Pick a Process to Improve

PLM supports product innovation, product development, product management, and engineering processes of all kinds. Study after study shows that standardization of processes is more common in top-performing companies. Standardized processes allow for consistency, sharing of best practices, and (hopefully) continuous improvement. PLM typically provides a strong workflow capability to support processes, and ties the process together with the underlying product and project data.

But which process to choose? It really depends on what problem you can solve that will help improve time to market, quality, efficiency, product cost or some combination of these. One of the consistent irritations (and more importantly source of late designs, out of control costs and quality problems) is engineering change management. Managing change has all sorts of challenges, and provides a lot of opportunity for miscommunication and poor coordination. For a change to be succesful, it has to be:

• Technically correct - the engineering decisions must be sound, and not create new problems.
• Commercially correct - the impact on manufacturing, inventory, service and the rest of the supply chain must be understood and considered.
• Propagated properly - the impact beyond the current product such as those that share components must be addressed
• Propagated fully - the impact beyond the product, including product documentation, manufacturing processes and the rest of the "whole product" must be taken into consideration
• Well communicated - the change may be well defined, but if it is not executed in a synchronized way across the supply chain, things can get worse instead of better

This is a lot to ask. The first step most companies address in change management is coordination and efficiency of the process. Making sure that the right people get the right data in a timely way, and that approvals and signoffs are automated. PLM can provide the automation layer for this, including centralized data and workflow. Beyond this, many companies are adopting an "Engineering Change 2.0" approach, which goes beyond efficiency and helps companies improve business decision-making around change management. The Aberdeen report 

• Get the right supporting product data to the right people in a timely manner
• Formally analyze the impact of change on the product across the lifecycle and the supply chain, including technical and commercial considerations
• Collaborate visually about product change with visualization and virtual meeting technology
• Develop and execute formal change implementation plans to put the decision into action

This just one more option to choose in finding your path to PLM, I'll suggest more in future posts. Remember, though, that our research shows that to gain the most benefit from PLM, even the first step should be a part of a bigger strategy (see previous posts on the PLM Program).

I look forward to your comments.