What do Oreos and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) have in common? Both have emerging trends capturing our attention these days. While I'm not in a position to forcast the next Oreo flavor, I have a unique opportunity to watch the evolution of the PLM industry and see trends emerging before they are mainstream. One of my responsibilities here at Zero Wait-State is presales – product demonstrations, which means once we’ve identified an engineering data problem with a customer or prospect, it’s my job to show them solutions. This translates into me demoing our products or the third-party products we support, implement or integrate to. Over the years the demos I have been asked to present have changed. Previously, I was consistently seeing the need for new PLM implementations or additional PLM modules and demoing to those needs. In the past 6 months, however, I’ve seen a shift in the demo requests, indicating the trends in PLM are shifting as well. This blog will discuss the new trends in PLM and how I see the near future playing out.

The demos I have been asked to present in recent months have overwhelmingly been to address the following  and to accomplish these without having to engage specialized IT resources to perform the tasks. And, I can confidently say these trends are pervasive across our industry, regardless of segment.

1. Connecting native CAD PDM tools to enterprise PLM
2. Integrating cloud-based apps to on-premise or cloud-based PLM systems
3. Sharing Agile PLM data in a company-specific format
4. Reducing the number of one-off, hard-coded PXs yet still being able to tailor PLM systems to company-specific desired business outcomes

Professional, Propel and other cloud PLM systems. The powerful XML based rules engine increases customization opportunities and sophistication. I think we can all agree that seamless bi-directional integration between PDM and PLM improves everyone's productivity. Direct integration between native CAD PDM and PLM is less disruptive to engineers than third-party CAD to PLM integrations. Engineers are also able to leverage the rich suite of functions and tight integration a native PDM system has with its CAD counterpart. The learning curve is steep and short (steep and short are good) – users quickly and easily learn the few new menu picks that synchronize data between the two systems (data that includes part numbers, attributes, bills of materials, attachments and change process information).

Trend #2: Integrating cloud-based apps to on-premise or cloud-based PLM systems
The move to cloud based PLM (and in some cases cloud based CAD/PDM) necessitates an integration that resides in the cloud. We saw this trend emerging months ago and thus created CloudState, a cloud-based integration framework for cloud-to-on-prem and cloud-to-cloud applications. Examples are Onshape (MCAD) to Oracle Agile PLM (on-prem PLM) integration or to PropelPLM (Cloud PLM). In short, CloudState is DesignState in the cloud, but has the potential to be an integration framework for many different applications beyond PDM to PLM.

Trend #3: Sharing Agile PLM data in a company-specific format
Agile admins want to be able to create and customize reports that go beyond the capabilities of out-of-the-box reporting in Agile, while not having to engage specialized IT resources to do it. Executives want automated company branding so they spend less time formatting the data and more time interpreting the results. We had so many customers, both from the IT and business sides request this, that we built a PLM report generator and named it DocState. In a nut shell, this software solution  extracts data from PLM to fill report templates in HTML, Word, Excel, and other formats so that your PLM reports conform to company-specific branding and document styles. Here’s how it works. DocState  extracts relevant PLM data,  uses a report template to transform it into a format such as CSV or XML, pushes it into another business system, and later performs the reverse actions to pull data updates back in PLM. At ZWS, we use DocState for our own business processes to generate statements of work, and integrate both Zendesk and Trello to Agile PLM, among other things. DocState leverages the Apache Freemarker template engine to make it easy for admins to create and modify WYSIWYG templates without the need to engage IT resources to write complicated code for new or modified reports.

Trend #4: Reducing the number of one-off, hard-coded PXs yet still being able to tailor PLM systems to company-specific desired business outcomes
The final emerging trend – to reduce the number of PXs in Agile, while still being able to customize it the way our customers need to – is covered by AttributeState, which leverages PLM events to update attribute information based on logical conditions. It provides a framework for customizing and automating critical steps in the PLM processes — including change control, release to manufacturing, and new product introduction. AttributeState enables admins to apply plain text rules to their PLM system; streamline site, plant, or product type enrichment of item and bill of materials (BOM) data using easily configurable rules; transform an engineering BOM to a manufacturing BOM with a simple menu pick; automate the BOM validation process; ensure data quality by enforcing field entry via policy; eliminate the need for hard-coded custom process extensions (PXs); remove the need for manual data entry; eliminate the need for re-writing PXs when you upgrade your PLM platform. Like DocState, AttributeState removes the need to engage hard-to-get IT resources to achieve the above capabilities.

What this all means to me is that PLM use is maturing and users are looking for ways to enhance their PLM experience, without having to move off adjacent applications they like, or having to engage IT resources for customizations or reports. The trend is to find partners who can help them to achieve these goals with real solutions while reducing complexity. The days of settling for out-the-box are ending quickly and you can have PLM built for you. Today.

Now, I'm heading to the grocery store to find more Oreos!

Author Mike Halladay oversees presales activities, provides product demonstrations, and delivers customer training at Zero Wait-State. An accomplished engineer, he has significant experience in Data Management gained from years of hosting Data Management specific seminars throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Having an extensive Oracle background, he is responsible for deploying Oracle's Agile PLM EC module for ZWS clients.