COM M. Halpern

Transcription

1 M. Halpern Research Note 31 October 2003 Commentary Using a PLM Framework to Structure Software Diversity Implementing a five-layer framework can enable you to deploy and manage the broad array of diverse applications that comprise a product life cycle management solution and help you avert an ad hoc, fragmented PLM initiative. Production enterprises use a wide range of disparate applications to support their product life cycle management (PLM) activities. Enterprises often adopt these applications in an ad hoc, fragmented way that makes it difficult to understand how the aggregate supports the individual processes to conceive, define, produce, introduce, sell, service and retire products. Just as enterprise resource planning (ERP) consolidated discrete back-office activities into a cohesive environment for running business operations, a PLM software framework consolidates support for diverse business activities that create, modify and use data during all phases of a product's life cycle. Gartner's PLM framework (see Figure 1) can be used to structure your product life cycle applications. Figure 1 The Five-Layer PLM Framework Strategy Planning Execution PPM (Executive Dashboards, Tracking Resources, Schedules and Status) Project Financial Analysis Resource PDM, Formula/Recipe, Document, Content, Applications, Project Design to Retire Applications (such as CAD, CAE, MPM, Sourcing) Collaboration Enablers, Visualization Infrastructure Shared Services, Web Application Servers, Product Data Exchange Architecture, Middleware Communications Layer, Network Storage, System Services Key CAD computer-aided design CAE computer-aided engineering MPM manufacturing process management PPM product portfolio management Source: Gartner Research Gartner 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

2 Strategy Purpose: This layer involves selecting, evaluating and prioritizing ideas, products and services for new and ongoing investments. It can also be used to evaluate whether your product strategy aligns with your overall business objectives. Benefits: Enterprises across many industries including healthcare, consumer packaged goods (CPG), household appliances and high-technology have reported that formalized software support for product strategy can substantially increase the percentage of research and development investment that yields profitable products and add value to the enterprise. This software support transforms ad hoc, strategic decision-making processes into formalized, disciplined approaches that enable you to use input from all stakeholders within enterprises, as well as external partners, suppliers, and customers. Key Software Users: Stakeholders include senior-level executives, product strategy planners and product platform managers. Idea capture and evaluation Analysis of product revenue generation and profitability and market share growth Risk analysis related to research and development, production, market acceptance, regulatory compliance, warranties, liabilities and disposal Formalized decision making regarding product portfolios, with input from all stakeholders, including engineering, marketing, sales and production Software Support: The strategy level involves product portfolio management (PPM) software that includes an executive dashboard. This dashboard enables users to customize views of various criteria to evaluate product ideas and portfolios. Typical criteria include estimates of revenue potential, assessments of market opportunity, risk factors and the state of the product in its life cycle. It also makes the established assignment of resources visible across projects. You can use it as a portal to explore the details of current activities lower in this framework that span development, production, sales and service across the product portfolio. Planning Purpose: This layer maximizes your chances of delivering profitable products. Planners select the technical approach to deliver product function, product life cycle phases and gates, the necessary resources, the projects needed to meet life cycle milestones, budgets and schedules. For example, designers of cellular phones might make decisions about how to ensure that the phones don't overheat or emit high levels of electromagnetic radiation. Such decisions will influence the skills, projects, budgets and schedules required to introduce the product to market. Planners must factor in the costs and risks associated with product reliability, production and serviceability when making such decisions. They need to define the projects, budgets, schedules and service requirements. Then, they must assign the resources to deliver the product function and support. Process manufacturers and service industries have comparable challenges, which planning addresses. Benefits: These activities help assess product feasibility, identify the risks associated with executing a product plan from concept through retirement, and identify and address potential challenges so you can address them before they arise during execution. For example, you can use planning activities to identify 31 October

3 resource bottlenecks and reduce the risk of exceeding your budget or falling behind planned schedules before execution begins. Understanding the planned schedules and costs enables the sales and marketing departments to stage successful product introductions and ensure that your pricing will be competitive. Key Software Users: Stakeholders include product platform managers, product program managers and project managers. Product phases and gate definition Definition of the project portfolios needed to deliver products Cost estimation, determination of time frames required and identification of resources Schedule, budget and resource assignment Requirements identification for recruiting partners and suppliers Software Support: Planning software involves project management functions to define the nature and structure of required project portfolios. Planners also need resource management tools to determine the skills and availability of resources and assign them to the projects and tasks. Activity-based costing (ABC) applications supported by sourcing tools help planners estimate material and labor costs and time frames. Purpose: Successful products require oversight of life cycle activities. Therefore, you need to manage the execution of projects, as well as the relevant product data and documents to deliver and support products according to plan. Managers and operational personnel must be able to manage activities and ensure that they are properly executed. They also need access to timely and relevant product content and documents in a variety of formats. Enterprises must manage such data and documents to ensure that: They do not create redundant or ambiguous information They manage change requests efficiently and collaboratively Product stakeholders can access relevant information when they need it Benefits: activities help extended enterprises collaborate more efficiently and execute more reliably on product life cycle activities from conceptual design through product retirement. Supporting software makes the status of activities and responsibilities more visible. Improved visibility of the information helps managers and operatives define priorities more effectively and make decisions more efficiently. It also streamlines the ability of product stakeholders including executives, engineers, production staff, service providers, suppliers, sales organizations and marketing departments to access timely and relevant product information. Such software enables enterprises to reuse product content and apply lessons learned to subsequent generations of products. This will enable you to continuously and economically enhance product innovation, quality and brand value. Key Software Users: Stakeholders include product program managers, project managers, technical supervisors, engineers, production specialists, marketing professionals, procurement specialists, and operational personnel at suppliers and partners. 31 October

4 Project performance monitoring comparing actual time and costs to planned schedules and budgets. This minimally requires visibility of tasks, resource assignments and status of tasks Cost overruns or missed deadline analysis managers need tools and processes to help identify the causes of delays and whether they involve resource constraints, workflow issues, technical challenges or project mishaps Decisions on courses of action to address challenges and setbacks this should include the ability to predict the risks and benefits of alternative actions Enforcement of decisions made Oversight of life cycle activities, including product development; manufacturing process engineering and planning; maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO); and service Maintenance and update of product definitions, including configurations for variants and options as the product evolves Support of synchronous and asynchronous collaboration across all product life cycle activities Software Support: solutions include project management functions, product data management (PDM), document management and other content management applications. Project management software enables you to track the performance of activities and monitor actual vs. planned performance. PDM software supports library functions that include archiving, retrieval and search involving a wide range of product data. This information can be represented in numerous formats spanning design models, documents and structured product data, such as bills of materials (BOMs) that describe the parts, materials and configuration of products. PDM applications also include change management, configuration management and workflow support. Document management software supports library functions, change management and configuration management similar to PDM. Vendors increasingly support integrated PDM/document management environments that enable change control across structured product data and the documents that contain that data. Execution Purpose: Execution refers to the conceiving, designing, documenting, producing, and servicing products. Benefits: Execution software increases the speed, improves the quality and reduces the cost of essential activities, such as design, design validation, manufacturing engineering and planning, service and MRO. It does this through computer-based functionality that rapidly creates content, modifies it and supports collaboration. Key Software Users: Stakeholders include operational personnel, such as engineers, designers, production planners, marketing professionals and service personnel. Research and development Manufacturing engineering and process planning Service and MRO Collaboration across stakeholders to support all product life cycle activities 31 October

5 Software Support: Execution software spans a diverse range of applications that address the design and validation of products, manufacturing processes and service procedures. Design software includes computer-aided-design (CAD) applications for documenting designs, as well as innovation software for mathematical modeling and the support of engineering problem solving. Validation software enables you to simulate product performance under operating conditions, as well as simulate manufacturing operations and service procedures. Such tools save money by detecting potential problems so you can address them before you commit substantial resources to production. Manufacturing process management software helps you design and validate production processes and factory layouts. Execution software also includes collaboration enablers and view and markup software. Collaboration enablers enhance your ability to communicate product concepts, performance, production operations and service procedures in real time or asynchronously. Such collaboration software reduces time and cost for decision making by improving the bandwidth of communication and reducing the need for iterative efforts that typically involve , faxes and travel. Infrastructure This IT foundation enables communication, data sharing, process definition and process support across the four layers of the PLM framework, in addition to other classes of business applications, such as supply chain management (SCM), supplier relationship management (SRM), customer relationship management (CRM), ERP, business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management (CPM). The framework maps specific classes of applications to the strategy, planning, management and execution layers. The activities in these layers of the PLM framework occur simultaneously, rather than sequentially. You should always be seeking new product initiatives and managing a portfolio of projects to deliver and support your products. In addition, the activities need to be aligned. Executives should seek the input of all stakeholders when making portfolio decisions. Likewise, operational personnel and suppliers should understand the priorities defined by executive management. The infrastructure that supports communication and data sharing enables this alignment. Bottom Line: You should adopt Gartner's framework to support communication, planning and deployment related to product life cycle management. You can use it to assess full-function PLM vendors that claim to offer all of the capabilities described for the framework or to evaluate how products being offered by niche vendors might fit into your overall PLM infrastructure. 31 October