult to determine the differences. Unfortunately, over time the glamour fades and you are stuck with a limited tool and are forced to compromise methodology to accommodate the shortcomings of your technology. I have worked with many start-up companies who were lured by the siren's song of the low-cost PLM solution only to crash upon the rocks of limited functionality as their organizations grew. So, when it comes to music or PLM, it is best to invest in the established players. I will take Rascal Flatts and their stack of platinum albums any day over the Jonas Brothers. In this article, I will highlight a few specific examples of why it is dangerous to scrimp on your PLM.

As a disclaimer, my knowledge about these entry-level applications is based on feedback I receive from my customers. I do not have any specific firsthand experience with these entry-level solutions. I have, however, been involved with numerous companies who do own these technologies and have worked with some current and former employees of these vendors, so my exposure is pretty significant. The first statement I want to make in regards to these types of solutions is that even a flawed PLM solution is better than no PLM solution at all. One of the benefits of an application like Arena or Omnify is that they lower the barrier to entry for a lot of companies. Many companies do not have the resources or level of experience to adopt a solution like TeamCenter, PDMLink or Agile. So, if your choice is to forgo PLM because of the cost, then these solutions are worth exploring as a way to get started. On the other side of the coin, once you get started with any PLM solution, it is very difficult to switch. Even though these entry-level solutions have limited configuration capabilities, they do require a significant amount of time to set up for a specific company. You have things like access control, vault structure, part numbering, workflow, and legacy data migration that are all significant time investments and will make you loathe to switch to another solution any time soon. For some companies this will not be a big deal but for companies that evolve into bigger and or more complex entities, it will force compromises in the way they design products and utilize their technology. And, this compromise can quickly wipe out any initial savings they may have realized from purchasing an entry-level PLM solution.

Let's delve a little into the differences between an entry-level solution and a more robust PLM technology. One of the first areas in which you will notice a difference between PLM solutions is security. Higher-end PLM solutions have a much more granular security model than entry-level applications. Initially this is usually not an issue, but as you grow more confident with the technology, you will want to make the system available to more people, and this will require more specific security roles which usually are not supported. In fact, some of the higher-level PLM solutions have shortcomings in this area. Coupled closely with the security model is the data model. As I have mentioned in previous articles, some of these systems are specifically architected to store complex data sets. Obviously, PTC and Siemens technology are structured for relational binary data to be stored in the system alongside the meta-data and Bill of Material (BOM) information. Even Agile has had a recent overhaul to include a "design object" in their data model to store CAD information. Arena has no such capability, and given the fact it is a hosted solution, beyond the lack of architecture is a bandwidth issue. Even PTC has struggled with performance for their on-demand solutions and large assemblies. I think if your company has large and complex assemblies, Arena is probably not a good option. In fact, if your plan is to vault any binary information, you need to take a hard look at how well these systems perform because it will be a critical aspect of user adoption and long term viability for the system.

Another area of concern is workflow process support. One of the ways that entry-level solutions keep the cost down is by limiting the number and type of processes they support for workflow. Granted, this is also a pitch from the high-end solutions to keep initial deployment cost down, but at least you have the option of adding or changing processes in the future. It is vital that you look at these capabilities with a jaded eye and try and envision future needs. If the processes are locked down or difficult to modify, this can become crippling as you move forward. I have seen numerous companies forgo change management or workflow in general and just use these low-end PLM tools as vaults because of these types of shortcomings.

The last area I will identify is integration. A PLM solution typically works with a number of other systems within an organization including CRM, CAD, and ERP technologies. High-end applications offer an integration platform and some, such as Oracle, even offer their own CRM and ERP solutions that are integrated to Agile. This tends to be an area of weakness for low-end PLM tools. They claim to have CAD integration but I have yet to see anyone using Omnify or Arena with a relational CAD solution like Pro/Engineer or Solidworks. ERP integration is usually one-way via an xml or ascii file and most don't have modules for dealing with the information coming from the CRM. Another issue that is related to this — particularly for the on-premise solutions — is they typically don't have the architecture to support external supply chain partners. Security is a concern but replicated vaults and optimization for wide area networks (WANs) are also limiting issues.

To summarize, I have just brushed the surface of the differences between low-end PLM solutions and more robust technologies. The breadth and capabilities of these more expensive applications can be subtle when you are first assessing these tools. As your scope expands and your business grows, these oversights can become problematic and the pain of switching PLM solutions midstream can be significant. If at all possible, it is best to plan ahead when evaluating these tools and to invest for the future and not limit yourself. When you are on ITunes looking for music choices, the Jonas Brothers cost the same as the Righteous Brothers. In the PLM world, the cost is significantly different, but in the end, a low-end PLM can end up costing your company significantly more in lost productivity.