In this week’s Stay Sharp Episode, 150 Episodes In: What We Got Right (And Wrong) About Digital Engineering, co-hosts Juliann Grant and Jonathan Scott celebrate the successful completion of 150 podcast episodes. They reflect on the topics, people, and opinions they spoke with along the way, including those that stood out and those have stood the test of time—or not.
Hosts, Juliann Grant and Jonathan Scott
Common Themes
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The industry of PLM has justifiably been the first and most prevalent theme. In fact, Juliann notes that one of the most watched Stay Sharp episodes is the first of a three-part series on PLM (Episode 3, What is PLM?), which includes Jonathan’s famous caveman analogy. And while Jonathan has concerns about the team getting tired of him bringing PLM up, Jonathan says, “I always think, more educational content, more talking about what’s in digital engineering, what do these systems do, that sort of thing.” Then there are the “boring” or unglamorous topics they’ve covered, including integration, migration, and data quality, all of which Jonathan defends. “They’ve gotten into the things that are hard fought lessons we learn in our business,” he says.
“Working on projects, working with customers, the lessons they learn, the things that they stumble on that you want to know about before you get into it yourself. That’s been a fun set of topics.”
Another common theme, especially in recent months, has been AI. And while co-hosts agree it remains fascinating, given the pace of innovation and interesting uses for it, they’re also tired of it and concerned they’re repeating themselves. Then again, Jonathan says, “Not everybody is on the same page at the same time and the discussion’s a rolling one, so you find yourself coming back to those topics.” And both co-hosts are well aware AI will remain relevant for some time to come as the industry figures out the best way to utilize it (Strategic Patterns for Implementing AI in Manufacturing, Episode 125 ). Wringing value from AI always leads back to data, another subject that’s been mentioned many times across the 150 episodes, and Juliann particularly appreciated hearing how Oleg Shilovitsky’s company is handling it (Digital Product Series: OpenBOM, Episode 118).
Stay Sharp’s Many Series
Oleg’s take on data is just one of the examples of the useful information that can be found in some of the podcast’s series, which the co-hosts agree are some of their favorite episodes. “Their personality always comes through,” Jonathan says. “You always get a sense of who the company is, what the software is,” which can be valuable to customers who may be looking for a specific functionality or product. Stay Sharp has aimed to cover a mix of products, from small, medium, and large businesses, and they’re looking for more. “If you haven’t been on and you want to be, you need to be reaching out to us. Let us know!” Jonathan urges.
The Digital Twin series is another highlight for both co-hosts. For Jonathan, it’s been a chance to clear up some of the overuse, misuse, and confusion of the term in the industry. He explains “It’s not all about this all-encompassing super model controls the aircraft, gets all the telemetry. There’s a bunch of angles to it, and I thought that was fun to talk about.” Juliann specifically calls out episodes from “the SAIC guys”—Episode 93, Unpacking Digital Twins: Myths and Misconceptions, with David Ewing and Episode 141, Finlay’s Five Firsts – A Field Guide to Digital Engineering Adoption and Episode 148, The Question Every Digital Thread Has to Answer, with Chris Finlay—because they gave “rubber meets the road” examples of how they’re actually applying the digital twin.
The duo agree that their Digital Thread series hasn’t dug as deep as the others, though it’s still far from complete, due to the nature of the topic. “That one is still evolving because it’s more of a concept,” Jonathan says, mentioning the recent discussion on product memory (Episode 149, Product Memory: The Context Layer). “There’s a lively debate going on right now on LinkedIn about that. But is it digital thread? Is it part of digital thread? I don’t know.”
What’s Ahead
As they look to the next 150 episodes—or more—Juliann and Jonathan are eager to cover more ground. Their goals include series for both MES and quality, talking with more of the three big PLM providers, covering SysML v2, and most importantly, hearing from the audience about what other types of industries or products they should be covering. Reach out and let them know!
Learn More About the Past 150 Episodes
The full podcast contains more discussion and details on a variety of topics, including why the concept of loading boxes on a plane was so memorable, which episode showed Juliann just how gnarly CAD migration can be, which valuable episode Jonathan and Juliann are disappointed was hardly watched, and more.
Be sure to check out Stay Sharp Episode 150: 150 Episodes In: What We Got Right (And Wrong) About Digital Engineering and join us each week for a new podcast.
