In Episode 50 of Razorleaf’s Stay Sharp podcast, Managing the Product Life Cycle Beyond PLM – Part 2, co-hosts Jen Ferello and Jonathan Scott welcome returning guest Patrick Hillberg, an expert in PLM and advanced manufacturing process. The trio builds on their previous discussion, Managing the Product Life Cycle Beyond PLM, this time tackling topics including what “beyond PLM” means, how we might redefine the “product,” and what product lifecycle management (PLM) systems don’t cover that manufacturers need.
Defining “PLM” and Beyond
Jen, Jonathan, and Patrick start by agreeing that “PLM” often means a PLM system or PLM technology to a lot of people. But that definition isn’t expansive enough. Jonathan says, “Product lifecycle management is really figuring out your product from the start all the way to the end, whatever that looks like for you and however you do it. That’s PLM. You might use a PLM system to support you, but PLM is the activity that an organization as a group does.” Patrick agrees, noting that there’s a lot more to the product lifecycle than is covered—or probably ever could be covered—in PLM software, no matter which PLM software you use. Patrick prefers to distinguish PLM software systems as PLM (Tech) versus “managing product lifecycles,” which is the broader activity that takes place throughout the entirety of the product.
Redefining “Product” and “Product Lifecycle”
The more expansive idea of a product lifecycle leads Jen to think about a product in a different way. It’s maybe not just the widget, she suggests, but “It’s all of the things around that, whether it’s emissions or the cost of creating the product, the cost of transporting. All of those things that we don’t necessarily measure right now. They have an impact, so they’re part of our product.”
Patrick takes the idea even further, explaining that straightforward product lifecycle planning—and systems—don’t easily account for disruption. The kinds of PLM systems that exist currently can’t help an automotive manufacturer understand or codify disruptions like Zoom had on the automotive industry during the pandemic. Nor can they tell us how to react or respond. Not that anyone is blaming PLM (Tech) providers. Jonathan notes, “We’re not recognizing what that full lifecycle looks like, and therefore we don’t have the tech to support it, because we’re still figuring out what it means.”
What’s Missing in PLM (Tech)
A major portion of Jen, Jonathan, and Patrick’s discussion involves what PLM systems don’t cover—or conversely, the opportunities for PLM providers to innovate in the future. Patrick’s first point is that “PLM technology does not help you recognize if you’re bringing the right product to market.” PLM systems can help by capturing some requirements, including customer sentiment and the accuracy of requirements, Jonathan says. “It might be some more data capture at the front end of the lifecycle, but it’s not that activity of deciding what the right product or strategy is for our business or organization.” He adds, “Taking requirements and making decisions aren’t the same thing.”
Patrick points out that requirements gathering still isn’t the start of the product lifecycle. “Engineers tend to say the requirement is the beginning of the process. But before the process, there is what do customers want to buy?” He says, “Our goal in the business is to bring value to our customers. So before our requirements, there’s some estimation as to what do we think we can build that will bring value to our customers.”
What else is missing from PLM systems? Jen asks. “What are the other things that affect that affect the product lifecycle that we’re not paying attention to?” The trio agrees that what’s missing is the qualitative kinds of information, the cultural input, or, as Jonathan puts it, the “fuzzy” stuff, like feelings or emotions. But Patrick argues that there’s a non-fuzzy element that’s being missed, and that concerns communication—or lack thereof—between different teams and areas of complex product development processes.
Patrick’s favorite aphorism is “decomposition creates dysfunction,” which applies to challenges with manufacturing complex products. Complicated products have to be broken up—or decomposed—into teams and groups and organizational structures to succeed. But doing so results in dysfunction, which can be seen over and over again in analyses of catastrophic product failures. “What aren’t we measuring?” Patrick asks. “We need to measure dysfunction, and I claim that that dysfunction is coming from decomposition.”
Learn More About Managing the Full Product Lifecycle
The full podcast contains more discussion and details on a variety of topics, including lessons learned from catastrophic product failures, what “digital exhaust” is, how it can improve our products and processes, and more.
Check out the full conversation in Stay Sharp Episode 50: Managing the Product Life Cycle Beyond PLM – Part 2, and join us each week for a new podcast.
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