In Episode 84 of Razorleaf’s Stay Sharp podcast, CIMdata PLM Roadmap May 2025 Recap, co-hosts Jonathan Scott and Juliann Grant revisit the recent CIMdata PLM Road Map and PDT [product digital transformation] Conference, held in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, in early May. It was the first of two annual events, both joint efforts from Eurostep, a BAE Systems company that delivers software and services for product lifecycle management, and CIMdata, the leader in PLM education, research, and strategic management consulting. Jonathan and Juliann cover conference highlights, while also encouraging listeners to attend 2025’s second event, this November in Paris, France.
Sticking to the Theme
The conference theme was “PLM’s Integral Role in Digital Transformation: From Strategy to Execution,” with a subtitle of “Elevating PLM to an Enterprise Business Solution, the PLM Professional’s Road Map to Success.” While that was a mouthful, Jonathan and Juliann agreed that it set the stage for a wide variety of good discussions.
“One thing that organizers do a great job of is once they’ve picked that theme, they bring in topics that are not monolithic,” Jonathan explains. “They’re not all different speakers saying the same thing, but they all tie to that theme very well. We had people talking about the history and the context of PLM, data and research about PLM and how it’s doing in the market.” The mix of about 150 attendees—sponsors, vendors, participants—is part of the value of the conference in promoting what Jonathan described as an intimate conversation among a small group of PLM practitioners. He added, “You hear meaningful presentations, you have a lot of good conversations, but it’s not a trade show.”
One perk of being a sponsor, as Razorleaf was, is the opportunity to do a 10-minute session that added to the conversation around the event theme. Jonathan took the opportunity to talk about what companies can do in the midst of all the noise—of AI, cloud, new technology, etc.—in the market today. His bottom line: don’t let the noise distract you from what you’re trying to accomplish.
Presentation Highlights and Takeaways
What Jonathan and Juliann generally took away from the conference was perspective on the state of the industry. “For me, it’s always good to get a reminder that everyone is still trying to figure this out,” Juliann says. “I think that there is no silver bullet to PLM and that everyone has to kind of come at it from their organization … It was good to hear some of those stories.” One takeaway that will surprise no one—at least not podcast or CIMdata followers—is that PLM succeeds when it has leadership support and everyone in chain has a clear message about the value. Multiple speakers reinforced that point, though as usual, there was no single solution for making it happen.
Another frequent topic of discussion was that companies are struggling with the adoption of PLM. Jonathan notes, “People need to do [PLM], and they need to do it more and more as an approach, [digitally] managing the lifecycle of their products. So the demand is there, but there’s this gap to, Are people implementing? Are they getting the business case made? And are they doing it and really advancing it? It feels like no, we’re stuck a little bit.” Another key point Juliann focused on is that PLM hasn’t done a great job making the connection to the boardroom. As Jonathan explains, “We as an industry are not connecting PLM well enough to a business case and making the case to the business why they need it … There wasn’t anything prescriptive about how to do it, but the need to do it seemed to be clear.”
An ongoing hot topic came from the A&D PLM Action Group, a coalition of aerospace and defense companies, that’s doing research on what the digital thread means to the industry. One potentially surprising result so far is that everyone involved has a different idea of what “digital thread” means. No one is talking about the same thing. “We’re all excited about digital thread. Lots of us are,” Jonathan says. “We see how it’s going to contribute to digital twin, give us a data set to help train AI. It’s really important. But we’re probably not all talking about the same thing, so we’ve got to get on the same page to make progress.”
Learn More
The full podcast contains more discussion and details on a variety of topics, including what they both took away from a large, multinational energy company’s methodical approach to digital transformation; what you’re forgetting if you’re looking only at people, process, and technology in your implementations; whether a PLM expert thinks we’re seeing noise or real change in the industry; and more.
Be sure to check out Stay Sharp Episode 84: CIMdata PLM Roadmap May 2025 Recap and join us each week for a new podcast.
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