One-to-One: Getting PLM from your ERP Vendor - IFS Enters the Mix

I had the chance to talk with Rick Veauge, the Chief Technology
Officer of IFS about
their recent announcement that they are launching a CAD
integration and PDM tool as a part of their integrated ERP
suite. To be clear, they announced Product Data
Management (PDM) and not Product Lifecycle Management (PLM),
and they believe there are different scenarios where their customer
will choose one or the other. It was a good conversation, and I was
impressed with the fact that they are not trying to recreate PLM,
but instead feel they have a niche where they can serve their
customers better than anyone else can.

What do they Offer?
Specifically, IFS is launching a PDM solution that helps companies
manage their CAD data as an integrated part of their ERP system.
They are teamed up with a third party to leverage CAD
integration expertise by working with a respected company in the
CAD/PLM community. The resulting product will be a targeted
solution for their customer base that will serve the needs
of those that don’t need a full-blown PLM solution.
Instead, they are building a solution that will allow engineers to
check in/out CAD drawings to/from IFS directly from their CAD tool,
and quickly find and reuse designs. This will complement the
document management solution that IFS already offers.

Maybe it’s important to focus on what they aren’t building. IFS
recognizes that there are companies that have complex, global
product development environments that required sophisticated
collaboration and process management solutions. For
customers with those deeper PLM needs, they will continue to
integrate to their best of breed PDM or PLM solution as they have
in the past. I am impressed with IFS’ recognition and
acceptance that they will not provide everything that all of
their customers need, but are willing to provide a solution that
will add important capabilities to those without more complex
needs.

Who do they Work With?
IFS works with primarily “engineer to order”
companies. In these types of companies, a good portion of
the engineering is based on customer orders. The integration to ERP
in this scenario is a little more clear, because the product and
drawings can be associated directly with an order. It is
very different than the environment in an automotive or
aerospace company where the design process is much more removed
from the transactional part of the business. A product may spend
years in design before a customer order, as opposed to IFS’
customers who likely design capabilities up front and specific
product specifications when the ordered parameters are known.

It’s also important to know which CAD vendors they work with.
The initial list of adapters they are offering includes:

• AutoCAD
• AutoCAD Inventor
• Pro/Engineer
• SolidWorks

I expect others will emerge over time, based on customer
demand.

How does this Fit into the Ecosystem?
Let’s be clear, this is not like Oracle’s acquisition of Agile.
Oracle is offering a best of breed PLM solution to the market. The
offering also differs from SAP’s approach, because SAP is trying to
compete with the larger PLM vendors and is taking a more full,
process-oriented PLM approach. Instead, this is a new
module of IFS that allows engineers to perform some basic PDM
functions to integrate their designs more fully into their
manufacturing process. It is pretty clear that if you are
an IFS customer that this is worth a look, but recognize that the
intention is not to provide a full scale PLM solution. It
may just meet some very important needs in your business, however,
and do so with your existing infrastructure and vendor. That is
pretty compelling.

So that’s what I hear from IFS, I hope you found it useful. What
do you think? What else should I have asked them?