PLM Event Series: 4 Key Components of a PLM-Driven Digital Transformation

Manufacturing is facing tough global competition, which is driving the industry to evolving quickly. Manufacturers are struggling to keep up with increasing customer demand, which requires faster design cycles and more efficient processes. Multinational companies working in geographically dispersed teams and siloed systems are disconnected. There's growing pressure for higher product quality and lower costs of operation. And stakeholders are expecting faster time to market for more environmentally friendly products.

To be a competitive player in the industry and meet your company's goals, multidisciplinary teams must work collaboratively, enabling supply chain agility, and deliver top quality products that are compliant. This can be achieved by implementing a PLM-enabled digital thread that connects engineers and non-engineers with trustworthy and easy to access data across the organization. Several manufacturers have accomplished it. And you can, too.

Learn how four influential manufacturers have done it in our upcoming Virtual PLM Series. Take a journey with ZF, Vestas, Bosch Group, and Cellcentric, and hear firsthand the steps they took to improve collaboration across global teams. Also, listen as we dive into today's emerging technologies and learn how they can be leveraged to propel product development to the next level.

The weekly PLM series will feature four key PLM capabilities that can enable your organization to be more flexible, connected, and agile.

Democratization of Data

Dispersed teams scattered across geographies are working in siloed systems. Stakeholders involved in the development process lack access to up-to-date product data. And being a global organization means your teams are part of different cultures and may work in different ways. Also, product information might not be standardized across the board, making it hard to share and collaborate. Depending on the region, product requirements and compliance standards can change.

Democratizing data across all functions helps the organization improve efficiency and performance by fostering global harmonization and collaboration. It can also make your organization more modern and agile since you're able to deliver product data with strong governance to all stakeholders involved. Deliver early visibility to designers, reduce lead times, and give your engineers and factory operators more confidence in their decisions with easy-to-use apps built for non-expert users.

Learn more about the democratization of data and collaboration across the enterprise by tuning into Episode One, titled "Democratization of Data: Empowering Diverse Global Teams", airing June 8, 2022. Hear firsthand how ZF leveraged PLM to share data, connect their IT environments, and break down information silos.

End-to-End Configuration Management

To stay competitive in today's market, manufacturers are coming up with an assortment of product variants to cater to customer needs. Similarly, there is a growing demand for customizable products with multiple options and configurations. This adds complexity throughout the development and manufacturing of the product. A lack of alignment between stakeholders working on these different versions and changes can also lead to errors, wasted time, scrap, and inconsistent work instructions.

In a world where products evolve rapidly, a change management software can help you handle product configurations and the challenges that come with it. Flexible and agile processes and tools built for end-to-end configuration management can enable enterprise teams to work concurrently. A PLM system enables you to create data governance and associativity so that all changes are fully defined and controlled.

Vestas leveraged PLM to design and manufacture highly tailorable wind turbines and address change and configuration complexity. Hear their story in Episode Two, titled "End-to-End Configuration Management: Working Concurrently with the Factory & Field", airing June 15th.

Model-Based Enterprise

New product innovations are adding to complexity. Traditional engineering processes and tools must evolve and adapt to these changes. There are more electronics and software embedded into products today. This requires multiple engineering disciplines to collaborate on the designing, manufacturing, and maintaining of these products and to keep up with fast paced processes. In many cases, existing products and processes have been managed in inefficient ways with product data spread over several disconnected systems.

Through a model-based approach, your organization can mitigate engineering and manufacturing challenges, reduce product complexity, and share information seamlessly. By leveraging models, you can design a system that delivers early visualization and simulation for faster product development, manufacturing, and inspection. Also, reduce errors and non-conformance, and decrease costs of design authoring.

Join us for Episode Three where the Bosch Group explains how they're breaking down product complexity by sharing information through a PLM-enabled model-based approach. The session titled "Virtual Product Definition: Enabling the Model-Based Enterprise", airs June 22nd.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Most manufacturers are still relying on traditional, on-premises enterprise systems, which presents challenges when it comes to keeping up with the speed of new technology and new ways of working. Software upgrades are cumbersome, slow, and disruptive. Technical debt locks the company into past practices and limits the ability to adapt to new challenges, new markets, and market disruption. Organizations are able to unlock only a fraction of the PLM potential and get stuck in the initial stages of deployment, implementing only the functionality used by engineering.

By implementing PLM software as a service (SaaS) your organization can bring products to market faster and accelerate deployment. Windchill+™ is the next generation of PTC's PLM software, delivered via SaaS architecture. It helps drive innovation, collaboration, scalability, and user experience. The software also helps minimize resources needed to upgrade, time to value, downtime, and time to troubleshoot.

The cloud has been a key enabler for several organizations, including Cellcentric. Hear how SaaS helped them accelerate enterprise product development maturity and adoption in Episode Four, titled "SaaS First: Collaboration Without Boundaries", airing on June 29th.

Join us in this educational journey and hear firsthand how these four innovative companies leverage PLM to streamline collaboration across their global teams. The four-week event series will also feature PTC experts delving into other PLM use cases and capabilities. Each episode will conclude with an emerging technologies roundtable where we talk about how CAD, IoT, AR, and ERP help support and complement PLM.

Tags:

• PLM
• Digital Thread

About the Author

Carlos Melgarejo Carlos is a Sr. Content Marketing Specialist for PTC's PLM technology. He comes from a broadcast journalism background where he developed a love for writing and visual storytelling. He is also passionate about developing creative content and communications, having received a Master's degree in Marketing. He enjoys the outdoors, the beach, exercising, riding his motorcycle and car restoration.