In Episode 75 of Razorleaf’s Stay Sharp podcast, Scaling PLM Worldwide: What Works, What Fails, co-hosts Jonathan Scott and Juliann Grant are joined by Dan Eslinger, Global IT Program and Innovation Manager for BWI Group, a tier 1 automotive supplier headquartered in China. Through 40 years of IT experience, Dan has been part of all aspects of sourcing, developing, and deploying enterprise applications for manufacturing and engineering companies. That makes him the perfect guest to weigh in on the challenges of PLM deployment, as well as tips for success—especially for a global company.
The Biggest Implementation Challenges
Jonathan starts by asking Dan about the toughest challenge he’s faced in aligning teams and technology, and it’s no surprise that Dan’s answer is people. Specifically, he says, “getting people to use [technology] and adopt it is probably the biggest challenge area.”
The trio also discusses how organizations need to understand and get processes right, as well as set expectations appropriately for how they may change and impact productivity. Dan points out that it’s important to know if an organization has standard processes—but everyone involved also needs to realize that processes may change in a new system. “Systems affect processes,” he says, “but processes affect systems.” He’s learned the hard way that you must understand all of the different processes people use, pay attention to how people are going to adopt the system and the new processes, and plan for how to support that adoption. And not just give it lip service and assume users will be ready on day one. People won’t change how they work just because senior management says to do it, Dan says, instead focus on the vision of where the organization is trying to go and what’s expected of individuals to support that.
A critical part of expectations setting is a clear understanding of exactly when a new system and processes will improve things, because there will be a productivity dip that most organizations aren’t prepared for. After implementation, Dan explains, there’s the honeymoon phase. “And then you dip. You dip down into this high frustrational change, this culture shock of, ‘What just happened to us, where are we going to go?’ That’s the dip of productivity. That’s when you’re the lowest. And you also get the most people challenges, the complaints and all of that kind of stuff. And then you start to come back out of it.”
There’s No Single Best Way to Implement PLM
As much as Jonathan would like Dan to suggest there’s a specific lesson to be learned about standardizing processes across a global system, Dan can’t oblige. His view is there are lots of ways to implement enterprise systems such as PLM, but you’ve got to do what suits your organization. Which departments and therefore processes are part of the PLM implementation or happen later will be unique to every organization. “When it comes to the global processes, you’ve got to choose which ones of them are really important to you,” he says, though he warns you don’t need to do everything in the new system. Unless you’re implementing PLM with other enterprise systems from a clean slate, you’re likely to keep using your entrenched email or messaging system. “It doesn’t always work out that you can have all of that communication in one system,” he notes.
Addressing Standardization in Your Organization
Another tip Dan shares is that in addition to looking at standardized processes, you’re also going to want to establish common standards across the company to support the integration you need to do. You have to look at your data, even simple things like account, customer, or product names. “What you find is, it was called something in engineering and it was called something else in sales. And the parts were called something else in purchasing,” Dan explains. “You can’t ignore that data governance topic or how you set some standards in place, but you also can’t wait for the perfect nirvana.”
“The nugget I took away was prioritize,” Jonathan summarizes. “Prioritize what you think has to be standardized, what the value is of that. And then think about the other things maybe later, maybe you don’t need to standardize them. But don’t take a one size fits all approach.”
Learn More About Applying PLM’s Capabilities
The full podcast contains more discussion and details on a variety of topics, including Dan’s thoughts on how to make AI useful by combining internal and external data, how experienced employees and the junior employees complement each other to help move technology forward, the challenges of a global company when it comes to different cultures and physical distance, and more.
Check out the full conversation in Stay Sharp Episode 75: Scaling PLM Worldwide: What Works, What Fails, and join us each week for a new podcast.
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