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Presentations/Reports |
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PLM and Innovation: During the past several years, product development organizations have attempted to shift their strategic priorities from lowering product development costs and reducing cycle time (e.g. improving time-to-market), to finding ways to infuse greater innovation and differentiated features/capabilities into their products. The PLM technology vendors have likewise followed this trend by introducing products and services that support the desire for greater product innovation. But are companies really succeeding in delivering on the new “PLM Imperative” of innovation? Is top-line revenue growth accelerating for companies who purport to be following an innovation-centric PLM strategy? The evidence, while still anecdotal, suggests that very few companies are indeed succeeding in using PLM as an initiative to drive product innovation. One only has to look at the anemic top-line revenue growth rates, and the limited numbers of successful user testimonial cases to understand that innovation-centric PLM is little more than an ephemeral wisp for most companies. This begs the question, “Can PLM truly deliver on the promise of greater product innovation or is this simply a marketing slogan”? |
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PLM Action: For the last 10 years, the world of product development and its associated technologies has undergone a period of stagnation . Other than a minor up tick with the move towards distributed systems and Internet technologies, few development organizations have experienced the dramatic gains in productivity and competitiveness that vendors in the industry have long touted. The primary reason for this failure is that most technologies and strategies have been too narrowly focused on providing better task automation tools and capabilities for the engineer. The broader problem which must be addressed is how corporations can develop and deliver continuous innovation that can be manifested in great products that customers want to buy over and over again. This problem is obviously much broader in scope and requires a complete re-think about the processes and technology framework required. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is a business IT strategy that is focused on addressing the “big picture” problem of developing and delivering innovative products on a continuous basis. PLM A-C-T-I-O-N, is a strategic framework for architecting and implementing a PLM strategy. It encompasses 6 major imperatives that serve as the strategic cornerstones for constructing a PLM plan. The 6 imperatives are : Alignment of the IT investment strategy, Collaboration, Technology, Innovation, Lifecycle Opportunity and Intellectual Property. |