1. Some people in the
software industry have said that PLM is confusing, expensive, unnecessary, and
intended to block "best-of-breed" products from being adopted by
companies. Are they right?
A. Let me answer these individually. Confusing, this is true, but not for the
reasons you might think. When IBM
announced a PLM division three years ago, we defined PLM as “integrated products and services
to manage products from concept definition through in-service support and
retirement”. This still holds true for
us today as we provide complete, end-to-end PLM solutions to our
customers. Other vendors have adopted
the PLM term also, when in actuality they provide only a fraction of the
overall solution, so this is a major cause of confusion. Expensive
and unnecessary? Gartner predicts
that without PLM by 2007 companies won’t be able to compete. Manufacturers understand this and are focused
on improving their ability to produce the right products at the right cost at
the right time. PLM solutions help them
do this and thus are absolutely necessary to become gain a competitive edge today
and to retain it for future. Finally, far from “blocking best-of-breed
products” IBM’s approach to PLM leverages partnerships with dozens of software
vendors including Dassault Systemes,
SAP and i2. In addition, our open
standards-based middleware and database software allow us to implement
solutions that are fully integrated with our customers’ legacy environments
2. Haven't companies been
following the principles of PLM for years even though they may have never used
that term?
A. Perhaps, but the technology wasn’t there to enable the
vision. IBM was first at recognizing the
power of the Internet to address our customers key
issues around integration and collaboration.
Today, IBM’s PLM solutions bring our industry expertise and services
capabilities, our best of breed application software and middleware, our
hardware and finally our partnerships together to allow us to help our
customers integrate product-development processes and knowledge across the
extended enterprise in a powerful, unprecedented and thoughtfully architected
approach.
3. How do you define PLM?
A. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is at the core of the
enterprise. It’s where intellectual
property is created, and it’s how you take the ideas of your customers,
engineers, and scientists and turn those ideas into products and services that
help you rule the marketplace. Key
customer benefits include accelerated time-to-market, innovation, additional revenue
streams, and cost savings.
IBM PLM solutions help companies
transform their traditional manufacturing businesses into on-demand
e-businesses by providing the applications, infrastructure, methodologies and
services needed to support the entire lifecycle of their products. These solutions enable companies to
conceptualize, design, build and support products by sharing common business
processes and product knowledge with suppliers and customers, from initial
product concept to retirement
4. Is PLM really only for
large companies?
A. This is a common misconception.
PLM is for large, medium and small companies, in all industries. Our
customers include automotive and aerospace OEMs, but also manufacturers of
phones, medical devices, beer bottles, golf clubs, and guitars just to name a
few examples! And many are companies
with fewer than 150 employees, like Krebs Engineers and Farnham & Pfile who are using
our solutions to cut costs and get to market faster. In fact last year, close to 2000 new customers
adopted IBM’s PLM solutions, including SMARTEAM, the newest addition to our software
portfolio—which also includes CATIA and ENOVIA.
SMARTEAM, is a rapidly deployable, inexpensive,
multi-CAD, Web-based PDM solution which has enjoyed tremendous success in the
marketplace.