Unifying Your PLM Systems for the Future
Global engineering and manufacturing conglomerates are constantly calling for ways to draw full value from their PLM investments. Heterogeneous PLM systems and platforms increase the cost of maintenance, from administration and user perspective. To optimize the Return on Investment (ROI) from PLM systems, organizations target a lean and unified PLM landscape. These use multiple systems/applications to maintain data due to legacy, acquisitions and technology capabilities or due to the sheer nature of the work and the functional decision making processes. Due to external pressures like globalization and extended enterprises, an even more complex PLM landscape scenario is created. Such pressures lead to increased investments, reduced returns from the PLM system and limited flexibility in the process.
With changing paradigm of PLM over the last couple of decades, organizations have implemented PLM with varying level of intent across the product lifecycle. There are organizations that have been using different systems for CAD/Design Management which were based on workgroup managers and Bills of Materials which were scattered in various systems across the organization based on the applicability. Also, since most organizations have an ERP implementation ahead or at par with PLM implementations, some of the common functionalities could have been implemented in ERP, thus causing a staggered process and an increased in-process waiting time. This varies from one implementation to another based on the CAD application, PDM system and enterprise wide BoM Management System as these products tend to be different architecturally and also vary by functionality.
Unified Platform helps in bringing together all the various product related information (design, manufacturing, sourcing, sales and service) on a common platform. The conglomeration of data, process and technology onto a single application under Unified Platform helps organizations in data aggregation and security while reducing duplication of data. The launch of Unified Platform can help organizations minimize the applications in the PLM landscape with latest in-built technology and an extensible framework.
Geometric has carved out a methodology based on over two decades of experience in PLM to transition the customers from their existing systems to adopt Unified Platform as single system for product development. The four-step DART (Define, Assess, Realize and Transfer) methodology is built to ensure that the new PLM system provides the best possible framework for product development based on the customer’s business processes and execution framework. The following figure explains our DART Methodology for transitioning to Unified Platform.
Our Consulting, Implementation and Migration services use this methodology for the transitions as under:
- Teamcenter Transition Consulting – it focuses on the current business processes and their process capability. It defines the goal and the target capability which sets the underlying requirements for the Unified Platform implementation, the solution architecture and the implementation roadmap. Standard tools and templates for process study, analysis and KPI’s are used which help in translating the business process and business execution models into implementation specific requirements.
- Implementation – the primary focus is to implement a solution on Unified Platform based on the current data model, process and the to-be model that helps in improved product development metrics. This phase focuses on ensuring the new data model is in place so that the unified system can be used. Configuration of Unified Platform using BMIDE, custom solutions required to fulfill the business process needs and any external integrations required for making seamless data transfer between functions and systems.
- Migration – the key part of the transition is focused on the customer’s data and the data model of the source as well as destination systems. Geometric has worked out a strategy to transition customers using various PDM systems to migrate to Teamcenter Unified Platform using add-on tools based on Siemens GMS Technology. The toolset being developed by Geometric will help migrate over 90% of the customer data in a plug and play mode. These tools can be exercised for an on-demand migration with co-existence and also as a onetime migration utility as required by the customers’ business process and case. The following figure explains the generic approach of migration based on which the migration to Unified Platform is broadly based on.
These migration tools include extensive mapping that could arise due to consolidation of sites, data complexities and dependencies including change notices, effectivity and history, published and ownership transferred data across sites.
Our Experience with Unified Platform
We have helped customers from various industries to ensure seamless adoption of the Unified Platform, by providing services on custom implementation and data migration from their existing systems. Through this lean system, Geometric helps customers derive maximum value from their investment in PLM. Some of the key benefits of these engagements have been establishment a lean integrated framework for product development based on:
- Light weight integrated environment using web services
- Improvised BoM management, variant management with CAD data management
- On-demand migration
While Siemens’ Unified Platform helps organizations achieve some of the customers’ long pending ideas in the area of linking the virtual and real world, the key to success for organizations lie in the timeline of transitioning to the new system and the implementation of the system that models the business and data model close to reality while migrating the data from the existing form onto the new system. Geometric with its vast experience in PLM can assist customers in improving the investment returns in their journey of Unifying the PLM Systems for the Future!
